One of the more surprising items from this election cycle has to be a recent national poll that found “more than half of Republicans see former President Donald Trump as a person of faith.” Now, I’m not saying Trump doesn’t have some semblance of faith in his belief system, but I have to admit a deep and abiding faith is not the first thought that comes to mind when I think about him, especially compared to, say, Mitt Romney, Mike Pence, and others in the GOP.
Say what you will about Romney (and it’s all probably true), but he’s been an active and lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). Then there’s former Vice President Mike Pence. He’s so faithful to the tenets of marriage and Christianity that he refuses to ever be alone in a room with another female.
The poll was conducted in early September by market research and consulting firm HarrisX for the Deseret News. The respondents were 1,002 registered voters, and there was “a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.”
Among Republicans, 53% said Trump was a person of faith, ahead of every other person on the list — although he was statistically tied with Pence, who came in at 52%.
Trump also led several of his other opponents in the Republican presidential primary, with 47% of Republican respondents saying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a person of faith, 31% for Sen. Tim Scott, 31% for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 30% for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and 22% for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Only 23% of Republicans said Biden is a person of faith, while 12% said the same of Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the poll, “Democrats were most likely to say Biden is a person of faith. He topped the list among registered Democratic voters at 63%.” That’s hard to believe since Biden spends more time on the beach in Delaware than he does in any one of the four Catholic churches within a mile of the White House.
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In his four years in office, did we ever see Trump and his family at church at any time that wasn’t for holidays or other political or personal reasons like a funeral? Can one have faith and not be religious? Absolutely. Can one have faith and not live it out? Of course. Those people, however, aren’t usually known for their faith.
It seems more likely that the respondents (by extrapolation, MAGA diehards) probably project their own faith onto him because of his deep love of America. If that’s the case, the question is, what is Trump’s faith in? Religion? Probably not. God? Maybe. America and Americans? Definitely. While such Americanism is all well and good (no matter what the Left says), it certainly doesn’t mean he’s “a person of faith.”
The traditional criteria to be seen as “a person of faith” involved being a person who is known for his devotion to a religion or a spiritual doctrine, as opposed to a person who doesn’t publicly identify or claim a religion. In other words, “a person of faith” is one who publicly follows religious principles and isn’t quiet about it. Can you name the denomination of Trump’s supposed faith? I can’t go beyond a general secular religiosity and occasional mention of God.
With two-thirds of Americans in the Deseret News/HarrisX poll, or 69%, saying religion is very or somewhat important in their lives, it isn’t surprising that voters want to see their party’s figureheads as people of faith.
This begs the question: what does being a “person of faith” really mean to Americans these days?
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