Im almost embarrased to be jumping on the “donald trump” train of conversation here, but it is, as I mentioned last week, a car-crash-type spectacle that no matter how hard you might try you just cannot look away.

The most insightful thing I have heard regarding the reason for his reported evangelical base backing is from Robert Cunningham of Tates Creek Presbyterian;

I think we aren’t giving the convictions of evangelicals enough credit. They know enough to know what Trump is saying and doing is wrong, and yet they are still supporting him.

Why? Because we are never compelled by our ideals like we are by our loves. And when you look at Donald Trump through the shared loves of the evangelical Culture, he starts to make perfect sense.

What politicians and advertisers know that the church has forgotten, is that before we are thinkers we are lovers and desirers. Advertisers then offer us liturgies and practises that form us in deep ways, deeper than our thinking. In short, our affections can catch us before our intellect. Cunningham offers some ways in which the evangelical church practises may have contributed at a pre-cognitive level to the evangelical support of trump;

What happens when the liturgies of our greedy culture train evangelicals to love money and power? What happens when the liturgies of talk radio train evangelicals to love anger and paranoia? What happens when the liturgies of social media train evangelicals to love sensational sound bites more than thoughtful discourse? What happens when the liturgies of modern worship services train evangelicals to love novel, flashy, and glib emotional experiences that feel more like a rally than corporate worship? What happens when the conference culture of the church trains evangelicals to love the big celebrity leader? What happens when preaching that prioritizes relevant, shocking, and brash sermons trains evangelicals to love “tell it like it is” ranting? What happens when the liturgies from the days of the Moral Majority train evangelicals to love America as much as Jesus, which then leads to an incessant longing within churches to “make America great again!”

What happens? Evangelicals in love with Donald Trump happens.

and finally;

…what if the boisterous confidence and the television lights and the waving arms [of donald trump] are precisely what evangelicals have been trained to love? What if they can’t listen because they are enraptured? What if they applaud, not because Trump has given them a speech, but because Trump has given them what they love?