(RNS) — Though evangelical Christians make up just 2% of its population, Ukraine, a stronghold of Protestantism in Eastern Europe, is often referred to as the region’s “Bible Belt.” But since Russia’s full-scale invasion almost three years ago, Ukraine’s evangelical communities have made repeated appeals for American support, only to receive tepid backing from American conservatives generally and American evangelicals in particular.
A decade ago it was unthinkable that American evangelical leaders would not consider the fate of local evangelicals when staking out a position on American foreign policy, which evangelicals have long bent to their ends. As the Trump administration transforms U.S. foreign policy, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old guard of the religious right has lost its influence in Washington and in the hearts of those who attend their churches on Sunday, and a new Christian right is on the rise.
This phenomenon has been noticed for nearly a decade. The capture of the traditional evangelical vote by Donald Trump in 2016, the movement of many young conservatives away from Protestantism altogether and the emergence of “Theobros” and crunchy Gen Z tradwife influencers have introduced a new Christian right oriented toward international nationalism and less evangelical in its theology and worship.
Its worldview owes as much to Catholic integrationists and Silicon Valley futurists as it does to the evangelical revival movements going back to the 18th century. While firmly to the right of center, it is not reactionary, but progressive — even radical, to the extent that it seeks to reshape society.
Evangelicals’ response to President Trump’s actions over the past month says a lot about this new political Christianity. Their lack of protest to the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development shows that the Christian vanguard is invested in the idea that Christian civilization (which in their view includes Russia) is under attack and must shore up its borders and values rather than come to the aid of others. This view leaves little room for traditional conservative Christian concern for the Global South.
Its worldview is also radically pro-natalist, reflected in the muted Christian reaction to this week’s executive order supporting in vitro fertilization. Opposition to abortion and contraception have been hallmarks of conservative Christianity for decades, but the new Christian right goes beyond opposing anything that limits the number of births; it actively seeks to increase the birth rate by embracing IVF, or at least knuckling under to Trump’s championing of the process.
A demonstrator holds a poster reading “Real Americans Stand With Ukraine,” during a rally to protest President Donald Trump’s policies on Presidents Day, Feb. 17, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
Their responses to the Trump barrage also show that conservative Christians are not, as they’ve been accused of, cynically ignoring the parts of Trumpism that conflict with their theology merely in the hope of clinging to political power. The time when that theology was a significant political force has ceased to be. Instead of being guilty of hypocrisy or even “Christian nationalism” — a term so overused as to be meaningless — they have simply abandoned their former mission to win converts for Christ. There is no missionary zeal. Instead, “saved” are already inside the fold, and their zeal is for punishing those outside: those who have not bought into the paradigm of civilizational defense.
The latter even apparently includes the venerable evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which was forced to deny having received funds from USAID in a Feb. 14 article. To its credit, the magazine decried the stoppage in aid and the “catastrophic consequences not only for Christian ministries doing lifesaving work around the world but more importantly for the poor and vulnerable people they serve” that it will have.
The Ukrainian evangelical minority finds itself similarly alienated. The new Christian political class regards the Ukrainian evangelicals’ opposition to the Russian invasion as collusion with civilizational enemies. The old Christian right would have risen to their defense, because they would have seen them — all political considerations aside — as brothers.
What’s most stunning about American conservative Christians’ abandonment of Ukraine is that the grassroots of American evangelicalism has the most to lose should Russia be ultimately successful in Ukraine. Russia has been increasingly virulent in its persecution of religious nonconformists, particularly evangelicals.
But that is the shock of the new. Today’s Christian right is an unfamiliar force with its own distinct, and often unsettling, priorities.
(Katherine Kelaidis, a research associate at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England, is the author of “Holy Russia? Holy War?” and the forthcoming “The Fourth Reformation.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
