The recent presidential election showed that the path to the White House still runs through America’s pews. Donald Trump increased his share of votes from evangelical, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim voters.
“Truth is revealed by God,” Alex McFarland, Ph.D., a religion and culture expert, told Fox News this week. “The moral guardrails that hold our society together are not anything contrived by humans, but given by God. We believe that truth is not something that we make up for ourselves.”
According to The Washington Post, the Republican victory is the largest winning margin among Catholics for any candidate since 1972. Nearly 6 in 10 Catholics voted for Trump. As for Evangelicals, it was even more stunning. More than 8 in 10 went for Trump. Even among Jews and Muslims, two groups closely tied to the Democrat Party, the President-elect gained favor. Trump more than doubled support among Jews while Harris came in third among Muslims, behind both Trump and Jewish third-party candidate Jill Stein.
McFarland said the Kamala Harris campaign seemed to him to trample or dismiss biblical worldviews. “The dictionary definition of a worldview is that it’s ‘a collection of attitudes, values, stories and expectations about the world around us, which inform our every thought and action,’” he said “Worldview is expressed in ethics, religion, philosophy, scientific beliefs and so on.'”
As one example, when some attendees of a Wisconsin rally shouted, “Jesus is King,” Harris replied, “You’re at the wrong rally” and laughed. Yet when Trump’s running mate, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, encountered the same shouts at an event, he answered, “That’s right, Jesus is King.”
Missed opportunities
Also, Harris declined the invitation given to both presidential candidates to attend the annual Al Smith Dinner, which raises millions for Catholic charities. Trump was there. The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue viewed it as a snub to Catholics on a global scale. McFarland quoted Trump as saying, “Let’s talk about the things that last forever. The things that unite us. God. Family. Freedom.”
In addition, Harris targeted faith-based pregnancy centers and promoted extreme views on abortion, even saying in an interview that as president she would not make any concessions for religious objections to abortion.
In the spring of 2016, McFarland was invited with about 100 other prominent clergy to Trump’s office in Manhattan, the same building where Trump descended the elevator to announce his candidacy in 2015.
“Every major evangelical entity you can think of was in this room,” he said. “Trump said, ‘Look, if I become president, don’t you worry about the IRS coming after you. You guys are supposed to tell our nation about right from wrong.’ And everybody was like, ‘Wow, this guy gets it.'”
–Alan Goforth