This headline reminds me of a conversation between Napoleon and a Roman Catholic cardinal.

Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly burst out: "Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?" The cardinal, the anecdote goes, responded ruefully: "Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you."

First of all, there is no such thing as "the American Church". However, for the most part I can think of only three issues that heavily influence "Christian" voters.

The first issue is freedom to practice their religion. This freedom is one thing that brings Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even Atheists together. And during Covid, the mostly Democratic governors violated those rights repeatedly. Fortunately, in nearly every case, the religious groups won in court, but it served to put religious people on notice regarding the lack of sensitivity that many government officials have towards the importance to many of their right to practice religion freely.

A related issue is public education. Most Christians I know oppose public schools teaching a set of values beyond the shared values expressed in our Founding documents. Public schools should teach the core values associated with citizenship and families should teach their children the values that their family holds as important. There seems to be some confusion regarding the difference between publicly funded education and publicly "delivered" education. If public schools cannot avoid being political, then then parents need other choices.

Finally, there is abortion. How one feels about abortion can be influenced by many factors including one's religion. There are atheists that oppose abortion and there are Christians that support choice up until a woman enters labor. The decision to allow each state to determine what its abortion laws will be, does not sit well with people who are pro-life or pro-choice, but it is the way our societal contract is designed.