Brody and Lamb’s book highlights everything wrong with the morphing of American evangelicalism into a post-Jesus cult of personality looking for salvation delivered by politicians?including its hypocrisy and sophistry regarding Trump and morality. The authors quote one evangelical
leader saying that evangelicals’ relationship with the president is authentic, not transactional. But a few chapters earlier, the same individual described a conference call he led with the Trump campaign’s evangelical advisers just after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which
Trump bragged about assaulting women. During that call, “all of us agreed to stand behind the candidate.” After all, Trump “had sacrificed his entire life, in my viewpoint, and supported us. How could we not support him?”

We can wink-wink at Trump’s misdeeds because he does good things for us. The authors actually write that “when assessing the faith of Donald Trump, the significance of the Neil Gorsuch nomination cannot be underestimated.” Really? That is essential to assessing
Trump’s faith? More than his sexual proclivities and adulteries, which are barely touched upon in the book? In a few spots in the book, the authors blame American culture for Trump’s sexual ethics, and in one passage, they even find a way to implicate evangelicals in Trump’s sexual behavior.
Follow the twisted logic: First, Brody and Lamb quote another biographer who says that “Clint Eastwood, James Bond, and Hugh Hefner” are the figures who dominate Trump’s self-image. Then we are told that Trump boasted about being a womanizer roughly around the same time that
Pierce Brosnan’s first James Bond movie came out. And who do we have to thank for Bond’s having a place in Trump’s mind? “Americans?including evangelicals?fund these culture-shaping products with their book purchases and ticket sales.” So if you’ve ever
seen a Bond movie, you’ve contributed to the culture that made Trump Trump.

More egregiously, in another passage the authors suggest that Trump’s rapacious libido is just his misguided quest for God. I wish I were kidding.
The authors prominently quote a character from a 1944 Bruce Marshall novel: “I still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.” Brody and Lamb’s book was printed before
the appearance of press reports about Trump having had sex with a porn star around the time his wife was giving birth to their son, but one gets the sense that the authors of The Faith of Donald Trump and the evangelical casuists they
quote would have no trouble spinning that infidelity as something unimportant or, in a roundabout way, even admirable.

When not justifying or shifting blame for Trump’s sexual escapades, the authors turn to anonymous sources to assure us that Donald Trump’s heart is not bent on greed. “These off-the-record friendly interviewees sense that
Trump’s ambition stems from a deep-rooted need to command respect.” It is certainly true that he enjoys receiving praise and respect?including from the book’s authors. One five-page chapter recounts a lunch at the Polo Bar in New York City
with one of the authors (Brody), his wife, and Trump. George Lucas, Ralph Lauren, and Michael J. Fox all come to Trump’s table to genuflect. Trump then brags to Oprah that he is meeting with the Christian Broadcasting Network. The chapter ends. Time and again
the authors boast about their access to Trump, giving away the game of just how Mean Girls evangelicalism has become.

While the authors praise Trump for his supposed authenticity in being willing to meet with them, Mitt Romney is criticized for talking to evangelical leaders through conference calls and national meetings: “Past Republican nominees like Mitt Romney