In Trump’s America, two very different visions of Christianity in politics emerge

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Membership in organized religion is declining in the United States, but religious right advocates hold positions of power within the Trump administration.

A report released Friday by the Commission on Religious Liberty, mandated by President Donald Trump, suggests tearing down the wall between church and state in the United States by providing more public money to religious organizations, giving churches a more direct role in politics.

But Trump officials’ argument that the United States is a “Christian nation” is at odds with the values ​​of left-wing Christians, who believe the government should do more to help people who need it.

Two new books — Vice President J.D. Vance’s Catholic conversion story, “Communion,” and Senator (and Reverend) Raphael Warnock’s “The Crooked Places Made Straight” — preach these opposing views of faith-based politics.

Through the lens of his conversion, Vance “advocates for prioritizing families over gross domestic product, limiting migration, rejecting universal basic income, and discouraging abortions by improving conditions for new mothers and young children,” writes CNN’s Steve Contorno.

You can put Vance’s conservative Catholicism alongside the evangelical faith that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wears on his sleeve when it comes to political issues and policies within the Trump administration.

Like many members of the religious right, Vance took a view opposed to that of the American left.

“For decades, the left has worked to exclude Christianity from national life,” Vance said at the Phoenix memorial for Charlie Kirk last year. “They chased him out of the schools, out of the workplace, out of the basic elements of the public square. Freedom of religion turned into freedom of religion.”

At the same event, he championed the idea, popular within the Trump administration, that despite the lack of religiosity evident in the nation’s founding documents: “By the grace of God, we will always be a Christian nation.”

Vance sometimes wants to involve religion in politics, but he has also criticized the first American-born pope, the spiritual leader of his church, for speaking out against the brutality of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and war on Iran.

Warnock, on the other hand, in addition to being a U.S. senator from Georgia, is also senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pulpit made famous by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

He wondered aloud how right-wing leaders could highlight their Christian faith while blessing Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s mass deportation efforts and Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill, which includes cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.

“I have to wonder if religion is more performative than substantive,” Warnock told the New York Times in an interview launching his own book tour.

He told CNN’s Laura Coates something similar in December, when he argued that Democrats need to reclaim the moral foundation of faith.

“I think we should lean on faith,” Warnock said. “We should not see the debate around faith and values ​​directed at the people who are responsible for the greatest transfer of wealth we have seen with the One Big Beautiful Bill in American history. »

It’s a moral argument for Warnock, but appealing to religious voters is a survival tactic for Democrats in a Southern state like Georgia.

One of the major themes of Trump 2.0 is that Americans need more religion – and specifically Christianity – in their lives.

President Donald Trump is not known for being very religious, although he won over the religious right on his path to the White House, in part by pushing the idea that his political renaissance and survival of assassination attempts were due to divine intervention.

Added to this are the biblical language used in Hegseth’s wartime press conferences, calls from Trump officials to bring more religion into public life, and the use of the Justice Department to defend against what they see as anti-Christian bias.

Along with the rise of a U.S. government so focused on Christianity, there has been a decline in the number of voters describing themselves as Christian.

In the 2016 election that first brought Trump to power, 23% of voters described themselves as Catholic and 52% described themselves as Protestant or another Christian denomination, according to exit polls. The proportion of voters describing themselves as Protestant or of another Christian denomination declined in 2024, when only 43% of voters described themselves that way, according to exit polls, while 21% called themselves Catholic in 2024. The proportion of white evangelical voters fell from 26% in 2016 to 23% in 2024, which is not a significant change, but the proportion of voters without religious affiliation increased from 15% in 2016 to 24%, or almost a quarter, in 2024.

I asked Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, PRRI, about Vance and Warnock’s competing messages and broader trends in American religion.

“The mixing of religion and politics has really reached an unprecedented level in recent American history,” she said, arguing that while previous modern Republican presidents have made some speeches in support of the religious right, Trump has done more to act on their behalf in their policies and with his Supreme Court appointments.

“There’s something happening in the current makeup of the Republican Party — the MAGA takeover,” she said.

“Many people within the MAGA movement, within the GOP, envision a world in which the United States should be identified more as a Christian nation with conservative Christian goals,” she said.

This fits with the more controversial idea of ​​Christian nationalism, an ideology rooted in the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that its laws and institutions should reflect Christian values.

PRRI recently released the latest in a series of studies on American identity and it includes some interesting trends:

► Republicans are increasingly comfortable with the term Christian nationalism.

Extract from the report:

Only 25% of Americans have a favorable view of the term Christian nationalism, compared to…nearly half of Republicans (48%)…21% of independents and just 10% of Democrats. While support among independents and Democrats has remained relatively stable since 2022, Republicans are increasingly embracing the term, with favorable views up 12 points, from 36% to 48%.

PRRI asked people a series of five questions and, based on those answers, classified people as adherents, supporters, skeptics or rejecters of Christian nationalism, according to Deckman.

► Democrats are less likely to see American divine exceptionalism.

From the report: While Republican agreement that God has given America a special role has remained relatively stable – falling from 75% in 2012 to 63% in 2022, with about seven in ten agreeing today – support for Democrats has plummeted, from 60% to just 27%. Independents have also declined, reaching a low of 35% in 2020 before a modest recovery to 40% in 2026.

“The Democratic Party, in many ways, is less religious,” Deckman said. “It’s also greater religious diversity. You tend to have a lot more non-Christians in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party, but you tend to have a very large cross-section of Christians of color,” she said.

► Most Americans still prefer religious diversity

From the report: Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) would prefer that “the United States be a nation composed of people of a wide variety of religions,” compared to 34% who prefer “that the United States be a nation composed primarily of people who follow the Christian faith.” This is a decline in pluralism since 2022, the first year the question was asked, by PRRI, and when 73% said they preferred a wide variety of religions. Today, a clear majority of Republicans, 60%, prefer that the United States be made up of Christians, compared to 52% in 2022.

When I asked Deckman what she envisioned for religion in the United States in the next ten years, she pointed to the increase in the number of people, especially women, who do not practice religion.

“Young women are really abandoning religious labels for many reasons,” Deckman said, adding that many women who leave organized religion are unhappy with their religion’s approach to LGBTQ issues and the way many religious traditions view women.

There have been periods of religious revival in U.S. history, but the data she consults does not suggest that is happening now, in part because of a multigenerational shift away from organized religion.

“If you didn’t grow up in a religious tradition, chances are you won’t necessarily become religious later in life,” said, adding that Vance is an exception to that rule.

Even though the data doesn’t show a religious awakening, she says Americans may need the kind of connection that organized religion offers.

“I think Americans are hungry for an authentic, face-to-face experience,” she said. “As we become more isolated and spend more time online, it seems like places of worship could be that kind of place where people could actually have meaningful interaction, and there are a lot of positive things that, you know, being part of a religious community brings.”

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