What church ought to be good for ...

In my ongoing fascination with the question of what makes white evangelicals Trump's biggest supporters, this grabbed my attention. 

Robert P. Jones, an indefatigable pollster of American religious byways with the Public Religion Research Institute, picks a bone with lazy commentators: 

Dispelling the Zombie Myth of White Evangelical Support for Trump

... the assertion that unchurched White evangelicals are the most supportive of Trump is not supported by the preponderance of evidence ...

White evangelical Protestants who attend church weekly or more are equally as likely as those who attend church a few times a month or less to:

    •    Believe the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump (59% vs. 61%);
    •    Disagree that there is solid evidence that Trump committed serious federal crimes (69% vs. 66%); and
    •    Disagree that the 2024 election of Trump to the White House poses a threat to American democracy and way of life (72% vs. 67%).

Stated most conservatively and plainly: church attendance levels make no difference in support for Trump among White evangelical Protestants today.

... So why does this myth about White evangelical support for Trump, despite the plain evidence to the contrary, continue to be resurrected? My strong suspicion is that this theory serves a psychological purpose: It subconsciously protects a deeply-held American assumption about the positive value of church.

If church attending is a moral behavior that generates positive civic goods, then it should follow that frequent church attenders should be less attracted to a leader such as Trump—or at least to his most racist and xenophobic appeals. Asserting that Trump’s White evangelical support is being generated by those outside the church fold simultaneously resolves a paradox and absolves the church.

I'll take Jones' word for this. I've seen assertions to the contrary -- but this guy has the polling. More encouragingly, Jones' data suggests that Trump's support among all sorts of evangelical identifiers hit a high mark in 2018 and has dropped from the low 80s to the mid-60s. The defects of the Donald are getting more visible every day, even to some people who get their information from the right wing media system. He's a not particularly successful con man and serial lier. This discovery is of a piece with generational replacement; younger folks look about more widely, are more critical, and also less inclined to follow religious leaders.

Illustration by way of Baptist News which is not awed either.