image captionTrump praying with religious leaders in the Oval Office during his presidencyArticle related information
- Reporter, Cecilia Baria
- Reporter, BBC Spanish Service
- Reporting from Oklahoma, USA
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4 hours ago
At Grace Reformed Baptist Church, located in southern Oklahoma in the south-central United States, a few minutes before Sunday service, Pastor Dusty Devers (36), dressed very neatly, appears with a bright smile.
This church is attended by many believers, mainly white families with many children, and Pastor Devers exchanges greetings with about 100 members.
Meanwhile, at the entrance to the church here, there are several booklets with a picture of a seemingly dead baby.
The booklet, which compares abortion to a modern-day ‘Holocaust’, says, “While you are reading this paragraph, three babies have just been unjustly murdered in the United States in their mothers’ wombs.”
In fact, abortion is one of the major issues, along with the economy and immigration, in the U.S. presidential election scheduled for the 5th of next month.
As America’s voters prepare to elect the next president, this pamphlet highlights how politics and religion are intertwined among America’s most conservative right-wing Protestant voters.
At 10:45 a.m., when the heavy rain on a hot summer day had subsided, the service began. In this simple and solemn church with almost bare white walls, Pastor Devers played the guitar and sang praises with the congregation.
Pastor Devers, a father of six children from Elgin, Oklahoma, holds a master’s degree in religious studies and real estate. He preaches from the church podium every Sunday, but on Mondays he proposes bills in the Oklahoma State Assembly.
Here in Oklahoma, it is common for politicians to hold positions in local churches or have strong connections to them.
This phenomenon of overlapping political and religious leaders is a common sight in the so-called Bible Belt region of the United States, where Elgin belongs.
The ‘Bible Belt’ refers to a wide area in the southern United States, predominantly Protestant and Republican, spanning at least nine states. Former President Donald Trump won all Bible Belt states except Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.
The Bible Belt is also the epicenter of the growing political influence of conservative Protestant leaders.
And at the center of this belt is Oklahoma, a state with a strong religious atmosphere, with more than 80% of state legislators being Republicans.
The core of the current Oklahoma political world can be said to be ‘God’ and ‘nation.’ That’s because conservative Christians here feel that their traditional way of life is being threatened by the liberal left.
relationship between religion and politics
Pastor Devers wanted to know what my religious beliefs were, so he first asked, “What do you think about my worship?”
After a long conversation, Pastor Devers said that his short-term political goals are to eliminate abortion and pornography, and to eliminate income and property taxes.
The Republican senator’s long-term goals are even more ambitious. Pastor Devers wants to make America a Christian nation.
And in order to realize this mission, political influence must be expanded to the highest levels.
To my question, “Do you want the White House to become the kingdom of God?” he answered, “Everything on this earth is the kingdom of God.”
“We need to change the power structure,” explained Reverend Devers.
In fact, like other pastors in the Bible Belt region, he does not believe that candidate Trump fully represents him. Because I think “Trump is tilting the Republican Party toward the left.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Hoffman (37), who is working with Devers, is preparing to become the pastor of a new Baptist church in Oklahoma and is the father of five daughters. Hoffman believes that the boundary between church and state cannot be broken down.
With tears in his eyes, Hoffman said, “Politics and Christian faith cannot be separated,” and appealed, “Americans have now forgotten Jesus.”
religious decision
So, is this culture war affecting the ordinary daily lives of ordinary people? The answer is yes.
This year alone, political decisions with religious overtones were made in at least three states in the Bible Belt.
First, all school classrooms in Louisiana are required to hang the Ten Commandments on the wall, and in Alabama, some IVF clinics had to temporarily close after the Supreme Court ruled that even frozen embryos were “babies.”
Additionally, in Oklahoma, Republican Secretary of Education Ryan Walters announced guidelines mandating Bible education in all public schools in the state in June, which was widely reported across the United States and caused controversy.
Oklahoma is one of the states with the lowest number of teachers in the United States, and many teachers protested against this guideline, saying it was a violation of religious freedom.
Suzy Stevenson (44), a Protestant and former elementary school teacher, says, “Church and state must be separated.”
Stevenson criticized Secretary of State Walters for calling the Oklahoma teachers’ union a “terrorist group” in May of this year. The position of state secretary is an elected position.
Minister Walters declined an interview with the BBC.
In addition, numerous parents also expressed dissatisfaction with this decision. Erica Wright, founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Association, is one of them.
“They should focus on poverty in schools instead of pushing the Bible.”
Wright, a Christian and Republican, said not only are Oklahoma’s schools underfunded, but some students in rural areas do not have access to nutritious food at home.
In fact, reporters were able to see residents living in trailer homes while passing through the Noble area, south of Oklahoma City, the state capital.
Wright pointed out, “They don’t even have money to buy Bibles.” Oklahoma’s poverty rate is 15%, but in some areas it is higher.
Amid this culture war, Professor Samuel Perry of the University of Oklahoma believes there is a larger agenda behind these guidelines. Professor Perry has published several books on religion and politics.
