Every week, millions of Christians gather to worship and remember the tenets of the faith: belief in God, in Jesus Christ as his son and their savior, and in the Holy Spirit. Many utter the words of the Lord’s Prayer each week, and in doing so, ask that God forgive our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
These are the ABCs of the Christian faith — and they should theoretically be an easy answer to offer if, like President Donald Trump, you’re asked what might happen when you die, and what you might do when Judgment Day comes.
And yet, when asked last week by Ross Douthat on 60 Minutes where Trump thinks he’ll go when he dies — and if he could forgive his political enemies if his salvation depended on it — Trump was brutally honest.
“Well, I’m a religious person, so in theory I go to heaven,” the president said. “I hope so. I don’t want to go to hell.”
Could he forgive opponents like former FBI Director James Comey and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
“Well, then I wouldn’t be real, would I? I mean, if I said to you, sure, the easy answer to that is ‘Oh, yes, I could forgive,’” Trump told Douthat. “The answer is no. I want to be honest, no.”
“Before the judgment, no,” he said. “I do hate some of my enemies…I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”
The statements shook many Christians who watched clips or heard him say this on CBS. Perhaps the most interesting reaction has come from the religious right, from evangelicals, Catholics, and other Christians who have long sided with the president over the last decade of MAGA.
They’ve long defended him, seeing him and his movement as a vehicle to spread the Christian gospel and win policy victories, like banning abortion, restricting IVF, and fighting back against the rising tide of social progressivism. But in the wake of stunning losses for Republicans in last week’s midterm elections, when Trump’s grip on the GOP seems most tenuous, another crack seems to have emerged in his alliance with the Christian right.
And that’s because his answers essentially removed the plausible deniability of the argument that many Christians have used to justify their votes for Trump: that though an “imperfect vessel,” he was still a Christian, had received the gospel, and wants to be saved.
His close ally, the evangelical pastor Franklin Graham, explained the importance of the question (but did not directly address Trump’s forgiveness response) in a post on X: “Heaven has borders. Heaven has unique and very strict entrance requirements. To enter Heaven, the Bible tells us that you must acknowledge your sins, turn from them in repentance, and receive Jesus Christ by faith.” Trump’s response to the question about heaven, though, showed no understanding of these requirements.
“Religion can’t save you — only a relationship with the Savior, Jesus Christ, can save you,” Graham continued. “Do you have that assurance?”
In unambiguous terms, Trump basically said he doesn’t.
Why conservative Christians are actually divided over Trump this time
That someone like Graham, one of the most widely respected American evangelical leaders, would weigh in at all this time shows how serious the concerns are among conservative Christians. In previous moments this year, when Trump has similarly tested the religious right, it was easier to dismiss blasphemy, in part because it was directed at Catholics like Pope Leo XIV and his bishops (with whom politically conservative Catholics tend to have disagreements) , or could be dismissed as a joke — as when he shared AI art of himself as Jesus Christ. After strong backlash from evangelicals over that meme, he backed down and deleted the post.
This time, the criticism is coming from all over — from theological conservatives like the Eastern Orthodox Rod Dreher, from evangelicals and other Christians, from Catholics — and that’s because there are multiple problematic layers to his most recent polemic.
For the longest time, it was easier for Trump allies to say that though he was an imperfect sinner, Trump could still be saved, could still do good for their movement, or argue that he was still a Christian.
But that’s much harder to do when he is failing multiple tests — including the most important one for evangelicals: having and declaring a personal relationship and belief in Jesus Christ is kind of the main thing, the key to being able to call yourself a Christian and have hope of being saved at the hour of judgment. Being “religious” doesn’t get you to heaven; being saved by grace through faith in Christ does.
Graham summed it quickly when describing what it means to “receive Jesus Christ by faith”:
“That means, believe that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, that He paid the penalty for your sins by dying on a cross, was buried in a tomb, raised to life on the third day, and walked out of that tomb.”
That Trump was unable to say this to Douthat throws a wrench in one of the common defenses of the authenticity of Trump’s faith. And to some evangelicals, the fact Trump wasn’t able to say this was revelatory: a sign that none of the ministers, priests, pastors, or faithful who work for him have been able to convert his heart or help him be born-again.
The evangelical theologian Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it this way on his podcast on Monday: “It’s also very clear that [Trump] certainly needs to hear the gospel.”
He continued to say that he will be “praying for him, with a renewed sense of urgency, that he has an experience of grace that he comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ as savior, that he knows the forgiveness of sins.”
It’s that second point about forgiveness that got Trump in trouble with more Christians — forgiving your enemies, and praying for them, is one of the core tenets of the Christian faith, and of gospel teachings.
Dreher also referenced this part in his X post when he referred to “the pettiness and hatred in that man’s heart. He is literally a character in Dante’s Inferno. Despite being given so much in life, he hates his enemies more than he fears God.”
Now, none of this is to say that Trump has fully lost the Christian right — most of the evidence points to evangelical Christians and a collection of other Protestant, Mormon, and other Christians still backing him and the GOP in polling and elections, albeit by smaller shares than before.
But for the first time in the decade-long Trump era, his hold on this movement is precarious. After appearing to compromise on a range of priorities for them, he and the GOP have suffered a once-in-a-generation loss. Trump is now digging into a nihilist, “post-Christian” identity, in Dreher’s words, demonstrating he is unrepentant even in defeat. This all puts the religious right in uncharted waters.
Years ago, Douthat himself pondered what American politics and society might look like if the right gave up on God. Now, in the wake of political devastation for the right, he has presented a new question: What might the religious right look like if it gave up on Trump?
