Religion: Evangelicals aren't mindless mob

Re: “Evangelicals give up high ground with Trump,” (TNT, 5/16).

Michael Gerson’s column is an attack on evangelicals from both an anti-Trump and strangely an anti-Protestant perspective.

Gerson sweepingly equates Catholicism with all things good -- health care, social justice, diversity — while evangelical Protestants exemplify the bad -- the dehumanizing of immigrants, racial and ethnic homogeneity, Donald Trump.

Omitted are the many good works done and charities supported by these “bad” evangelicals. (And where are these churches that preach the “dehumanizing of immigrants”?)

Gerson states that evangelicals are “racially and ethnically homogeneous,” ignoring denominations such as Baptists that have large numbers of African-American and Hispanic members.

And his claim that evangelicals from dozens of denominations are united in supporting Trump is absurd. Like other Americans, evangelicals voted for reasons ranging from enthusiasm to choosing the lesser of two evils. It is false and insulting to characterize them as a mindless mob who can be “deployed” at will.

After 9/11, the evangelical President George W. Bush rightly warned Americans not to condemn all Muslims for the evil actions of some. Gerson would do well to apply this same logic when condemning all evangelicals for what is, in his mind, the evil action of voting for Trump.

This story was originally published May 24, 2017 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Religion: Evangelicals aren't mindless mob."