Evangelical tolerance of abuse predates Trump and is endemic to the movement, not expediency

Evidence

History, however, makes plain that evangelicals’ tendency to dismiss or deny cases of sexual misconduct and abuse, too, was nothing new. Reminiscent of the 1980s, the 2000s saw a spate of sex scandals topple evangelical leaders. In many cases, the abuse or misconduct stretched back years, even decades. Many of the men implicated in the abuse, or in covering up cases of abuse, were the same men who had been preaching militant masculinity, patriarchal authority, and female purity and submission. The frequency of these instances, and the tendency of evangelicals to diminish or dismiss cases of abuse in their own communities, suggests that evangelicals’ response to allegations of abuse in the era of Trump cannot be explained by political expediency alone. Rather, these tendencies appear to be endemic to the movement itself. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 626

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: the ‘endemic’ vs ‘expedient’ framing offers a testable distinction between viewing evangelical abuse tolerance as structural identity versus situational politics.