Evangelical Hypocrisy; Embracing Trumpism and Supporting International Adoption

A.J. Bryant
4 min readJun 2, 2021
Photo by Patricia McCarty from Pexels

Evangelical Christians supporting Trump while also advocating for transnational adoption make me ill. The two are incompatible.

In my experience, many white evangelicals are both proponents of international adoption and strong supporters of Trumpism. The data validates my personal experience. 80 percent of Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And more than 70 percent voted for him again in the 2020 elections. Evangelical Christians are the largest group of people who adopt internationally as well.

Many feel that they have a special calling from God to pursue foreign adoption. While others spend their time supporting it. The faithful believe babies need to be “rescued” globally. They push this narrative, raising money to create adoptive “forever families,” and they use poignant personal stories justifying their desire for adoption.

But at the same time, some downplay the daily vitriol that Trump and his acolytes spew about immigration and people from outside the United States.

I would call that blatant hypocrisy

The Christian-Right touts their Biblical bona-fides while also supporting Trumpism’s caustic immigration rhetoric. The two are discordant.

Evangelicals talk glowingly about all-encompassing love, but many fail to welcome outsiders. The same ones believe it’s their God-given mandate to create a family through foreign adoption. That mindset doesn’t make sense.

They miss the disconnect between the scriptural words;

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33–34)

And the hardline language Trumpism employs describing poor, desperate, asylum seekers. The contrast is glaring.

They excuse their nativism behind the veneer of liberal disdain

A.J. Bryant

Adopted from Kerala. I write about adoption, my intercultural marriage, and contemporary India. Prawns are my love language. @adoptedkeralite