Conservative Christians played an important role in Donald Trump’s re-election, and he has promised them great political influence

What was the Christian Right’s role?
Conservative Christians backed Donald Trump's presidential campaign solidly and vociferously; many even suggested that he had been chosen by God. Weeks before the vote, Franklin Graham, son of Billy and one of America's most famous preachers, prayed aloud for him to win the election at a Trump rally in North Carolina while supporters cried: "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!". The TV evangelist Hank Kunneman described the election as "a battle between good and evil", adding: "There's something on President Trump that the enemy fears: it's called the anointing." Another celebrity evangelist, Lance Wallnau, prophesied his victories, describing them as "part of God's plan to usher in a new era of Christian dominion around the world". Trump, for his part, has embraced the role. Referring to his attempted assassination in July, he declared on election night: "Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness."

How important was their support?
Very. About 13% of Americans are white evangelical Protestants, and they have been a crucial section of the Republican Party's political base since the 1960s (Black evangelicals, by contrast, tend to support the Democrats). White conservative Christians in general tend strongly to lean Republican, and their support has recently become more pronounced as the demographics of the US have changed. (According to Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, polls suggest that the Republican Party is now "70% white and Christian", and the Democratic Party is "only a quarter white and Christian".) The strong backing given to Trump by white Christians was a bedrock of his recent victory. According to the official exit polls, 82% of white evangelicals backed Trump, along with 63% of white Catholics and similar numbers of white non-evangelical Protestants.

Isn't Trump an odd choice for religious voters?
As a divorcee, a philanderer and a convicted felon, perhaps he is. He's not a regular churchgoer, either, though in recent years he has identified himself as a "true believer" (and a "non-denominational Christian"). Politically, though, he has promised to champion Christianity. In his first term, he made good on his promise to appoint conservative Christians to the Supreme Court; this led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had protected the right to abortion. He has also often played up fears of a cultural takeover by the left that would undermine Christian values. "They want to tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags," he has said. He has pledged to tackle "anti-Christian bias", and "to bring back Christianity in this country".

What does he mean by that?
It has been taken as an endorsement of "Christian nationalism": a broad movement based on the belief that the United States is a country founded by and for Christians, and that Christianity is under attack in modern America. Christian nationalists demand a bigger role for the religion in the government of the US (although the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion). They see being a Christian as an essential part of being a "real American". Such beliefs have permeated large swathes of government across the US, from school boards to state legislatures.

How influential are such beliefs?
Recent surveys suggest that only about 10% of the population are committed Christian nationalists; according to Pew Research, a majority of Americans support the separation of Church and state, but think the US should be informed by Christian values. Critics worry that Christian nationalism nevertheless may form a threat to democracy, because its fusion of theology and right-wing politics has become so influential in the Maga movement: as America becomes less white and less Christian, a minority cling fiercely to the idea that it is a divinely ordained promised land for European Christians. There is evidence, for instance, that some 6 January rioters were inspired by Christian nationalism.

What will Trump do for conservative Christians?
He has promised to "bring back prayer" in schools (until recently prayer was deemed unconstitutional in some circumstances); and to create a federal task force to fight anti-Christian bias. He says he will affirm that God made only two genders, male and female. And he will give enhanced political access to conservative Christian leaders. "It will be directly into the Oval Office – and me," Trump told pastors in Georgia in early November. He has, though, pushed back against some demands from the evangelical movement: he has distanced himself from the prospect of a federal ban on abortion, saying that he supports leaving the issue to individual states. Perhaps most significant, though, will be the appointments of conservative Christians to important roles.

Which appointments?
He has selected Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor, as ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, like many in the evangelical movement, believes the US has a divine mandate to protect Israel. "Without any apology, I believe those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed," he has said. Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for secretary of defence, is an avowedly militant Christian, who has the Crusader battle cry "Deus vult", meaning "God Wills It" tattooed on his bicep, and wants to create a network of Christian schools so as to provide the "recruits" for an army that will eventually launch an "educational insurgency" to take over the nation. Probably most influential, though, are the religious conservatives, such as Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump has already appointed to the Supreme Court.

