Yes, Republicans see Donald Trump as a man of faith. But there’s more to the story | Opinion

It was one of those jarring, did-you-hear-this headlines, like “Space Alien Gives Feng Shui Tips” or “Are Giant Gators On Your Street?”

But it was true.

It read: “Poll Finds More Republicans View Trump as a Person of Faith Than Pence or Romney.”

I had to click.

“Among Republicans, 53% said Trump was a person of faith, ahead of every other person on the list,” the New York-based HarrisX pollsters found in a survey of 1,002 registered voters.

Not only that: The Republicans polled don’t think most of Trump’s challengers are even half as religious.

The only exceptions: former Vice President Mike Pence, in a virtual tie behind Trump at 52%, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But even DeSantis was still considered a “man of faith” by less than half of Republicans, 47%.

I was shocked.

But there is one obvious answer for why those Republicans polled believe Trump must be a man of faith.

It doesn’t matter whether he goes to the same church.

He just seems to be on the same team.

“ ‘Faith’ in what or whom?” Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas wrote by email.

He’s campaigned and led opening prayers for Trump. Texas Monthly magazine called him “Trump’s Apostle.”

“At best,” Jeffress wrote, “this poll only confirms what we already know — a lot of people really like Donald Trump.”

Notably, evangelical Christian Republican voters broke sharply with other groups in the poll.

By 65%-37%, they saw Pence as a stronger “person of faith” than Trump.

Pence was also viewed as more faithful by mainline Christians and Roman Catholics.

Trump grew up in a Presbyterian church in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York and has talked about his family’s Scottish roots in the church. No one would mistake him for a regular attendee of services these days, but his faith was viewed as rock-solid by religiously unaffiliated Republicans, while Pence’s was widely doubted.

Showing how little most voters know about the other candidates, only 31% listed U.S. Sen. Tim Scott as a “person of faith.”

He is outspoken about Christianity and a member of a nondenominational evangelical church. Locally, it’s related to Milestone Church in Keller and Covenant Church in Colleyville.

“I don’t think many people actively deny that Tim Scott is a person of faith,” wrote Matthew Wilson, a political scientist and director of the Center for Faith and Learning at Southern Methodist University near Dallas.

“It’s just that most voters know very little about him.”

The same number of Republican voters polled rated former Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a United Methodist, as a person of faith. Alongside them was Ohio Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a follower of Hinduism.

Only 23% of Republican voters polled considered former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a person of faith.

That means their opinion of Christie as a Roman Catholic is worse than their opinion of President Joe Biden.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a member of an American Baptist Churches USA congregation, was considered a person of faith by only 12% of Republicans in the poll.

Suburban Fort Worth Republican Bruce Jacobson Jr., a Christian television executive, made a point about believers.

Christians are called to live in a way that reflects who Christ is, he wrote: “Are we loving, kind, merciful, compassionate, forgiving?

“We must not use tactics that foster divisiveness, destruction, slander, etc. ... That is the ‘lens’ we must look through as we consider who is the candidate who most represents Christian values. Is that Trump, Pence. DeSantis, etc. ... ? Now what or whom do you see?”

That shocking headline I saw also mentioned Mitt Romney, the U.S. senator from Utah and former Republican presidential nominee.

The poll was sponsored by the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

From 1986 to 1994, before his first Senate campaign, Romney was a church official and president of a subdivision in Boston. But Romney was viewed as a person of faith by only 35% of Republican voters polled, worse than he did with independents.

Samuel L. Perry, a sociology professor at the University of Oklahoma, writes often on Christianity’s emergence in populist and nationalist politics.

We view religion as holiness but it’s also “us-ness,” Perry wrote by email.

“The people with whom we identify religiously are those who represent and advocate for our tribe, our values, our place in the world. And by that definition, for Republicans at least, Trump is ‘religious.’ “

Good lord.