Religion will likely play a significant role in voters’ choices in the 2024 presidential election – just like in previous years. Despite a general abandonment of participation in organized religion in the American populationreligious rhetoric in the political arena has intensified.
In the 2016 race, evangelical voters contributed, in part, to the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Americans who identified themselves as “weekly churchgoers” not only turned out to vote in large numbers, but more than 55% of them supported Trump. His capture of 66% of the white evangelical vote also tipped the scales in his favor against his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Evangelical support for Trump remained strong in the 2020 presidential election. However, Joe Biden attracted other Catholics to his camp and also convinced some evangelicals to vote in favor of it. Biden received public support of 1,600 Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical religious leaders.
I am a historian and specialist in religious studies who recently published a book exploring the role of religion in political movements like anti-abortion campaigns. Historical evidence can help identify trends that will likely influence the mix of religion and politics in the coming year.
From my perspective, three key trends are likely to emerge in 2024. In particular, the run-up to the election appears poised to be marked by intensified end-times rhetoric, more claims of divine support and relative silence from the growing evangelical community. in Christian nationalism.
1. End Times Rhetoric
End-times rhetoric has long played a prominent role in American politics. In 2016, as a presidential candidate Clinton said The New York Times: “As I’ve told people, I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” Three years ago, Texas Senator Ted Cruz warned“We have a few years to turn the country around or we fall into oblivion.”
Indeed, American leaders have rallied their supporters through apocalyptic rhetoric since the creation of the country. Since the Puritan John Winthrop first called America “acity on the hill» – meaning a shining example for the world to follow – the threat of losing this divinely appointed status has always been used by presidential candidates.
John F. Kennedy used this exact image of the “city on the hill” in a 1961 speech in the run-up to his inaugurationasserting that – with “God’s help” – valor, integrity, dedication and wisdom would define his administration.
Part of Ronald Reagan’s rise to fame includes “Time to choose“, a speech in which he named the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and defendant“We will preserve for our children this last hope of man on earth, or we will condemn them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.” In his farewell speech 25 years laterReagan also revived the image of the city on the hill while extolling American freedoms.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
During an announcement at the end of 2022 of his candidacy for the presidential election, Trump said: “the blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crime», relying on apocalyptic imagery, in reference to drug trafficking and illegal immigration. In March 2023, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering, he predicted that “if they (the Democrats) win, we no longer have a country.”
Biden also drew inspiration from the image of the final battles. In a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 1, 2022, he said he and his supporters were “ina battle for the soul of this nation.”
2. Divine Mandate
Since the creation of the republic, many American political leaders have claimed a divine mandate. God, they claimed, guided the founding of the the country’s democratic institutionsranging from popular elections to the constitutional balance of power.
George Washington, for example, asserted in a June 1788 letter to his secretary of war, Benjamin Lincoln, that “the finger of Providence has so clearly pointed» at the founding of the United States. The previous year, Benjamin Franklin had given a speech to the Constitutional Convention in which he noted: “God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground unnoticed, is it likely that an empire can rise again without its help?
In 1954, in the midst of the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill add “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiancea reaffirmation of Washington’s earlier claim.
Researchers have long documented how those in power use claims to divine authority to legitimize their role in a multitude of different countries. Recently, some American politicians and commentators have begun to claim divine authority for undemocratic actions.
Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator at the time, prayed just before the January 6, 2021 insurrection that those seeking “seizing power” would do so “providentially”.”
Conservative radio celebrity Eric Metaxas’ claim that the insurrection was “God’s battle even more than our battle» defined the event as divinely inspired. This type of assertion from such influential voices intensifies the commitment of those who seek to undermine democratic electoral processes.
Whatever the outcome of the 2024 elections, the shift from historical claims of divine authority for democracy to divine authority to challenge democracy is already evident and apparent.
3. White supremacy and Christian nationalism
In the United States, religious and racial identities have been closely linked since the creation of the country. Although it is also expressed in more subtle and systemic forms, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, white supremacists made the most explicit claims of divine favor from whites in general and people of Nordic descent in particular.
They promoted Nazi ideology And developed new organizations that repackaged similar philosophies while relying on religious claims.
The openly white supremacist and virulently anti-Semitic Christian Identity Movementa new North American religious movement that gained popularity in the 1980s among organized white supremacy groups, asserted that people of color, whom they considered “mud races“, were created by God as inferior. They also asserted that the religious covenant – between God and the people – set forth in the Bible applied only to people of European origin.
Likewise, the unapologetic white supremacist “alt-right movement» which coalesced in 2010 around the philosophies of biological racism and the belief in the superiority of white people around the world, have also mixed overt white supremacy with religious doctrines.
This close connection between religious demands and white supremacy within overtly racist organizations has also manifested itself in major political arenas. In this case, the tendency is towards omission. Evangelical leaders have historically failed to condemn or disassociate themselves from leaders with overt ties to white supremacy.
When given the opportunity to condemn white supremacists during the first presidential debate of 2020, Trump instead addressed the Proud Boys, a violent group of white supremacists, saying: “Stand back and be ready.” His decision to hire staff like white nationalist Steve Bannon during his first presidential campaign and dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes in November 2022 continued this pattern.
Appeals to white supremacy have also surfaced in today’s Congress. In spring 2023, 26 members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee refused to sign a letter denouncing white supremacy.
It remains to be seen whether these trends will persist in their current forms, whether they will evolve into new ones, or whether they will be replaced by rhetorical strategies as yet unimaginable. What is most certain is that religion and politics will continue to interact.