Cyrus or Jehu: Trump's biblical role
In 2016, when Trump was first nominated as the Republican Party candidate, the support of evangelical voters was far from guaranteed, because of his lack of piety. But influential evangelical leaders soon reached the conclusion that, though flawed, Trump had been sent by God to do his work on Earth. Some compared him to the Persian king Cyrus, a nonbeliever who rescued the Jews from captivity in Babylon. Others have gone further: some evangelicals regard Trump as a manifestation of the biblical king Jehu, who vanquished the corrupt house of Ahab to become the 10th ruler of the Kingdom of Israel. Jehu killed Ahab's wife Jezebel by ordering her to be thrown out of a palace window; the pastor Jonathan Cahn has likened both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris to Jezebel. Another famous evangelist, Dutch Sheets, has hailed Trump's victory as part of the "third Great Awakening", a global Christian reformation. "Trump is a necessary part of this reformation," he declared. Others take a less highfalutin approach. When asked about Trump's character, Franklin Graham said: "Remember when Jesus told the crowd, 'Let the one without sin cast the first stone' and that slowly, the entire audience began to disappear? All of us have sinned."

On screen, Gregg Wallace's down-to-earth charm was one of the "key ingredients" of "MasterChef", said The Telegraph. The former greengrocer from south London was known for lively banter that was often laced with innuendo. It didn't cause offence, but the BBC has now been thrown into crisis by allegations that, off camera, the 60-year-old's "cheeky chappy routine" crossed the line into behaviour that was deeply inappropriate at work – and as a result, Wallace has "stepped aside". More than a dozen women have alleged that he told "disgusting", offensive and sexualised jokes, talked openly about his sex life and asked staff about theirs. Allegedly, he once arrived in the studio naked except for a sock over his penis. He is also accused of "jokily" pulling a female assistant's head towards his crotch after she'd knelt down to remove a stain from his trousers, and of putting his hands over another's bottom when she was bending over, and saying "Corr!".

Didn't Wallace get the memo, wondered Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper. Sexist "banter" of this sort was the norm at work in the 1970s when he started in the veg business, but it wasn't by the time he moved into TV in 2002. And though he insists he's done nothing wrong, he hardly helped his case by dismissing his accusers as "middle-class women of a certain age". He has since apologised for this, but there was a kernel of truth in it, said Eleanor Mills in The Independent. In a precarious industry, older women, with well-established careers, may end up speaking out for the sake of younger ones. Kirsty Wark, who once appeared on "Celebrity MasterChef", got the ball rolling. Kirstie Allsopp later tweeted that the first time she met Wallace, in a TV green room, he'd told her about a sex act. "Did he get off on how embarrassed I was?" she asked. But women had not been silent before. Over the years, several had reported his conduct to the BBC. Yet he just got a "talking to", and it seems nothing changed.

There's the nub of it, said Aggie MacKenzie in the Daily Express. Wallace deserved to be called out for his offensive behaviour. But in the media pile-on and public shaming, we seem to be forgetting that he has not been accused, let alone convicted, of anything criminal – yet his life is being destroyed even so. And, in this frenzy, we risk missing the broader issue, which is that junior staff didn't feel able to challenge the star presenter, and executives allowed a toxic working environment to fester. Tearing down one man won't bring meaningful change. For that, we must focus on the systemic failures.

Nadine Dorries, the former cabinet minister, was nine when she was sexually abused by a Church of England vicar. "It actually destroyed my life," she told Charlotte Ivers in The Sunday Times. "For all my life I've felt lesser a person, ashamed, slightly different." Growing up on a Liverpool council estate, she'd had a "joyous" childhood. But overnight, she went from being "just one of the kids playing out on the street" to feeling "different from everybody else, suddenly having to keep secrets".

Her abuser, Rev Jim Cameron, was "a big person in the community", she says, "the kind of person that everybody looks up to – big Billy big bollocks of the council estate". He was also one of the few to own a car, and one day, she saw him in it with a young girl in the front seat, who looked terrified. "She was a similar age to me and I knew what was happening to her." But such was her sense of shame, she didn't tell anyone, either then or later. To her great regret, she never even discussed it with her husband, who died five years ago.

It was reading about the Church's cover-up of the abuses committed by lay reader John Smyth that propelled her to speak out. She believes that, like Smyth's, Cameron's crimes were covered up; and Cameron also died before he could face justice. When she learnt that he was dead, she was angry at first. "Then, in a way, I was glad… I wish he'd died earlier. I was glad he was not there with his disgusting ways any more."