Meet the ‘Precocious Atheist’ Still Pining for a Misplaced Faith

by | Sep 12, 2024 | Uncategorized

Donna Freitas’s spiritual autobiography, Wishful Thinking: How I Lost My Faith and Why I Want to Find It, stands in the tradition of the “dark-night-of-the-soul” memoir. But unlike mystics such as St. John of the Cross, who found their way through dark times into the light of faith, Freitas is unsure whether she ever believed in God to begin with.

A successful scholar and author of teen and adult fiction, Freitas was raised in a devout Catholic home in Rhode Island. She writes nostalgically about a childhood surrounded by spiritual memorabilia, such as angel figurines and Virgin Mary statuettes, beloved by her grandmother. Attending mass every Sunday was central to family life, especially for her Italian American mother, whose faith was simple, constant, and enduring.

However, belief didn’t come so easily for Freitas, who began to struggle with doubt from an early age. When an acquaintance described her as a “precocious atheist,” the label stuck. And despite going through the motions of confirmation in the Catholic church, she failed to inherit the devout faith of her mother. She writes with toe-curling embarrassment about her “angry atheist” phase as a young adult, including phone calls from college in which she told her mother that “your God is nothing but another Santa Claus.”

Philosophy to the rescue

As you may already suspect, this is as much a story about Freitas’s relationship with her mother as it is about her search for a relationship with God.

Despite a wealth of academic credentials—her research on the lives of young people has yielded notable books like Sex and the Soul and The Happiness Effect—the story Freitas tells is not primarily an intellectual quest. You won’t find any examination of core apologetics arguments, like attempts to reconcile science and faith or address the problem of evil. Belief in God is simply presented as something you either have or you don’t. And Freitas says she doesn’t have it. But she wishes she did, writing,

I may have lost my faith as a child, misplaced it very young. But I have never stopped searching to find it again because if my mother taught me anything, she instilled the notion that our belief in God is precious.

Freitas movingly describes how any hope of holding on to God seemed to disappear when she entered a period of deep depression in her early 20s. Although the darkness lifted eventually, it would return many times throughout her life. She knows that for many people, faith in God is the only thing that makes sense in the midst of such suffering. But the fact that she felt so alone in her “bottomless abyss” was the final confirmation that there was no divine hand waiting to pull her out.

Instead, something else came to the rescue: philosophy.

Freitas’s joyful discovery of the work of existential philosophers is an enchanting part of the book. She describes the emotional thrill of finding intellectual soulmates in Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger. Their works not only spoke to her frequent encounters with the existential void within but also gave voice to her experience (or lack thereof) of faith. 

The book describes Freitas’s attempts to find peace and wholeness through academia and philosophy, which are both touching and agonizing to read. Time and again, she reminds us how much she longs for the simple faith of her mother, and why it seems to remain tantalizingly out of reach.

The memoir is also instructive in framing how Freitas’s journey has been shaped by the Catholicism she inherited. Aware that her readership will likely contain more evangelicals than Catholics—her publisher, Worthy Books, caters largely to this audience—Freitas devotes a chapter to the wildly different assumptions about Scripture and practice embodied by the two groups.

She contends that evangelicals read their Bibles and examine issues like sex and relationships in ways that are rarely encouraged among lay Catholics. I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, but her analysis probably reflects the type of cultural Catholicism that dominates a university like Georgetown, where she studied as an undergraduate.

Ironically, despite her own unfamiliarity with Scripture, Freitas’s love of philosophy led her to pursue a PhD in theology. The avowed atheist found herself studying alongside Catholic ordinands and theologians. This turned out to be both a blessing and a curse in her ongoing search for God.

Tragically, Freitas became the target of an obsessive sexual pursuit by an abusive academic priest. When she reported him to the authorities, she says, the church was only interested in protecting the professor and its institutional reputation. It left her devastated.

Yet much good came out of her theological studies. She discovered the lives and writings of female mystics, such as Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila. They struck Freitas as proto-feminists of the medieval age—as torchbearers who dared to approach God in ways that transcended the norms of their era.

