Can white evangelicalism in U.S. be saved?

Nicholas Kristof interviews a pastor who says that Christianity’s aim is to help the poor and that the GOP has turned the message upside down.

Here’s my interview with the Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian pastor, author and justice activist.

KRISTOF: Merry Christmas, Jim! You’re an evangelical Christian, but a progressive one. So how, literally, do you take Christmas? Do you believe that Jesus was born to a virgin in Bethlehem?

WALLIS: How I “take Christmas” is defined in the famous prayer by the mother of Jesus — Mary’s Magnificat: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Meaning: The coming of Jesus is intended to turn things upside down. The power of the Bethlehem narrative includes the inn having no room for Mary and Joseph, and the lowly shepherds being the first witnesses of the new baby as hope for the world born in a manger with his homeless parents. This is not the conquering messiah many were hoping for, but one from the bottom of society in a time of political unrest and massive inequality — sort of like now.

KRISTOF: What is it with the modern evangelical movement? Historically, evangelicals were people such as William Wilberforce, fighting to abolish slavery. More recently, they included Jimmy Carter. But these days the big cause of many evangelicals has been a philandering politician who rips children from parents at the border.

WALLIS: The word “evangel” comes from Jesus’ opening pledge to bring “good news” to the poor and let the oppressed go free. Trump evangelicals have turned Jesus’ message upside down. That’s called heresy. And, in the United States, this has created a toxic melding between white evangelicals and the Republican Party. We’ve seen the conversion of too many white evangelicals to the narcissistic and nationalistic cult of Trump, where the operative word in the phrase “white evangelical” is not “evangelical” but “white.”

KRISTOF: I struggle with this. I’ve seen conservative evangelicals do heroic work, including Chuck Colson’s work in prisons, and George W. Bush’s leadership in fighting AIDS in Africa that saved 20 million lives. But some of the grossest immorality of my life came when evangelicals such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson smirked at AIDS and resisted tackling the disease because it was killing gay people. How do we understand a faith that can produce so much good and so much evil?

WALLIS: The religious right leaders you name hijacked the word “evangelical.” Result: White evangelicalism has destroyed the “evangel.” When “evangelical” strays from the radical love of Jesus into hateful partisan faith, we see the worst.

KRISTOF: Do you think about abandoning the term “evangelical” because it has too much baggage?

WALLIS: I understand why so many have moved to “post- evangelical” or “adjacent evangelical” as the old term has become so tainted by right-wing politics and hypocrisy. Many of us call ourselves “followers of Jesus” who want to return to the original definition of a gospel that is good news to the poor. And we believe that any gospel that isn’t good news for the poor is simply not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Period.

KRISTOF: We’ve been denouncing religious intolerance, but I’m afraid many of us liberals have a problem with irreligious intolerance.

WALLIS: I have been fighting “religious fundamentalists” my whole life. But are there also “secular fundamentalists”? I would say yes, and they can be as irrational, ideological and intolerant as the religious ones.

KRISTOF: I consider myself a Christian, for I admire Jesus’ teachings, but I doubt the virgin birth, Resurrection and other miracles, and it does seem complicated to be a Christian who questions the Resurrection. So: Am I a Christian?

WALLIS: That’s not for me but for you to answer. Following Jesus is the core of being a disciple of Jesus, which also implies a personal relationship with Jesus, who was not merely a former Galilean boy scout. Some have said that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt but certainty. And I would say that faith can lead either to deeper reflection or easy certainty; I prefer the former. Our limited human comprehension of the world’s greatest mysteries is less important to me than what can transform our lives and the world. One of my mentors, Desmond Tutu, needed a real resurrection to sustain him in the South African struggle, and I do today as we struggle for a genuine real multiracial democracy based on what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis called us to: a beloved community.

Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times.