I interrupt the Covid19 updates to talk about another troubling crisis, this one with much longer repercussions. But there’s a Covid19 angle too, which brought it to mind this afternoon.

First, here is a chart based on the latest data from the Barna Group, the Evangelical polling and data organization:

If you’re reading this on your smartphone, you probably won’t be able to see the fine print. The graph tracks Christian identification from 2000 to 2020. The top line (red) is the percentage of Americans who identify as “practicing Christians”. The teal line is for “non-practicing Christians”; the yellow line is for “non-Christians.”

In its State of the Church project, Barna finds that over the past decade, the number of practicing Christians has declined by 20 percent; the number of non-practicing Christians rose by 8 percent; and the number of non-Christians rose by 12 percent.

I urge you to read this thread by Matthew Sheffield, based on Barna’s research. He points out that churchgoing is down dramatically across all generations. Looking at Barna’s political numbers, Sheffield says:

In essence, as the influence of traditionalist dogma on society declines (see evolution, LGBT, science generally), traditionalist Christians are becoming more engaged to try to prevent it. But their anger is only shrinking their numbers quicker.

There is a strong parallel to ideological Sanders supporters here. Both groups have a solid core but have trouble communicating to outsiders. Sanders fans have better long term prospects but in short term, neither group gets what it wants

I’m not quite sure how he sees their (our; I’m a trad Christian) “anger” shrinking the attractiveness of the message means. Perhaps he’s saying that as trads up their political engagement, they become less attractive to others?

I’m thinking about this in light of Pew’s recent numbers on US Christians and their feelings towards Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, white Evangelicals are by far the strongest supporters of the president, but the numbers aren’t shabby among white non-Evangelical Christians, either.

In light of Trump’s very serious stumbles so far in meeting the coronavirus crisis, I am thinking some pretty dark thoughts about how this might all play out down the road. None of us know yet how bad the effects of this virus are going to be, not only in terms of public health, but also economically, and on the social fabric of the country. One can easily imagine that it’s going to take a while to recover from the economic losses coming our way — and that this would be the case no matter who was in the White House.

That said, Donald Trump is in the White House, not anybody else, and his handling of this crisis has been appalling. His hardcore supporters certainly don’t think so, but when the first polling data come out in the next few days showing what Americans think of how the president has dealt with this crisis, I think they will be awful for the White House. Let’s do a thought experiment: imagine that the effects of the crisis are profound and painful. It is human nature to look for a scapegoat — and it would be natural for any sitting president to take the blame. Assuming Trump’s performance continues to be so bad throughout the crisis, voters are going to hold him responsible in a career-changing way. He will lose the White House, and if voter anger is hot enough, the GOP might lose the Senate. Again, a lot can happen between now and then, but this is a feasible scenario.

What does that have to do with Evangelicals, and other conservative Christians? I believe that white Evangelicals will be scapegoated too, particularly by and through the news media, but also across the cultural elites, and among younger adults. I also think that this ire will not rest only on white Evangelicals, or those Christians who were outspoken Trump supporters, but on all of us. This has nothing to do with fairness or reason. Scapegoaters don’t need a reason. During the Black Death, grieving and frightened European Christians blamed Jews, and took it out on them. The Pope had to issue an edict saying that the Jews were not to blame for the plague. People are irrational, especially if they’ve been traumatized.

My point is that the position of Christians in the United States has been dramatically weakening for the past twenty years. This is not news to me, nor to readers of this blog, or my book The Benedict Option. The sense among the broader US population that the Christian church is #MAGA At Prayer is unfair and inaccurate, but nevertheless potent. If Trump is thrown out by voters this fall in anger over his performance in this extended national crisis, fair or not, conservative Christians are going to go down with him — and not just because liberals and progressives despise us, but also because non-religious Republicans will be looking for a scapegoat too, to distance themselves from the debacle.

I could be wrong about this, and in any case, it’s almost certainly too late to do anything about it now. But I gotta say, this kind of thing from wingnut #MAGA preachers doesn’t help:

One Christian right group is literally telling followers that “there has never been a better time” to come together in large groups pic.twitter.com/m54seIelmI

— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) March 12, 2020

Paula White, the headliner speaker is literally a White House adviser to President Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/Wsn03D3gTJ

— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) March 12, 2020