Conclusion

Many present-day Protestant congregations are deeply involved in humanitarian projects—from feeding the homeless to promoting interracial and interfaith understanding. Yet when it comes to political behavior, white evangelicals remain overwhelmingly opposed to programs that benefit the less fortunate, or that run counter to the free market ethos of the modern Republican party. During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, a trio of failed reform campaigns by evangliecal elites—targeting climate change, foreign aid, and immigration, respectively—underscored the fragile nature of evangelical religious authority. In contrast to their postwar predecessors in the Protestant mainline, evangelical elites possess neither the intrinsic religious authority nor the institutional resources necessary to shape the political convictions of their followers. Instead, they serve at the pleasure of the rank and file.