Michael Wear, an ex–Obama administration official, certainly wants you to think so. Formerly the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Wear has joined forces with several other Evangelical figures to launch a new group opposed to Trump. Yahoo News reports that the group, called Public Faith, espouses a belief in pluralism while condemning “systematic racism:”
We believe that neither political withdrawal nor reinvigorated culture wars by Christians will help our nation and communities through the difficult challenges we face. Instead, we seek to offer a different voice: confident and hopeful, equally full of conviction and grace. As Christians, we believe that our faith has something essential to contribute in this moment.
This is a very nice bit of milquetoast. Its “vision” affirms a belief in religious liberty without defining the concept. It condemns racism without mentioning police brutality. It worries over economic inequality without promoting a raised national minimum wage or supporting health care reform. It admits climate change exists, but it won’t offer a solution to the problem. Public Faith only admits to having two specific policy positions: Opposition to abortion rights and marriage equality. Sure looks an awful lot like they’re reinvigorating culture wars!
Public Faith is evidence of Evangelical America’s ongoing identity crisis in the age of Trump. If Evangelicals really want to carve out a new political identity, they’ll have to do better than this.