Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump

Anthony Comer; Laura Jacobi

doi:10.29333/ajqr/10853

Anthony Comer ¹ ^* , Laura Jacobi ¹

More Detail

AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 163-184

https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

OPEN ACCESS 2879 Views 1393 Downloads

Download Full Text (PDF)

Abstract

Evangelical Christians have always had a complex relationship with political issues in the United States, especially with the rise of the Christian right in the 1980s. Since 2017 the Trump presidency has amplified that complexity, presenting a new set of issues for consideration. With Festinger’s (1957) Cognitive Dissonance theory and Tajfel’s (1981) Social Identity theory as the foundation, this study examines how evangelical Christian pastors conceptualize their religious and political identities, and how they communicate with their congregants about political issues. Pastors act as crucial gatekeepers within their faith communities so they provide crucial insight into the evangelical community. Six pastors from a mid-sized, Midwestern university town were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Findings indicate pastors hold non-negotiable beliefs, distance themselves from political connotations of evangelicalism, and explain political values with religious values. When communicating with congregants, they reconcile competing values and respect differences but indicate their desire to follow God’s convictions.

Keywords: Social identity theory, cognitive dissonance theory, evangelical Christians, Donald Trump

References

Addai-Mununkum, R. (2018). Teacher Identity, Positionality and (Mis) Representation of Religion in the Ghanaian School Contexts: Insider/Outsider Case Study Perspectives. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 2(2), 40-59.
Anderton, C. (2011). A review of the religious identity/sexual orientation identity conflict literature: Revisiting Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 5(3-4), 259–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/15538605.2011.632745
Bagby, R. (1990). A comparative citation analysis of attribution theory and the theory of cognitive dissonance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16(2), 274–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167290162008
Boerl, C., & Donbavand, K. (2015). A God more powerful than yours: American evangelicals, politics, and the internet age. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bolstad, J. (2013). Tactical voting and party preferences: A test of cognitive dissonance theory. Political Behavior, 35(3), 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-012-9205-1
Brown, M. (2018). Donald Trump is not my savior: An evangelical leader speaks his mind about the man he supports as president. Destiny Image Publishers.
Burford, B. (2012). Group processes in medical education: learning from social identity theory. Medical Education, 46(2), 143–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04099.x
Burns, C. (2006). Cognitive dissonance theory and the induced‐compliance paradigm: Concerns for teaching Religious Studies. Teaching Theology & Religion, 9(1), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9647.2006.00255.x
Choi, B. (2017). Construction workers’ group norms and personal standards regarding safety behavior: Social Identity Theory perspective. Journal of Management in Engineering, 33(4), 4017001–. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000511
Constantine, G. R. (2017). The Biological Basis of Performativity of Identity-Linking Scientific Evidence to Social Theory. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 4(2), 88-95.
Davis, J., Love, T., & Fares, P. (2019). Collective Social Identity: Synthesizing Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory using digital data. Social Psychology Quarterly, 82(3), 254–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272519851025
Elo, S. & Kyngas, H. (2008). The qualitative content analysis process. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62(1), 107-115 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x
Fea, J. (2018). Believe me: The evangelical road to Donald Trump. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Fitzgerald, F. (2017). The evangelicals: The struggle to shape America. Simon & Schuster.
Glatz, T. (2012). A test of cognitive dissonance theory to explain parents’ reactions to youths’ alcohol intoxication. Family Relations, 61(4), 629–641. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00723.x
Gruber, M. (2003). Cognitive Dissonance Theory and motivation for change: A case study. Gastroenterology Nursing, 26(6), 242–245. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001610-200311000-00005
Gundlach, M. (2006). Understanding the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team performance through an integration of social identity theory and the social relations model. Human Relations, 59(12), 1603–1632. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726706073193
Hankins, B. (2008). American evangelicals a contemporary history of a mainstream religious movement. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Harris, T. & Steiner, R.J. (2018). Beyond the veil: A critique of white Christian rhetoric and racism in the age of Trump. Journal of Communication & Religion, 41, 1 p 33-45.
Heltzel, P. (2009). Jesus and justice: Evangelicals, race, and American politics. Yale University Press.
Hogg, M.A. (1995). A tale of two theories: A critical comparison of Identity Theory with Social Identity Theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58(4), 255–269. https://doi.org/10.2307/2787127
Holder, R., & Josephson, P. (2020). Donald Trump, White Evangelicals, and 2020: a Challenge for American Pluralism. (Author abstract). Society (New Brunswick), 57(5), 540–. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00525-z
