Epilogue: Swedish Evangelicalism and the American Religious Right (Or: Why Swedish Pentecostals Are Not Trumpists)

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the political preferences of Swedish and white US evangelicals. While the latter have been allied with the Republicans, the former have been more progressive. Drawing upon the scholarship of Donald Dayton, George Marsden, and Matthew Sutton, Halldorf concludes that the political identity of US evangelicals is shaped by an eschatological reorientation, paranoia over the Social Gospel, an anti-statist ideal, and a fear of socialism. Swedish evangelicals were part of an alliance of liberals and Social Democrats that worked to resolve the biggest political issues of the eighteenth century: economic inequalities and lack of democracy. Accordingly, they embraced progressive politics, including welfare. Further, they have been identified as religious minorities in a Lutheran, and later secular, nation. Unlike their American counterparts, Swedish evangelicals have always been dependent on pluralism and rejected the idea of a homogenous nation. This explains why Swedish evangelicals have embraced progressive politics but rejected nationalistic populism.