Unexpectedly, the nearest thing to evidence for God came as Freitas’s mother was dying from cancer. As she considered the countless acts of kindness shown during and after her mother’s illness, she found herself compelled to revise her opinion of the Catholic church: Institutionally, its record might be deeply flawed, but its local members could still minister great healing and love.

“During those months,” she writes,

When my mother was first receiving treatment, God took the form of sausage and meatballs and big pots of tomato sauce and God was in those sick days offered by my mother’s colleagues. God was in the prayers answered that we didn’t need to utter because the parish community got there first and made it so we didn’t have to pray for those things at all.

Faith in others’ faith

Wishful Thinking is a beautifully written memoir in which the journey is more emotional than theological. This will doubtless result in frustration for some readers, as it leaves the author’s search for God frustratingly unresolved.

Ultimately, however, those female voices from centuries past and the continuing influence of her own mother (and grandmother) helped Freitas to retain some form of Catholic identity, despite having every reason to reject it. As she reflects: “Maybe it seems a little weird to call myself Catholic given how the jury is still out—kind of way, way out—on the belief front for me.”

The closest we get to a final resolution is a moving description of how, despite struggling to find God in church, Freitas now finds that the familiar words, actions, and rituals of the Catholic Mass allow her to connect emotionally with the memory of her mother and grandmother. If she has any belief at all, it is faith in their faith.

This is a personal journey, honestly told. But, as a Christian myself, I wanted to reach through the pages of the book and encourage Freitas to give up searching for the same experience of God that her mother found comfort in. Far better to go to the source, seeking the image of God found in the Jesus of the Gospels.

Perhaps Freitas would tell me that’s the evangelical in me speaking—always fixated on Scripture. But I was struck by how rarely the figure of Christ featured in a book about someone trying to make sense of Christianity. If you want to find God, surely that’s the place to start?

A notable exception comes when Freitas describes a sudden moment of clarity while reading Sartre during her philosophical awakening. The philosopher’s concept of “bad faith” refers to the danger of investing our self-worth in temporal things—careers, relationships, love—that will inevitably let us down.

Freitas acknowledges that, for Christians, Jesus must be the answer to Sartre’s “bad faith” dilemma. But, when plunged into the abyss of depression by relationship breakdowns and traumatic life events, she says she has simply never found Jesus waiting for her:

This is where the difference between a believing Christian and a faith-challenged person like me reveals itself. I plunge into that darkness and wish for someone to carry me to the other side of this hell. But the only way I ever get there is if I somehow find the way out again alone.

For a season, Freitas tried to implement Sartre’s solution—surrendering to the meaninglessness of life and perhaps finding a way to live above the maelstrom of the storm. But she struggled to make it work in practice.

However, I believe Jesus has a better response to nihilism than Sartre. In his famous story about the wise and foolish builders (Matt. 7:24–27), he pointed out how easily life lets us down when we construct it on the shifting sands offered by this world. Instead, he advised his hearers to weatherproof their souls against the storms of life by building on the rock of his own life and teachings.

That may sound like wishful thinking to some people, but it has proven a solid foundation for countless lives and even whole civilizations. I hope that Wishful Thinking (beautifully written as it is) won’t be Freitas’s last word on her search. In my experience, Jesus often surprises those who keep seeking.

Justin Brierley is a writer, broadcaster, and speaker in the UK. He is the author of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again.

The post Meet the ‘Precocious Atheist’ Still Pining for a Misplaced Faith appeared first on Christianity Today.

The Squandering of ‘God’s Not Dead’

by | Sep 12, 2024 | Uncategorized

A decade ago, Barack Obama was president. Louis C. K. was hosting Saturday Night Live. And the first film in the God’s Not Dead franchise was in theaters.

You may know the concept: A college student stands up to an atheist philosophy professor who’s trying to bully his class into denying God. The two engage in several debates; the student successfully defends God’s existence. The professor ends up turning his life over to Jesus before he’s hit by a car and killed.

