Evangelical Christianity and Its Failing Moral Core

This 18 minute video interview with Reverend Robert Schenck discusses the status of Evangelical Christianity and the influence of its involvement in American politics and culture wars. Schenck is blunt about the losing moral situation the church has put itself in.

Beginning at ~10:30 in the interview, Schenck points out that millions of people under the age of 45 are leaving the church because they see the moral hypocrisy and emotional manipulation the church foists on its flock. Church membership losses have been occurring for the last 13 years straight. At 11:42, Schenck flatly states that fund raisers directly told him that to get money flowing in, he needed to instill fear and anger in his congregation: “The madder they are, the more fearful they are, the more money they are going to send you. .... Well, young people are sick of that.”





Earlier in the interview beginning at ~4:40 Schenck is blunt about why Evangelicals supported the president. Specifically, they want the supreme court packed with a majority of religious Christian judges. They want a solid majority. They are willing to tolerate what they know and privately admitted early on is an immoral president to get the power in government they desperately want for Christianity. But apparently, the Evangelical moral mindset has changed. Beginning  at ~6:16 Schenck says that he does not hear such private admissions any more from other Evangelical leaders.

He interprets this to not mean that Evanelical leaders are drifting away from the president. Instead he sees the leadership as having internalized and accepted the president’s moral poison. Schenck calls this ‘a kind of final conversion’ that he fears puts the president’s Evangelical supporters in danger of losing their immortal souls and the church itself of becoming a relic “and not a good one at that.”

If Schenck is correct in his analysis, there is a potentially lethal moral failure in Evangelical leadership and its involvement in politics and culture wars. The failure flows directly from supporting a vulgar, immoral president. That moral failure is what is driving people away from the Evangelical church, and maybe for some, from all of Christianity.

One thing that merits comment here is the willingness of the Evangelical leadership and what is left of the church to impose their will and morals on a society that increasingly does not share those values. This plays directly into the rise of GOP authoritarianism. The president’s penchant for authoritarianism is clear. Schenck asserts that the political and social culture the president has fomented is extremely dangerous, especially Christians who endanger their souls.

Fortunately, some other Evangelicl leaders have concluded that the president is dangerous. Thirty leaders have written essays on the danger the president represents. The essays are published in the book, The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump.