The church emptied by Trump | The Press

(Phoenix) The first sign of change came in 2016, when he made a joke in his sermon. ” I said Make Jerusalem Great Again in derision, compared to Trump’s rhetoric… It didn’t work, Pastor Caleb Campbell told me. I received a lot of negative reactions. »

We are in a room at Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix, where he first came in 2001, at age 19. He was a drummer in the orchestra. He became its senior pastor in 2015.

“I heard Trump’s speech, and to me it was obvious: my congregation will never get on board with this! » said the 42-year-old man.

He was wrong. Between 2016 and 2020, his church lost 80% of its faithful.

“I was saying things as simple as: we should not encourage our government to imprison children in cages. I was told that I was promoting Marxism. The next day, someone called me a fascist, which was pretty confusing in just one week… I started getting text messages, emails, people telling me Tucker Carlson said this Or Glenn Beck said if your pastor talks about social justice, leave that church… Let’s see, Christian churches have been talking about social justice for 100 years, what’s going on? »

Among evangelical Christians, Trump was first seen as the “King Cyrus” of the Bible who freed the Jews from Babylon. He was a pagan from the Jewish point of view, but he was God’s instrument. So with Trump: a bad Christian, if not a disbeliever, but through whom the divine work would be accomplished.

“The theory has changed,” said the pastor. Now he is presented as a martyr, persecuted by the government. I have heard people, true believers, compare him to Jesus crucified. »

The aggressive messages multiplied and the church in the desert imperceptibly emptied. When services began to be bilingual, because the church welcomes many Latin American immigrants, former members told him: if they want to sing in their language, let them go back to their country.

The pandemic arrives. Religious services are virtual. No way to measure attendance.

“I had no idea how bad it was. »

Obviously, when the faithful came to demonstrate on the grounds of the church to demand its reopening in the middle of a pandemic and to hold an impromptu service, he saw that things were getting out of hand. That same spring, he held a virtual “reconciliation” service with African-American pastor friends after the killing of George Floyd. He received new aggressive messages. “What you are doing is against the Bible, you hate white people!” »

The church reopened in the fall of 2020. There were more empty pews than usual. But how do you know if it was desertion?

When the events of January 6, 2021 happened at the Capitol, he didn’t think he was saying something controversial by calling them “bad.” Another wave of protests has arrived. A large portion of his audience not only voted for Trump, but also believed in the theory of electoral fraud.

In this church, although well established for 45 years, money no longer came. The council met.

“Phoenix is ​​at the epicenter of political misappropriation of religion. If we don’t fight this, who will? So we said to ourselves too bad for the consequences. »

Among the consequences was the loss of just about all of his friends.

“To recover, every day I went to meditate in a park and I wrote down the names of relationships or friends that I had lost. I reached more than 300…”

His therapy also consisted of immersing himself, like a spy, in the world of these pro-Trump “evangelicals”.

“I went to several of these gatherings incognito, among 3,000 people. And you know what ? We feel good. People have a feeling of loss, and they are being promised a return. We will love our country, we will stand up for our ancestors, we will defend Christian values. It sounds good. But beneath the surface, it’s intimidation, it’s the making of enemies. It encourages people to denounce their neighbors instead of serving them. This is the dehumanization of immigrants. »

He continued his immersion by subscribing to newsletters and going incognito to all kinds of events on the fringes of these churches – and in particular Dream City (see other text).

“You know, in the Bible, Caleb is a spy sent by Moses…”

There was this monthly event called “Freedom Night.”

“It was terrifying. It was a religious service. It sounded like what I do: three songs, an offering, a prayer… But the speaker, Charlie Kirk, didn’t say: I’m a political activist for Turning Point, this conservative group founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk himself. even when he was an 18-year-old student. Initially, the goal of his organization was to campaign on campus for minimalist government and tax cuts according to the Tea Party credo. The pandemic suddenly pivoted the group from neoliberalism to Christian nationalism. For Turning Point, Trump was the “turning point.” It was through him that he found an ideological business model. The group has raised millions of dollars to encourage pro-Trump voting.

“In his speech, Charlie Kirk said that God protects the right to carry a gun. Choosing a school. There are no schools or guns in the Bible. You can reason well from the ancient text, but the Bible does not said not that.

“And all around, I see my people, the people I had known for 10, 15 years… They raise their hands, sing hallelujah. »

He made a book about it, Disarming Leviathan, which will be published this summer. The Leviathan of the Bible is a sea monster that devours humans. It is also the totalitarian state in political literature.

“There is deep anxiety about what they perceive as ethnic erasure. Their way of being in the world is under direct threat. They feel surrounded by a chaotic world. So it’s easy to believe the guy on the scene. Trump says people are invading us. Threaten us. Put me in power and I will make this country great again. He even said he would protect God. For some, this is what is threatened. Theologically dubious, but politically it works. »

Caleb Campbell has taken the theological double life to the point of welcoming the policy manager of Turning Point to his premises in 2022.

“I was very upset. I said to myself: I’m going to destroy them. I will find arguments in the Bible. There is no divine right to guns, it’s not about transgender people!

“Then this woman arrives, absolutely adorable, very relaxed. I was the bad guy in the room! My heart completely changed after this meeting. They do not need an enemy to destroy them, but a missionary to join them.

“What if I started to love them, to have compassion for them? This is what led me to write the book. My hope is not to bring former members back to the church. But to bring them to peace. Bring the discussion from head to heart. I can confront them: OK, what’s your proof that the election was stolen? But that will only happen if we are connected through the heart. Only there can we go to opinions. »

“What I was taught is that we must be servants, not warriors. Treat the other not as an enemy combatant, but as another image of God. That the other politician, the other ethnic group is not an enemy, but our neighbor. Even if he is our enemy, moreover, Jesus tells us to love him. Not to dominate him or expel him. My hope with this book for American Christians is to recognize that we can maintain our divergent position by being generous. »

Campbell comes from a libertarian family. He voted for Bush Jr. in 2000, for Obama in 2008, and for marginalists afterward.

“My job is to help people find their own answer, I don’t tell anyone who to vote for, what to think on gun control, birth control, immigration. I don’t believe the Bible gives us the answer on abortion or medical assistance in dying. I oppose any Christian who claims to take control of government to promote a way of life. Left or right. »

There were not only losses. Other believers, many Latinos, and other “refugees” from pro-Trump churches, have come to swell the ranks of his, which wants to denounce Christian nationalism.

The contrast is striking with Dream City, an almost exclusively “white” church.

The new members are far from compensating for those who have left. But the pastor does not regret his positions.

“When, at the end of my life, I reflect on my journey, I want to be able to say: I did it with integrity. »