The movie was a massive box office hit, earning over $60 million on a budget of just $2 million. It’s not hard to understand why. Though much has changed in ten years, evangelicals then as well as now were reckoning with the prospect of an increasingly post-Christian United States. The rise of the religious “nones” had begun. Conservative Christians who felt that pop culture portrayed their views as stupid or evil—see The Simpsons, South Park, The Daily Show—finally got to see one of their own play the hero, trouncing a Richard Dawkins–like adversary. (And saving his soul too.)

But God’s Not Dead also met with criticism from Christians and non-Christians alike; it became the poster child for what’s wrong with faith-based films. Viewers mocked the movie for its bad acting and poor writing, and they condemned it for its dumbed-down arguments about God’s existence and its caricatures of atheist villains.

Alissa Wilkinson, film critic for The New York Times (also a former critic at Christianity Today and my professor at the late King’s College) has commented extensively on the failures of God’s Not Dead. “It’s always been easy to poke holes in the movie’s fast-and-loose relationship with reality and its essential fantasy of persecution,” she wrote for Vox in 2019.

“The film heralded a future,” she continued, “one that has since arrived, where culture is fully bifurcated—where the streaming services you subscribe to can double as markers of identity, and where selecting the inspirational Christian option means making a proclamation about your politics.”

That future has indeed arrived—and so have more God’s Not Dead movies. In God’s Not Dead 2 (2016), a teacher fights for her right to talk about Jesus in the classroom; a law is passed requiring pastors to submit their sermons for government review. In God’s Not Dead: We the People (2021), government atheists attempt to ban homeschooling.

And now, one more: God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust premieres in theaters on September 12. In this iteration, the government will no longer fund a women’s shelter because a Bible study is held on its premises. Reverend Dave, whose church supports the shelter, is persuaded to run for office so he can allocate money appropriately. At the movie’s end, onscreen text tells audiences to “vote.” God’s Not Dead has come full circle—from the relatively small stakes of a classroom and a passing grade to a call for Christians to grasp political power.

If it’s not already obvious, I’m no fan of the God’s Not Dead movies. But that’s not because I dismiss the concerns that motivate them.

There’s some potential in the In God We Trust story. Reverend Dave’s dynamic with his reluctant political strategist, Lottie Jay, is a classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington setup. One scene, in which Lottie advises her candidate before a talk show appearance and he interrupts her to pray, got a genuine laugh out of me.

Imagine a well-made, Aaron Sorkin–esque, legal-political drama from the perspective of the Religious Right. Such a film might pose questions like: What does it look like to have Christian convictions in a pluralistic, secularizing nation? How do Christians in positions of authority bravely speak scriptural truth while also loving their neighbors well? These questions are far from irrelevant for evangelicals like me.

But God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust squanders any opportunity it might have to weigh in on them. Characters don’t dialogue with each other so much as trade ham-fisted buzzwords. The acting ranges from wooden to wildly over the top. The religious and political arguments are lazy and surface level.

And crucially, reality is distorted. The bad guys are motivated by a shallow hatred of religion as something that stands in the way of personal power. The media and government are so universally anti-Christian that even in a state like Arkansas, cynical Lottie tells Reverend Dave to stop discussing his faith.

These distortions matter. Embracing a caricature of your opponents’ views makes you ineffectual at both loving them and addressing their real concerns. On the flip side, thinking that any politician who speaks about God publicly must be honest makes you vulnerable to charlatans. Insisting that Christians on “our side” won’t be seduced by political power makes us less watchful.

It’s not that Christian claims of marginalization are wholly wrong. It’s that marginalization hasn’t happened in the way that God’s Not Dead warned it would. The original film implied that sending kids to college would endanger their faith—though actually, the college educated are among the most likely to attend church. The US government has not stripped Christians of their rights; in fact, in recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of religious liberty. (Though what constitutes free exercise is far from settled; see Bethany Christian Services’s recent suit against Michigan.)

Instead of facing outright persecution for being Christians, Christian marginalization is happening around particular social issues as our culture increasingly demands conformity on gender, sexuality, and abortion. Most US evangelicals aren’t suing the government or giving apologetics-laden speeches to defend the Incarnation; we aren’t being imprisoned for being caught with Bibles.

