> On a social note, it does feel as though (and I could be wrong) the seeming uptick in discussion about Christianity is because it is associated with the Trump/Republican/"How on earth did so many people vote for him?" question regarding US politics.
How do you figure? Trump is the least religious Republican candidate ever, and the Republicans today are far more accepting of LGBT issues than ever before.
Trump was elected by a working class that had been left behind by the status quo...
That's the contradiction: Donald Trump is indeed the least religious Republican candidate ever, with a wide variety of flaws and sins that might make Donald Trump less appealing for devotees of the Gospel ideas. Yet approximately 80% of evangelical Christians voted for him. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11...). Other religious identities were more split, but not evangelical Christianity.
I'm sure some of this was class issues. Anecdotally, of the people I know in the extended family that were both Trump supporters and of strong Christian faith, the Trump vote seemed either to be single-issue voting (eg abortion), or what I gathered was more just general cultural alignment. The later sort of ties into class: religion and class can go hand in hand.
The biggest question is whether this strong tie in America of "Christianity=evangelical", and the strong political stances this often evokes, damages the Christian brand overall here. It's possible: there's a pretty clear trend especially among younger people towards secularization, and seemingly hypocritical stances might be one of the reasons for this (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas...).
How do you figure? Trump is the least religious Republican candidate ever, and the Republicans today are far more accepting of LGBT issues than ever before.
Trump was elected by a working class that had been left behind by the status quo...