Who'll win support of evangelicals?

In a presidential election year already distinguished for its bizarre twists and turns, one of the most intriguing questions is: Which Republican will lay claim to the conservative evangelical mantle?

As a recent Pew Research Center poll on faith and the campaign reveals, neither his past positions nor awkwardness around the Scriptures has eliminated mainline Presbyterian Donald Trump as a potential choice among some of the faithful. Pollsters found that half of white evangelical voters thought that the billionaire with the knack for self-aggrandizement would make a "great" or a "good" president — though a substantial minority think he'd be awful.

A more natural fit for this bloc would seem to be Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Southern Baptist and pastor's son. But last month, Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, the institution founded by his late father, endorsed Trump for president. He obviously doesn't speak for all, though, as the move was quickly condemned by other evangelical bigwigs, including Russell Moore, who heads the Southern Baptists' influential Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Once considered to be reliable Republican voters, evangelicals are increasingly at odds with each other on social justice issues like gay marriage and the death penalty, making their political choices even harder to handicap.

"Some conservative evangelicals — I am drawing a distinction from progressive evangelicals — are looking for the most godly person," says Christian ethicist David Gushee, head of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Mercer University. "Others are looking for the most seriously social conservative person. Others are looking for the one who sends the most explicitly evangelical signals in his/her speeches."

Of the three candidates who best fit those criteria, two (former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee) are gone and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is lagging in the polls.

Cruz may get the "lion's share" of evangelicals, says Gushee, because he offers appealing religiosity and social policy credentials, while supplying unyieldingly conservative stances on various domestic and foreign policy issues. "He seems strong and tough," Gushee says. "He is in government but antigovernment. He checks off a lot of boxes."

Trump, Gushee argues, seems to appeal to a different type of evangelical: lower-middle-class whites who may be less focused on personal religiosity. "If and when they go to church they are predominantly fundamentalist or evangelical churches, but they are not supporting Trump because of either their or his religion," he says.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is also making a spirited attempt to woo those same voters, says Gushee, who doesn't see much chance of either former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or Ohio Gov. John Kasich getting evangelical support.

Mark Tindall, head pastor of the 700-member Blue Route Vineyard Church in Delaware County, advises evangelical Christians to measure themselves against the Kingdom of God as described by Jesus. "I'm hard pressed to see Donald Trump being in line with that," he says.

"We can't just go by someone who says, 'I showed up at church during a campaign,'" Tindall adds. "They all do it, though. I'm tired of the religious right and left being played all the time. The question is, How do we take the circumstances that are presented to us and make wise choices?"

Tindall, who says his economically diverse congregation spans a spectrum of political views, is surprised by where things stand in the campaign. "I counted myself among the many people who thought Trump's early lead would decrease as people heard him talk," he said. "I still don't think \[a Trump presidency is\] going to happen, but how he has any traction at all does baffle me."

Whitney T. Kuniholm, who heads the Valley Forge-based ministry Scripture Union/USA, says some of that support stems from societal changes and the backlash against evangelicals in the wake of those changes.

For some, there is "an extra level of anger with regard to the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage," Kuniholm said. In attempting to balance fidelity to Scripture and loving and respectful behavior toward the LGBT community, "evangelicals have gotten a tsunami of accusations, sometimes implied, that anyone who believes that marriage is between a man and a woman is homophobic and bigoted."

As a result, he said, "some people are looking at all these points and saying, 'We're just mad.' That's what Trump is tapping into."

He, too, disagrees with Falwell's endorsement of Trump but would have the same reaction to the school's backing of any candidate.

"While they mean well, and care deeply, it compromises their higher purpose of evangelism," he says. "The very people they want to reach are going to be repelled by them."

Conservatives supporting Trump should ask themselves a fundamental question, Gushee says: Namely, does the candidate believe himself to be governed by constitutional restraints?

"I want to know if he would limit his actions under the rule of law," Gushee says. "I hope that evangelicals are thinking about this. It's about as important a consideration as it gets."

The primary this weekend in South Carolina, with its strong evangelical base, may offer a clearer glimpse of an evangelical favorite son as the candidates next head for the March 1 Super Tuesday voting. But don't count on it.

Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer in Glenmoore and a religion columnist for LNP Media Group. bellettrelliz@gmail.com