But many US evangelicals are facing pressure—in workplaces, schools, and other organizations—to either quietly go along with norms that are now increasingly taken for granted or else face accusations of bigotry. And as this cultural pressure increases, so too is legal or policy pressure for pro-life activists or parents who hold traditional views on gender.

It’s far simpler to wail about “Christian persecution” than to deal thoughtfully and faithfully with this reality. The problem with “simpler” is it doesn’t actually help Christians navigate their world. Perhaps that’s why God’s Not Dead has largely dropped out of mainstream relevance. Its last two movies were both distributed as Fathom Events (an alternative to a traditional release), and hardly any reviewers covered them.

There’s one exception to the rule of this franchise: God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness (2018). Reverend Dave works with his atheist brother to fight his church’s removal from school property but eventually realizes that his efforts are only contributing to hate and division on campus. He gives up the cause, even though he’s winning, and apologizes to everyone.

The movie is well written. It’s well acted. It portrays atheists sympathetically and gives them a chance to verbalize their legitimate grievances against Christians. In fact, you could argue that it went too far in the other direction, acting like any criticism believers faced was always their own fault.

What happened to the movie? Nobody liked it; it made only $7 million at the box office. And critics, both Christians and non-Christians, panned it. As Wilkinson put it, “In the end, this God’s Not Dead installment is just like the others: putting on a pious face but failing to imagine what real sacrifice might look like.”

I found most criticisms of the film to be “straining at gnats.” Giving up power is heroic, even if you wish someone gave up more. A Light in Darkness showed a willingness for Christians to start a dialogue, to apologize, to put down their defenses and listen. It began to make a case for the Christian way of doing things, with peacefulness and humility.

Ten years after its inception, it’s hard not to see the God’s Not Dead franchise as a wasted opportunity. The movies emerged at a time when Christians needed a way to wrestle with our decline in numbers and cultural influence. We needed stories about how to stand up for ourselves in the world as it really is without becoming what we’re fighting against. We still need those stories. Here’s to praying that in the next ten years, other storytellers come along who can do better.

Joseph Holmes is a Christian culture critic and host of the podcast The Overthinkers.

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Will Your Presidential Vote Send You to Hell?

by | Sep 11, 2024 | Uncategorized

This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

Since by nature of my work I’ve had to weigh in on a lot of controversial issues over the years, I’ve been cussed out a time or two. Sometimes, I’ve been yelled at with, “God damn you!” When an unbeliever says that, it’s one thing. Christians, though, mean it literally.

A family I know and love was rattled recently to get a note from someone they considered a longtime friend suggesting that the family was going to hell. The cause for the impending brimstone was not that the family denied the faith, embraced some heresy, or adopted some unrepentant life of immorality. At issue was that the family did not support a presidential candidate.

The note-sender put in all the provisions of “I’m only saying this because I love you,” which works for cruelty the same way “This doesn’t actually count as sex” works for people who want to sleep with each other without giving up their purity rings. Adding a “bless your heart” to the “God damn you” doesn’t really change it that much.

This sort of situation comes to me at least once a week these days and, in some ways, it’s jarringly new in our history. I can’t think of churches splitting over whether Dwight Eisenhower or Adlai Stevenson should sit in the Oval Office, for example. I can’t imagine family members refusing to speak to one another over who voted for Jimmy Carter and who for Gerald Ford. That has changed over the past decade or so, and some of us aren’t used to it yet. I pray we never will be.

Much of this has to do with larger divisions in American life—the polarization of the populace, the tribalization of the parties, the trivialization of politics itself. And some of it has to do with changes in the American church.

A market-driven religion seeks to appeal to “felt needs” and especially to what drives the passions of the people to whom it wants to appeal. When the concern is what happens after death or how to be forgiven of guilt, a market-driven religion emphasizes those things.

And when the market secularizes to caring more about how to thrive in the workforce or how to spice up a marriage, a market-driven religion will reflect that. When the market further secularizes to the point that what people want is “red meat” about why their political or ethnic or racial “enemies” are bad, a market-driven religion can do that too. And it has.