Lakoff, R.T. (2017). The hollow man: Donald Trump, populism and post-truth politics. Journal of Language & Politics, 16, 4, p595-605 doi: 10.1075/jlp.17022.lak
Lincoln, S. Y. & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Long, H. (2016, October 13). Voters say this is the ultimate 'lesser of two evils' election. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/25/news/economy/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-lesser-of-two-evils/index.html
Margolis, M. (2019). Who wants to make America great again? Understanding evangelical support for Donald Trump. Politics and Religion, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048319000208
Marshden, G (2007) Wayward Christian soldiers: Freeing the gospel from political captivity. Oxford University Press.
Martí, G. (2019). The unexpected orthodoxy of Donald J. Trump: White evangelical support for the 45th President of the United States. Sociology of Religion, 80(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sry056
Martin, S. (2015). Recession resonance: How evangelical megachurch pastors promoted fiscal conservatism in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 18, p39-77 doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.18.1.0039
McGrath, A. (2020). Bringing cognitive dissonance theory into the scholarship of teaching and learning: Topics and questions in need of investigation. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 6(1), 84-90. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/10.1037/stl0000168
Medhurst, M. (2017). The religious rhetoric of anti-Trump evangelicals in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Res Rhetorica 2, p1-14.
Miller, D. (2019). The mystery of evangelical Trump support? Constellations, 26(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12351
Monk-Turner, E. (2020). White Evangelical activism and the gender divide in the 2016 Presidential Election. Society (New Brunswick), 57(1), 30–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00438-6
Myers, W. (2019). Following Trump. Theology Today, 76(2), 103–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040573619843893
Nicholls, S. B., & Rice, R. E. (2017). A dual-identity model of responses to deviance in online groups: Integrating Social Identity theory and Expectancy Violations theory. Communication Theory (1050-3293), 27(3), 243–268. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/10.1111/comt.12113
Onyalla, D. B. (2018). Ethnic Influence of Colleagues and Friends on Choices of News Media Channels: The Case of Catholic Church Leaders in Nairobi, Kenya. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 5(2), 140-158.
Reed, J. L. (2019). Religion and politics in the Anglican rhetorical tradition: The rhetoric of John Danforth and the challenge of a political via media. Journal of Communication & Religion, 42(1), 46–62.
Ribuffo, L. (2006). George W. Bush, the 'faith-based' presidency, and the latest 'evangelical menace'. Journal of American and Canadian Studies, 24, p. 17.
Salek, T. (2014). Faith turns political on the 2012 campaign trail: Mitt Romney, Franklin Graham, and the stigma of nontraditional religions in American politics. Communication Studies, 65(2), 174–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2013.851097
Scala, D. (2020). The skeptical faithful: How Trump gained momentum among evangelicals. Presidential Studies Quarterly 50(4).
Smith, D.T. (2016). Predicting acceptance of Mormons as Christians by religion and party identity. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(3), 783–795. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/10.1093/poq/nfw022
Strang, S. (2018). God and Donald Trump. Charisma Book Publishers.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories: Studies in social psychology. Cambridge University Press.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge University Press.
Vaidis, D. (2019). Respectable challenges to respectable theory: Cognitive dissonance theory requires conceptualization clarification and operational Tools. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1189–. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01189
Washington, E L. & Mullainathan, S. (2006). Sticking with your vote: Cognitive dissonance and voting. Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Wengraf, T. (2001). Qualitative research interviewing: Biographic narrative and semi-structured methods. Sage Publishing.
Williams, D. (2018). American Evangelical Politics before the Christian Right. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 69(2), 367–372. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046917000811

Citation

Comer, A., & Jacobi, L. (2021). Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 5(1), 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

Comer, A., and Jacobi, L. (2021). Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 5(1), pp. 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

Comer A, Jacobi L. Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2021;5(1), 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

Comer, Anthony, and Laura Jacobi. "Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump". American Journal of Qualitative Research 2021 5 no. 1 (2021): 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

Comer, Anthony et al. "Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump". American Journal of Qualitative Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 2021, pp. 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853

Comer A, Jacobi L. Navigating Evangelical Political Identity in the Era of Donald Trump. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2021;5(1):163-84. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/10853