Professor Perry explained that this agenda is being driven by extreme leaders, and that it is in line with Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is an ideology that believes that the lives of American citizens should be integrated with conservative Anglo-Protestant national culture.
Professor Perry pointed out, “The expansion of Christian nationalism is threatening American democracy.”
‘Trump is a man sent by God’
image copyrightJackson Lahmeyer
Photo caption: Pastor Jackson LaMeyer said, “Trump is a man sent by God to rule this country.”
In the Bible Belt, pastors establish small churches in the poorest areas and exert great influence on believers. Many of these pastors support relatively conservative segments of the Republican Party.
And in recent years, candidate Trump has emerged as the best means for this group of pastors to make progress.
Oklahoma pastor Jackson LaMeyer is an ardent Trump supporter. To him, who is also the founder of ‘Pastors for Trump,’ “Trump is the person God sent to rule this country.”
Pastor LaMeyer is working to “collect the votes of evangelical believers” to support Trump in this election.
Pastor LaMeyer sees it as a “divine miracle” that candidate Trump survived the assassination attempt that occurred during a campaign rally in mid-July.
“Currently, our country is only one step away from civil war,” he said in a phone interview, who had previously run for Senate office.
A Protestant pastor and political activist, he said that he did not want to be classified as a Christian nationalist. “That is a label given by the media to portray us as a threat to democracy.”
“This is not true.”
Pastor Paul Blair, who leads Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City, does not define himself that way either.
“Am I a Christian? yes. Am I a nationalist? yes.”
In an interview with reporters, Pastor Blair, whom we met at church, explained, “But I am not a Christian nationalist, as people want to label me.” “The term ‘Christian nationalist’ has now become an insult.”
Pastor Blair, who was also a candidate for the Oklahoma Senate, sat at his desk and showed reporters a photo from when he was a professional football player for the Chicago Bears in the late 1980s.
Currently, Pastor Blair is in charge of the ‘Free Pastor Training Camp’. There, Protestant leaders learn how to promote their religious agenda in politics. At the training camp, pastors study topics such as Christianity’s influence on government and protecting civil liberties, according to Blair.
“Training to help pastors think based on the Bible in all areas of life,” said Blair, one of a number of local Protestant leaders across the U.S. who call themselves “patriotic pastors.”
Like others in this group, Blair believes America should return to the values it founded when it signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“Historically, Christians have always had influence in government,” Blair said.
Additionally, he believes that the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election is Trump and that those imprisoned for their participation in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol are “political prisoners.”
And now, Pastor Blair is hoping that Trump will become President of the United States once again in the November 5th presidential election. In the last presidential election, Trump received 65% of the vote in Oklahoma, one of the highest in the entire country.
This is also the common hope of conservative Protestant political leaders in the Bible Belt who make it their “sacred mission” to spread their beliefs through political power.
And somehow Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have become emblematic of this political battle.
trump and abortion
Trump’s supporters say that, above all, they are thankful that conservatives have a majority in the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the United States, thanks to the appointment of three federal Supreme Court justices during his presidency.
As conservatives gained the majority, in 2022, the Federal Supreme Court overturned the precedent that had guaranteed abortion rights for almost half a century and left the decision to allow abortion up to each state.
And in states in the Bible Belt, such as Oklahoma and Arkansas, abortion is severely restricted by law, with abortion only allowed when the mother’s life is in danger.
However, there is also criticism that it is very difficult for medical staff to legally prove that a specific patient falls into one of these exceptions.
Abortion has become one of the biggest issues in this presidential election. This is because hard-line conservatives within the Republican Party (the most powerful in the Bible Belt region) want a complete ban on abortion. They believe that their goal can be achieved if Trump returns to power.
In fact, some people see Trump as the prodigal son of New York with little religious beliefs. However, Trump opened the White House to prominent conservative Protestant leaders during his presidency, and continues to participate in large-scale events with evangelical pastors.
Evangelicals in the White House?
During his presidency, Trump signed an executive order establishing a new government organization called the Faith and Opportunity Initiative. He then said, “Faith is more powerful than government, and there is nothing more powerful than God.”
After Trump lost in the 2020 presidential election, so-called ‘patriot pastors’ or ‘MAGA (‘Make America Great Again’) pastors took to the streets, saying that Trump had stolen the presidency. Many people joined the ‘Rewake America Tour’ movement, a far-right group co-founded by Oklahoma businessman Clay Clark.
To this day, events hosted by the movement attract evangelicals, gun advocates, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and anti-communist activists and those who sympathize with Trump’s rhetoric.
Many who participate in these events say they are God’s soldiers waging a spiritual war against the left. You can also find some of what they say in ‘Project 25’. ‘Project 25’ is a controversial plan proposed by former Trump aides to reform key aspects of the federal government and American life.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 25, but many believe that if Republican candidate Trump returns to the White House, influential conservative and religious groups behind the initiative will force the president to realize the project.