That’s why we end up with an American religion in which people can gladly partner with prosperity gospel teachers who would be thrown out of a Billy Sunday crusade, not to mention the Council of Nicaea. These same people simultaneously denounce as maybe-not-even-regenerate those who are orthodox on every article of the faith but who won’t violate their consciences on supporting political causes or candidates they believe to be wrong.

In a politicized, secularized American Christianity, some seem to think that the apostle’s admonition to make your calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10) has to do with posting the right pop-political opinions on social media.

We live in a time when religious experience has grown cold and dead, and political affiliation feels alive and invigorating. Plus, it’s easy. Trolling your neighbors on social media for their politics may cost you some self-respect, but you can budget for that.

On the other hand, bearing witness to Christ and persuading your neighbors to give their lives to him requires something of you. Modeling Christ in word and life for your Haitian immigrant neighbors fleeing violence and poverty will require you to interrupt your life and comfort. Reposting memes falsely accusing them of eating household pets—because somebody’s cousin’s friend from high school said they did—takes only a few seconds.

While this might feel new to many of us, we should recognize that it’s rooted in something very old: an Americanized version of one of the earliest heresies in the church.

Much of the New Testament, especially Paul’s letters to the churches in Rome and Galatia, addresses a dispute about what it means to follow Christ and to be united to him in faith. Those the apostles pronounced to be false teachers suggested that the Gentiles seeking to follow Christ must first become Jews, with the marks of circumcision and the observance of diets and days. Concerning the teachers who insisted on circumcision for these Gentiles, Paul wrote to the Galatians, “To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (2:5, ESV throughout).

For the apostle, those who added to the gospel were not thereby practicing addition but subtraction. A gospel of “Christ and” is another gospel altogether (1:6). Paul speaks of those who wish to add additional entrance requirements to the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected as “anathema,” as those who should be cursed (vv. 8–9). If one is united to Christ, the old categories are broken down, and people who ordinarily wouldn’t be united together—Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, zealot and tax collector—find themselves in this mystery where the only defining category is Christ and Christ alone (Col. 3:11).

The gospel, of course, works itself out in life—both in terms of how we live our lives personally and how we live our lives together, socially, culturally, and politically.

People can be committed, though, to the same goals of justice but differ as to how to get to them. The Bible mandates care for the poor. On some matters, the application is explicit and clear-cut: One should not exploit the pay of one’s laborers, for instance (James 5:1–6). On other matters, believers may disagree on exactly which public policies benefit the poor and what unintended consequences might actually hurt them. Somebody on that will likely be wrong. That’s why we have debate and moral persuasion.

Some Christians believe the pro-life vision of care for the unborn always requires voting for the Republican ticket, no matter what. Others believe the pro-life vision is harmed long-term by tying it to sexual anarchy, misogyny, contempt for the vulnerable, and mob violence. Some believe their consciences require them to vote for a candidate with whom they disagree, even on major issues, but who will respect the rule of law and the constitutional order. Others don’t believe they can vote for either candidate in good conscience.

As you know, I have very strong views on the presidential election. I have and will continue to make those views known. To do otherwise would be to violate my own conscience, and my own sense of what it means to love my country. Some people disagree with me—even up to half the country. I do not believe those viewpoints are morally or rationally equal, of course, or I wouldn’t hold the views I do.

That doesn’t mean, though, that I think that those who disagree with me are, by definition, not Christians. To do so would be to add to the requirement of faith in Christ a commitment to see the political and cultural stakes of the moment the way I do. That would be veering close to the Galatian heresy. And that, the Bible says, really does endanger our souls.

We have the obligation to speak out when support for any partisan movement or personality is conflated with Christianity itself. It’s especially odd when those who defend slaveholding or white supremacist Christians of the past as “men of their time” or as good Christians with “blind spots” are nonetheless willing to say that only those who vote the way they do can be genuine Christians.

