Jesus' 'ultimate fighting champion': Why evangelicals are praising Trump

Right-wing evangelicals are rallying behind Donald Trump because they see him as Christ's "warrior" or "ultimate fighting champion."

That's what Christian historian Kristin Du Mez, author of "Jesus and John Wayne," had to say in an interview with The Bulwark's Mona Charen published on Monday.

"I came to that conclusion by paying attention to evangelical popular culture, and particularly to evangelical ideas about masculinity," said Du Mez. "And I started noticing more than 20 years ago a growing embrace of a very kind of militant, rugged, even militaristic conception of what it meant to be a Christian man, a kind of warrior. And I traced that up to the present and heard so many echoes of that in evangelical support for Trump — he was their ultimate fighting champion, who would do what needed to be done to advance their aims."

While there has always been an undercurrent of this desire within the evangelical community, argued Du Mez. Members used to put more emphasis on a "tender warrior" or a "servant leader," exemplified by the Promise Keepers movement or George W. Bush's image of a "compassionate conservative" — an idea that has been abandoned in favor of more warlike rhetoric.

Many evangelicals recognize Trump has engaged in un-Christian and even abusive behavior — but look the other way as it's nothing new for their movement, argued Du Mez: "If you look at how many conservative evangelicals responded to abusive leaders, abusive pastors in their own churches and in their own organizations . . . time and time again you see evangelical communities ending up defending perpetrators of abuse — of sexual abuse, of abuse of power — and doing so in the name of protecting the witness of the Church, [and] blaming women for leading men on or for seducing men. All sorts of excuses, really."

In recent months, however, there are signs of a growing rift among evangelicals — or at least evangelical leaders — over whether they want Trump as the future of their movement, according to reports. In Iowa, where the first 2024 GOP caucuses will take place, some evangelical leaders are pushing back against Trump, even as polls show he commandingly leads the electorate, and across the country, some pastors are worried as Trump-loving congregants dismiss Jesus' teachings as "weak."