America's evangelical Christians are feeling persecuted

American evangelicals are feeling persecuted

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last updated 10 June 2016

"There's nobody hated more in this nation than Christians," Pastor Richie Clendensen said in his sermon at the Christian Fellowship Church in Benton, Kentucky, on Sunday, according to Rachel Zoll at The Associated Press. "Welcome to America's most wanted: You." Clendensen's sentiments are broadly shared by America's evangelical Christians, who have seen their influence and political clout shrink dramatically in the past 12 years, most visibly on same-sex marriage. But that's just the latest wedge between American evangelicals and their country, Zoll says:

For decades, they say, they have been steadily pushed to the sidelines of American life and have come under attack for their most deeply held beliefs, born of their reading of Scripture and their religious mandate to evangelize. The 1960s ban on prayer in public schools is still a fresh wound. Every legal challenge to a public Nativity scene or Ten Commandments display is another marginalization. They've been "steamrolled," they say, and "misunderstood".... Now, many evangelicals say liberals want to seal their cultural victory by silencing the church. [AP]

Liberals call this last claim paranoid, but for evangelicals, "the sense of a painful reckoning is not just imagined; their declining clout in public life can be measured," Zoll writes. In the last eight years, America went from majority Protestant to under 50 percent; there are no Protestants on the Supreme Court; and even in the Republican Party, their last presidential nominee was Mormon with a Catholic running mate. And as a whole, evangelicals aren't thrilled about this year's nominee, Donald Trump. "It's like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel," said Brandi Haynes, a member of Clendensen's congregation.

Trump, a Presbyterian, has tried to reach out to conservative Christians, saying "we're going to protect Christianity and I can say that." But he doesn't always get the language right. "I will be asking for forgiveness, but hopefully I won't have to be asking for much forgiveness," he told evangelical conservative pundit Cal Thomas on Wednesday. "Jesus to me is somebody I can think about for security and confidence," he said later, "somebody I can totally rely on in my own mind." RedState's Erick Erickson was unimpressed:

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.