More serious than all of the issues combined—more serious even than the future of the American Republic itself—is the conflation of the gospel with a human personality or power. When the church yawns at Trinitarian heresy or scoffs at what Jesus defines as the fruit of the Spirit but unites around a partisan identity, we are heading toward something closer to the imperial cult against which the risen Christ warned the first-century churches—congregations persecuted by that cult for refusing to say, “Caesar is Lord.” Decisions one makes on Election Day have implications for Judgment Day. But if we confuse one day for the other, we’ve lost more than an election. It’s bad enough when we say to our political opponents, metaphorically, “Go to hell.” It’s even worse when we think that’s the gospel.

Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.

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Pro-Life Voters Find Trump Disappointing—but Harris Even Worse

by | Sep 11, 2024 | Uncategorized

During the first presidential debate between former president Donald Trump and vice president Kamala Harris, both candidates spent a few minutes discussing abortion policy, yet pro-life Christians didn’t get the conviction or clarity they were hoping to hear. 

Trump twice declined to give a clear answer on whether he would veto a federal abortion ban should Congress pass one and reiterated that he believes abortion restrictions are best left to the states. Meanwhile, Harris said she would recodify Roe v. Wade if it came to her desk and didn’t say whether she supported any restrictions on abortion at all.

Trump appointed three of the US Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in 2022. During the debate, he referred to the justices’ “genius and heart and strength” and “courage” in the Dobbs decision.

He defended the moveas something the majority of Americans wanted—to be able to vote on the issue themselves state by state. 

“It’s a horrible place to plant your flag:, ‘Life is a state’s rights issue.’ No, it isn’t,” said Ryan Bomberger, founder of the conservative pro-life organization The Radiance Foundation. “Should civil rights have been a state’s rights issue? Because when that happened, it didn’t go well.”

Bomberger plans on voting for Trump but also said that seeing Republicans retreat on life has been “devastating.”

The discussion during this week’s debate reflected how pro-lifers have found their convictions on the sanctity of life sidelined by both major parties, with Republicans under Trump backing away from what has been a core voting issue for religious conservatives and Democrats doubling down on the right to abortion.

Trump didn’t voice any specific pro-life positions other than opposing abortion in the third trimester. He also sought to highlight Democrats’ extremism on abortion, accusing them of supporting “execution after birth” of babies.

Trump’s answer on a national abortion ban led to a back-and-forth with the moderator.

“If I could just get a yes or no, because your running mate, J. D. Vance, has said that you would veto if it did come to your desk,” ABC News moderator Linsey Davis asked, referencing a hypothetical national abortion ban. Getting such a bill over the finish line would require Republicans to control both chambers of Congress.

“I didn’t discuss it with J. D., in all fairness,” Trump said, then said that Vance might have a different view of the issue. Trump had previously also implied he wouldn’t sign a bill banning abortion nationwide.

“We’re headed back to this space where social conservatives aren’t sure what deal they’re getting with Donald Trump,” John Shelton, policy director for former vice president Mike Pence’s foundation, Advancing American Freedom, told CT.

Trump’s move toward the political center on abortion—or failure to speak with clarity about his position—means there is less of a contrast between the two parties when it comes to life.

“A lot of people are dispirited, demotivated,” Shelton said. Yet, “ultimately, you don’t necessarily have to trust that Trump is going to be great on this. You can just trust that Harris will be worse.”

On the debate stage, Trump said that bringing up whether Harris would sign a bill to codify abortion rights was a waste of time, since such a bill would require Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. “We don’t have to discuss it, because she’d never be able to get it,” he added.

Harris clarified that, should Congress pass a bill codifying a constitutional right to an abortion similar to Roe v. Wade while she was in office, she would sign it. She also came out swinging against states that have restricted or banned abortion. 

Some Christian pro-life leaders pushed back on how Harris brought faith into her responses, referencing couples who “pray and dream” of building a family with reproductive assistance and suggesting that religious beliefs can align with abortion protections.  

She emphasized the difficult position women are put in when they seek abortions and claimed, “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government, and Donald Trump, certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”

Harris declined to give any specific limitations she would support on abortion and expressed incredulity that abortions at nine months occur. “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion,” she said. “That isn’t happening; it’s insulting to the women of America.”

