White evangelicalism is in for some serious short-term pain.

There’s nothing to be done about this: it was decided decades ago, the moment that the Moral Majority laid a foundation on the sands of special-interest politics.

What’s yet to be determined is long-term damage.

In an effort to mitigate short-term pain, some churches and denominations will make concessions to white supremacy, Christian Nationalism and misogyny to appease Dixiecrats who hold the purse strings.

And in the process, those churches will lose every young person who can’t unsee the hypocrisy and injustice that 2020 brought unmistakably to the fore. Thus they will sacrifice the future on the altar of the present.

The churches and denominations that last will be the ones who lean into the short-term pain—those who forsake the seduction of political power and material comfort. The future of the church in America is in the pursuit of justice on behalf of the oppressed.