Dear God! Indeed

What is happening with the GOP? Trump's GOP is wackier than ever when it comes to religion. Can America survive it?

In February, in the great grim keep of the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense (WAR) convened one of his monthly prayer services and handed the lectern to Doug Wilson: a courtly, silver-bearded pastor from Moscow, Idaho, who would like to repeal a woman’s right to vote, recriminalize homosexuality, and gently reopen the closed case of slavery. Pete Hegseth, the former weekend cable host who now commands the largest military on earth, listened from the congregation. He worships at Wilson’s new Washington church. He is, in the argot of the movement, a sheep of the fold.

There was a time, and it was not long ago, when a scene like this would have detonated a career by lunchtime. That time has closed. This is the new social fact of American power: the fringe has been fitted for a decent suit and seated at the best table, and everyone at the table is pretending they always dressed this way.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, who charted this country in “Jesus and John Wayne,” will tell you that a decade a…