Tolkkinen: Western Minnesota votes against Christian nationalism

Steve Boyd wanted to bring America back to God.

Not through the pulpit or tent revivals or evangelical rallies, but through the halls of political power.

He wanted to change the culture of America.

“This is not just a political battle,” he told his supporters at the Church for the Harvest in Alexandria after the polls closed on Tuesday evening. “This is not just Republican versus Democrat, this is a spiritual battle. This is a good versus evil battle we’re in.”

Boyd seems like a good man. He’s sincere. He praised his supporters for waging a happy, kind, and enthusiastic campaign. But you can be good, sincere, and kind, and still be incredibly, devastatingly wrong. His Christian nationalist views proved unable to win over voters in Minnesota’s western congressional district to his cause, losing by 10,000 votes to incumbent Michelle Fischbach, herself one of the most conservative members of congress.

His campaign and subsequent loss, in such a conservative district, in my mind is a further sign of the waning appeal of the Christian right. His need to seek political power to spread his Christian message seems a tacit admission to the failings of the conservative evangelical church. It has lost on two major political fronts, in the Supreme Court approval of same-sex marriage, and in its key galvanizing cause, abortion, as voters in conservative states pass pro-choice measures. Even overturning Roe v. Wade has proved a tepid victory, as the number of abortions has risen since then.

Further proof of the decline of the Christian right is that its politics have driven away so many adherents, including me, that there’s a name for us: exvangelicals.

Three in 10 Americans are not affiliated with any religious organizations, while the U.S. population that identifies as Christian fell to 63% in 2021, down from 75% a decade prior, according to Pew Research. It’s not surprising that part of that decline occurred during former President Donald Trump’s time in office. Christians who were not sucked into the idea of our nation as the center of a spiritual battle scoffed at idea of Trump being a “baby Christian,” as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson claimed before the 2016 election.

The idea of waging a spiritual war carries with it a hint of menace. Christian symbols and flags showed up among Jan. 6 rioters at the U.S. Capitol.

Although Boyd comes across as a nice guy, he cozied up to Royce White, the now-Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by Amy Klobuchar. When I asked White recently why he talks on social media about punching people in the face, he said I probably objected because I was a woman. Men enjoy that kind of talk, he said. His perspective disrespects men as well as U.S. history. Imagine Benjamin Franklin punching Patrick Henry in the face during the Constitutional Convention. White is more flame-thrower than statesman, yet he draws support from evangelical Christians.

Like many conservative evangelicals, Boyd has said that he believes the 2020 election was stolen. Proof abounds that Trump lied about this, yet many conservative Christians seem not to care about factual truth. Fischbach deserves criticism here as well, as she voted in 2021 to decertify electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania, an anti-American move that she has never fully explained or apologized for.

Conservative thinkers categorize today’s conservatives into two camps: national conservatives or free conservatives. One of the differences between them is that the national conservatives believe the country is waging an “existential war for the soul of America,” as conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson put it in 2017.

In his election night comments, Boyd told his supporters, “We start taking back our nation, and restoring it back to a nation that honors God, a nation that honors the values that we were founded on, a nation that understands that we have a Constitution and we should actually follow it.”

Never mind that Americans have many different ideas about God, including whether God exists. And most of us are just as convinced we’re right about our beliefs as Boyd and his supporters are about theirs.

What Boyd and his supporters don’t seem to realize is that most Americans do not see the changes in society, such as the battle for rights and recognition of the LGBTQ community, as a spiritual battle. Freedom is not only for us, or people like us. The broadening of rights for all people is a deeply American thing to do. It’s not a repudiation of our founding values, but a fulfillment of them.