Wehner and I agree on many points here, but I'm going to take issue with his underlying premise: that this was all a Faustian bargain, an "evangelical betrayal." 1/7 https://twitter.com/Peter_Wehner/status/1281595085545766920

"Much of the evangelical movement, in aligning itself with Donald Trump, has shown itself to be graceless and joyless, seized by fear, hypocritical, censorious, and filled with grievances." Agree! BUT...was this a result of their alignment with Trump or a precondition for it? 2/7

Wehner talks to a pastor: After long fighting against the unattractive stereotype created by "Hollywood and the media," the pastor says: "I now realize that stereotype is more true than I ever knew. It breaks my heart." 3/7

"Is more true"--but also quite possibly "has always been more true." What is needed right now isn't just more short-sighted shock and regret by white evangelicals about white evangelicals. What is needed is a thorough reckoning. 4/7

Any legitimate reckoning must prioritize the voices of those on the margins. It wasn't just Hollywood and "the media" pointing out evangelicalism's flaws. It was Black Christians, abused women, shunned LGBTQ folks. But white evangelicals ignored or silenced them. For decades. 5/7

Maybe there's a reason this genre of critique tends to be written by white evangelical men (Wehner, French, Gerson, Galli). Only those who have been shielded from the darker sides of this movement can now express shock at this apparent "betrayal." 6/7

If there was a Faustian bargain, it didn't happen 4 years ago. We need to go back decades. That's the story I tell in Jesus and John Wayne. What we're seeing now is not a betrayal of evangelical values. It's the fulfillment of those values. 7/7
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-John-Wayne-Evangelicals-Corrupted/dp/1631495739/ref=sr_1_2