美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Presents Dilemma For Evangelical Women, Once Reliable GOP Voters

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Trump¹ Presents Dilemma² For Evangelical Women, Once Reliable GOP Voters

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Donald Trump's attitude towards women has become a big issue in this election. Trump has apologized for his comments about groping women in a 2005 recording⁴, and he's denied allegations of sexual assault. But it has exposed a simmering divide in the white evangelical community, a group that's been struggling with their response to Trump from the very beginning. NPR's Sarah McCammon reports.

SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE⁵: White evangelicals are reliable Republican voters. They also have a long history of demanding that politicians exemplify character and morality in public life. So for many, Donald Trump presents a moral dilemma. Some male evangelical leaders were quick to accept Trump's apology for his comments. They called on voters to stay focused on defeating Hillary Clinton. For some evangelical women, like Charmaine Yoest with the pro-Trump group American Values, Trump's apology was a good place to start.

CHARMAINE YOEST: You know, I think in a situation like this, you really can't overdo⁶ talking about how much you understand how people are feeling. You know, that's part of being a leader.

MCCAMMON: But for others, like Katelyn Beaty, the responses from some evangelical leaders exposed a lack of understanding.

KATELYN BEATY: Every church in America has women members sitting in their pews every Sunday for whom this is a deeply personal issue.

MCCAMMON: Beaty is an editor at Christianity Today magazine, which recently published an editorial critical of Trump. Speaking via Skype, Beaty pointed⁸ to prominent evangelical writers like Beth Moore and Jen Hatmaker who've recently called out male leaders as too quick to dismiss the whole thing.

SUSAN FLETCHER: I have been a victim of sexual harassment⁹ in the workplace. I've had my life made a living hell by a person who is in power over me.

MCCAMMON: Susan Fletcher of Colorado Springs is in her 30s and a staff historian with the evangelical ministry¹⁰, The Navigators. Fletcher says the rhetoric¹¹ she's hearing around sexual assault is disturbing to many evangelical women she knows.

FLETCHER: You know, the traditional, like, almost patriarchy of, you know, older, white evangelical men who are supporting and endorsing¹² him - there definitely is a huge disconnect.

MCCAMMON: Christian⁷ singer-songwriter Nichole Nordeman says she usually stays out of politics. But she's felt compelled to speak up this year.

NICHOLE NORDEMAN: I find it sickening that these men can face their congregations and their families and their college campuses and feel OK about trusting Donald Trump and still somehow explain it away through the lens of the teachings of Christ. It boggles my mind. It's baffling.

MCCAMMON: Speaking on Skype, Nordeman points out that some men, like Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore and Christian writer Max Lucado have been speaking out against Trump for months. When it comes to gender¹³, Nordeman thinks evangelicalism may be at a turning point.

NORDEMAN: I keep hearing the term Xvangelical (ph) thrown around quite a bit;. Just the sense that we are trying to find new language to define us as followers¹⁴ of Christ because this old term has felt unbelievably compromised by this election and by some of the old guard in evangelical leadership.

MCCAMMON: Katelyn Beaty of Christianity Today says there's a lot at stake for the evangelical old guard and how they address issues of gender.

BEATY: They risk losing their authority and, kind of, their trust with many evangelicals in this country, especially evangelical women.

MCCAMMON: Beaty says this rift¹⁵ that's been highlighted by the politics of 2016 is likely to continue long after the campaign is over.

Sarah McCammon, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF BON IVER SONG, "BETH/REST")