Evangelical leader: Congregations are ‘either divided or tense’ over Trump controversies

“Christianity Today” Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore on Sunday said many congregations in the U.S. are “either divided or tense” as a result of controversies surrounding former President Trump, who is running again for the White House in 2024. 

“I mean, one of the most dismaying aspects of the Trump years is the fact that Donald Trump is at the center of everything. Almost every congregation that I know is either divided or tense about these sorts of political — political controversies coming out of the Trump years,” Moore told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

“Almost every family that I know has people who don’t speak to each other anymore about this personality and this figure, and I think there are a lot of people, including conservative evangelicals like me, who are looking at this and saying, ‘Are we really going to do this again? Haven’t we seen this already? Do we really want to repeat it?’ And I suppose that will be the question for the rest of the year,” Moore said.

Trump, who lost his reelection bid in 2020 to President Biden, is running for another four years in the White House in the upcoming presidential race, and has appeared in polling as the lead of a hypothetical GOP primary pack. 

But the former president is surrounded by a number of legal woes and controversies as he campaigns. 

He’s the subject of two separate special counsel probes as the DOJ investigates his handling of classified documents and efforts to interfere in the 2020 transfer of power. In New York, he faces criminal charges of falsifying business records — and was just found liable for sexual battery and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll.

Some polling indicated support for Trump slipped after the New York arraignment, and some in his party have raised concerns about how the liability finding could impact his 2024 bid.

Asked on Sunday what he’d like to see from other 2024 candidates, Moore said he thinks “someone needs to step forward and talk about the importance of character and talk about the importance of having someone who can be trusted to have the nuclear codes.”

“I mean, we really need someone to step forward and say, ‘Let’s remember what’s at stake here.’ We’re not just choosing what kind of entertainment we’re going to have for the next six years. We’re talking about the direction of the country. And we’re talking about what our children are seeing and potentially will replicate,” Moore said.

The evangelical leader suggested that “there’s fear” among candidates, elected officials and some church officials over the matter. “No one wants to speak to this because they’re afraid of what will happen to them. The stakes are too high,” he said.

Evangelicals make up one of Trump’s most supportive voter demographics, and played a key role in his 2016 and 2020 runs — but tensions between the former president and the religious leaders have come into view.

Todd asked Moore on Sunday whether there’s “any circumstance” he could imagine supporting Trump.

“Well, I can’t speak for all evangelicals. I can only speak for myself. And Jesus said, ‘Let your yes be yes and your no be no.’ I’ll let my never [be] never,” Moore said.