'I just don't get it': Ex-FBI agent stumped by evangelicals’ devotion to Trump

Although Donald Trump is by no means universally loved in Christianity, he continues to be incredibly popular among a certain type: white fundamentalist evangelical Protestants, who have a different set of beliefs from Catholics and Mainline Protestants.

Trump himself isn't an evangelical — he was raised Presbyterian. But he has had a strong bond with white evangelicals — a bond that Utah-based author Raymond A. Hult (a retired FBI special agent) struggles to understand in a letter published by the Salt Lake Tribune.

"I just don't get it," Hult writes. "According to the national election and AP Votecast voter exit polls in 2020, 81 percent of 'born-again' evangelical Christians supported Donald Trump for president…. What I can't understand is how religious believers identifying themselves as Christians can support a presidential candidate personifying the exact opposite of someone embodying Christian values."

Evangelical fundamentalists have a much stricter and more severe interpretation of The Bible than either Mainline Protestants or Catholics, but Hult finds it frustrating that they don't apply those standards to Trump — who, he emphasizes, has a long history of "anti-Christian behavior."

"With his obvious unfamiliarity with the Bible, committing adultery with a porn star, bragging about grabbing unwary female private parts, and conviction for a sexual assault in a department store," the retired FBI special agent argues, "supporting Trump while claiming to be a Christian would seem highly hypocritical at best…. The ninth of the Ten Commandments, regarding bearing false witness, forbids libel, slander and backbiting and calls for the truth and nothing but the truth."

Hult continues, "Do evangelicals now choose to ignore the Bible in favor of electing Trump for president? According to The Washington Post, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term as president. What would Jesus think about voting for someone like that?"