White evangelicals should 'panic' because they're losing a whole generation of Americans: conservative columnist

Conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson warned white evangelical Christians on Friday that they are in grave danger of going politically extinct within the next generation.

Gerson says that even though evangelicals believe they are being protected now by President Donald Trump, demographics are going to absolutely wreck their political power in the coming years.

"About 26 percent of Americans 65 and older identify as white evangelical Protestants," argues Gerson. "Among those ages 18 to 29, the figure is 8 percent. Why this demographic abyss does not cause greater panic -- panic concerning the existence of evangelicalism as a major force in the United States -- is a mystery and a scandal."

Gerson then cites research by University of Notre Dame political scientist David Campbell, who argues that young people in America today have "an allergic reaction to the religious right" that has only grown worse after watching evangelicals embrace Trump, a thrice-divorced serial philanderer who peddles racism and conspiracy theories.

"Today, far too many evangelicals are seen as angry and culturally defensive, and have tied their cause to a leader who is morally corrupt and dehumanizes others," Gerson concludes. "Older evangelicals — the very people who should be maintaining and modeling moral standards — have ignored and compromised those standards for political reasons in plain view of their own children. And disillusionment is the natural result."

Read the whole column here.