White evangelicals, at least, voted in massive numbers for Donald Trump. Many of them were genuine churchgoers, though it's not always appreciated that 'evangelical' in the US is a social identifier like 'Church of England' used to be in the UK; it doesn't mean they go to church or even believe in God.
Evangelicals have had reason to wonder, though, whether they were just being used for their votes by someone who had every reason to tell them what they wanted to hear. Trump has already backtracked on some of the key commitments he made during the campaign – a register of Muslims, the total repeal of Obamacare and a wall on the US-Mexico border. But would he keep in with the evangelicals?
It seems so.
One of the members of Trump's evangelical advisory board formed during the campaign has told his congregation he is still speaking weekly to Trump. As Warren Throckmorton reports, Gateway Church's pastor Robert Morris said: "I did not share this with you before the election but I have been serving on a Spiritual Advisory Council to now President-elect Trump, for about three months. And we, for the past three months, every Monday morning we have a conference call. And my understanding is I don't know about the weekly conference call but he does want to continue with the Spiritual Advisory Council throughout his Presidency so I am grateful for that."
Others on the Spiritual Advisory Council, Morris says, are Dr Ben Carson, former senator Michele Bachmann, televangelist James Robison, Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and megachurch pastor Jack Graham, a two-time former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
It isn't entirely clear whether the Spiritual Advisory Council is the same as the Evangelical Executive Advisory Board (EEAB) announced in June. Some of the names are the same, but not all – Rodriguez is missing, and the June list is much longer.
One name on the EEAB, however, is causing deep alarm in educational circles. Jerry Falwell Jr, President of Liberty University, is being touted as a potential Trump pick to head the Department of Education. He met with Trump and Mike Pence, his Vice-President Elect, last week and told the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "I let them know one of my passions is reforming higher education and education in general.
"I told them I'd be willing – I have a lot of responsibilities here – but I'd be willing to serve in some capacity that sort of brings education back to some form of sanity."
He added: "I just want to do whatever I can to get the overbearing bureaucracy of the Department of Education off the backs of colleges and universities.
"I do have a lot of concerns about the way the Department of Education is operating."
Liberty University teaches creationism, the view that the world is only a few thousand years old. At present creationism cannot be taught as science in US public schools as it is held to be a religious belief; however, creationists have challenged this interpretation and Falwell would be expected to sympathise with them.
Conservative Christians have also clashed with the education system over issues around transgenderism and homosexuality, setting the scene for further battles if Falwell is appointed.
Falwell appears an unlikely appointment. However, while Trump is at an early stage in terms of picking his team, he has so far shown little sign of compromising on his choice of sometimes extreme right-wingers. Among these is Steve Bannon as head of strategy, formerly head of Breitbart News, who was described by President Obama's former faith adviser Michael Weir to Christian Today as "corrosive to our politics and whose views on various communities in America are a disgrace".
Trump's personal faith was an issue on the campaign trail, with the President-Elect taken to task for saying he had never asked for forgiveness and for his evident unfamiliarity with Scripture. Evangelical leader James Dobson described him as a "baby Christian who doesn't have a clue about how believers think, talk and act". However, many commentators have noted that Trump, who has no political experience and is unfamiliar with government, appears to reward loyalty; and against all reasonable expectations, evangelicals have been very loyal to him. Whether Falwell is appointed or not, the signs are that they will continue to have his ear.
