In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms

Axios editor Kole (The Big 100) unpacks in this impassioned treatise how the links between “guns, religion, and politics” have tightened in evangelical communities over the past 50 years. The author finds an inflection point in the late 1960s and early ’70s, as increasing support for the Vietnam War and skepticism of the civil rights movement pushed evangelicals away from the relative pacifism of mainline Protestantism and toward a militaristic Christianity epitomized by a “tough-guy ethos” and an “increasingly masculine, almost warrior-like view of Jesus.” That philosophy, Kole argues, set the stage for evangelicals’ increased affinity for firearms, which was fueled by notions of America as a Christian nation (and thus the Second Amendment as divinely inspired) and a perceived need to defend their beliefs and their embattled “standing in American life.” Noting that an embrace of violence repudiates Christian ethics of love and forgiveness, the author calls on readers to demand commonsense gun control reforms and on pastors to frame gun control as an extension of Jesus’s pacifist teachings. While Kole’s definition of evangelicalism can feel overly broad, he makes trenchant points about how fear, change, and social instability have altered the role of faith and identity in America. It’s a revealing window into the evolution of one of today’s most divisive social issues. (Oct.)