But in American religious life, the meaning of “evangelical” exceeds its etymology. Since 1989, most scholars have accepted that the word refers to anyone who holds four beliefs: a high regard for the Bible, an emphasis on Jesus’s crucifixion, the need for people to be converted, and a connection between faith and public life. There has never been a political test for the term. Again, defecting evangelicals still hold these views, so nothing has changed.
In October 2000, Jimmy Carter publicly bid farewell to the Southern Baptist Convention. He said he had grown “increasingly uncomfortable” with the Baptist body’s beliefs for years, but then the denomination adopted a “rigid” and conservative statement of faith that asked wives to submit to their husbands and prohibited women from serving as pastors. That was a bridge too far for the former president.
“My grandfather, my father, and I have always been Southern Baptists, and for 21 years, since the first political division took place in the Southern Baptist Convention, I have maintained that relationship,” Carter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I feel I can no longer in good conscience do that.”
The announcement was shocking—it’s not every day that a former U.S. president publicly forsakes a Christian denomination. But there was one glaring problem with his decision: The Southern Baptist Convention is a voluntary collection of congregations, not congregants. Because Carter continued attending and teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia—which was a member of the Protestant group—he was still very much a Southern Baptist, despite his gesture.
I remember this announcement well because my father, James Merritt, was president of the denomination at the time. As he toldChristianity Today,“No individual can disassociate himself from the SBC. He’s still a member. He will remain a Southern Baptist until he moves his [membership] letter or Maranatha Baptist Church leaves.”
Sixteen years later, other prominent evangelicals are now behaving like Carter once did. Sickened by so many evangelicals’ support of President-elect Donald Trump, many leaders are threatening to leave their movement or pretending that they already have. But as with Carter, these moves are less about substance and more about making a statement. These leaders and pastors are still very much evangelical—and thank God. Their dissenting voices can act as a check on those who’ve used their faith to justify backing Trump.
It’s difficult to trace the evangelical “exodus” back to its origin, but one of the earliest defections came from Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the political arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. In a February Washington Post article, he announced that he had stopped describing himself as an “evangelical,” opting for “gospel Christian” instead.
The impetus for Moore’s departure was, in part, the manner in which his comrades had supported Trump for president: “I have watched as some [evangelicals] who gave stem-winding speeches about ‘character’ in office during the Clinton administration now minimize the spewing of profanities in campaign speeches, race-baiting and courting white supremacists, boasting of adulterous affairs, debauching public morality and justice through the casino and pornography industries.”
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