Trump referenced controversial comments by a former Virginia governor on third-trimester abortions. The majority of abortions take place in the first trimester (93%) with 6 percent occurring between 14 and 20 weeks and 1 percent performed at or after 21 weeks, according to Pew Research Center. The United States is one of a handful of countries that allows elective abortion past 20 weeks.

Since the Dobbs decision, a number of states have loosened restrictions or voted against placing more restrictions on abortion, including in Kentucky, Ohio, and Kansas, leading some politicians and strategists to blame these electoral losses on a backlash to Dobbs and the GOP’s overall position on abortion. Since then, national Republicans have sought to back away from the issue.

Currently, 63 percent of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. In contrast to other religious groups, a majority of white evangelicals oppose abortion, with 73 percent holding it should be illegal in all or most cases.

In July, the Republican Party watered down its previous position on abortion. It scrapped language that called for a national abortion ban, instead punting the issue to the states. 

“I have to admit I have serious scruples following the number of shifts in the GOP platform and the general messaging that has pretty overtly abandoned pro-lifers and social conservatives,” said Marlo Slayback, director of programs for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. She said some are optimistic that Trump might reverse course once elected, but others aren’t convinced.

“They fear this will mark the inflection point of the GOP that historically stood by the pro-life cause, that the pro-life issue and even other issues important to social conservatives, like traditional marriage, will be abandoned in a misguided effort to win elections as Americans adopt more liberal views on these issues,” Slayback, a young Catholic mom who describes herself as a single-issue voter on abortion and life issues, told CT.

Overall, committed pro-life voters are unsatisfied with the lack of urgency around abortion. Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Andrew Walker told Politico that he knows “not a small number” of conservative evangelicals who are not going to vote for Trump over the issue.

“Former President Donald Trump no longer has a convincing case for why pro-lifers should vote for him,” bioethics professor Charles Camosy, who is Catholic, wrote for The Atlantic.

Abortion will be on the ballot in ten states this November: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota.

In most cases, the ballot initiatives would amend the constitution in these states to remove or ease restrictions on abortion. Nebraska is an exception: Voters will consider dueling ballot initiatives, one that allows abortion up until fetal viability and another that would leave the state’s 12-week ban in place and continue to ban abortion in the second or third trimesters, with some exceptions. The amendment that gets the most votes will be implemented.

One of those states is Trump’s current state of residence. He had previously criticized Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis for the state’s current abortion policy, which limits abortion after six weeks, as “too short” and a “terrible mistake.” When asked about how Trump would vote on a state referendum that would codify access to abortion, the former president said he would “be voting that we need more than six weeks.” Later, he clarified that would not vote for Florida’s initiative.

After criticizing Trump’s shifting stances on abortion, Live Action founder Lila Rose, an evangelical-turned-Catholic activist, said she hoped Trump would change his mind and earn back pro-lifers’ votes. During the debate, she wrote on X that she was glad Trump didn’t confirm Vance’s remark that he’d veto a national ban.

Other evangelical leaders predicted that despite their concerns on the issue, religious conservatives would come home to the former president when it comes time to vote.

Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, told Religion News Service that Trump’s track record on abortion outweighs his rhetoric this election cycle: “While his position on abortion may not be as absolute as some would hope, it doesn’t change the fact that he has been the most pro-life president in my lifetime and is the only pro-life presidential candidate on the ballot this election.”

Faith & Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed said that evangelical support for Trump won’t waver because of Harris’s “extreme” positions on abortion.

Isaac Willour, a conservative commentator, analyst for Bowyer Research, and Pennsylvania voter, told CT he only expects defections if a second Trump administration actually expands “reproductive rights” and abortion access. 

“I think a large swath of the pro-life movement doesn’t follow the ins and outs of everything that Trump’s been saying the past four weeks,” he said. “If he wins and then governs in the way that Trump who showed up to the March for Life would … I think the pro-life movement will welcome him back with open arms.”

The post Pro-Life Voters Find Trump Disappointing—but Harris Even Worse appeared first on Christianity Today.