Media coverage often paints the Christian Right as monolithic, usually under the rubric of Christian nationalism. But, in fact, the movement has always been varied and not always of one mind on essential matters. Profound differences exist on a wide range of issues—from the role of the U.S. in Gaza to Donald Trump and the Epstein files.
But there are rifts that may not grab headlines yet remain important. Two are of special note for those who support a broad vision of social justice that includes religious freedom, reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, separation of church and state, and constitutional democracy itself.
LGBTQ + GOP
Rev. Matthew Trewhella, a militant anti-abortion leader, has launched an effort to highlight his claim that the late Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump, and the GOP have been too tolerant of homosexuality. It is a charge that runs deeply against the grain within the broader Christian Right, which Trewhella says has turned a blind eye to the role of LGBTQ+ people in and adjacent to the party. Trewhella’s claims also highlight a paradox within the movement, which embodies profoundly anti-LGBTQ policies at the state and federal levels.
Exhibit A in Trewhella’s indictment is that Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, has frequently platformed openly gay GOP voter-mobilization activist Scott Presler. Trewhella says Kirk gave Presler an estimated $5 million for electoral work in Wisconsin in 2024. (Trewhella may not have known it at the time, but Elon Musk kicked in $1 million to Presler’s Early Vote Action PAC in August 2024.)
In Trewhella’s view, collusion with openly gay figures is not merely hypocrisy among politicos who claim to promote Christian “family values.” He sees it as defiance of God’s law—for which there will be consequences.
Trewhella, who pastors an independent church in Wisconsin, is considered an elder statesman in the abortion abolitionist movement, which has gained considerable national reach.
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025, Trewhella called out the “deification” of the slain political leader, which he said, “had reached bizarre and idolatrous levels … pushed by the media, by the Republicans, by the conservatives, and by countless Christian ministries and individuals.”
“The churchmen,” he emphasized, “need to repent of using the current hoopla and virtue signaling for their own ends to promote themselves and their organizations.” But he didn’t stop there. He accused the GOP, Donald Trump, and Western Christianity of “platforming” openly gay people and promoting what he calls “homo sex.”
In an essay in which he called for the criminalization of homosexuality, he complained, “The form of Christianity we have in America and throughout the West is a hybrid—it is not true Christianity.” What’s more, he said that Western Christianity “is incapable of reforming itself—and as such God must judge and destroy it. Judgement has begun in the house of the Lord.”
Trewhella says the Bible calls for the death penalty for “the filth” of sodomy.
Immigration
Many leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a growing movement within Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity that generally seeks religious and political dominion, happen to be multiethnic, multiracial, and multinational and usually hold a very different view of immigration than the xenophobic elements of the Christian Right.
Apostle John Kelly of Fort Worth, Texas, who heads the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders, said in 2023 that many of the immigrants coming into Europe and North America are Pentecostals. He said Pentecostal migrants to Europe come mostly from Africa and that some of the largest churches in Europe have “apostolic leaders who refer to themselves as bishops or apostles.”
Similarly, he noted that “many” of the “illegal aliens” coming into the U.S. from Central America are Pentecostals, and that includes pastors. Of these, he added that “illegal aliens,” whose congregations are mostly migrants as well, lead 50 churches in the Dallas–Fort Worth area alone.
Apostle Joseph Mattera of New York, who identifies as “Puerto Rican and Italian,” wrote in his 2022 book, The Global Apostolic Movement & the Progress of the Gospel, that he doesn’t understand why many conservative evangelicals object to the immigration of Muslims and Latinos.”
Mattera wrote: “I am against illegal immigration, but will welcome and aid any illegal that comes to our church…. We have seen many Muslims come to Christ in our community through children’s outreaches, which have been able to provide aid to their families.”
The concern that leaders like Kelly and Mattera had for their communities before the second Trump administration has become more urgent in the face of abuses by ICE and other federal agencies. Indeed, the Committee of 100, a coalition of Republican oriented business and religious leaders, warned in February that aggressive immigration enforcement and economic dissatisfaction with the Trump administration they helped elect may erode the gains Republicans made with Latino voters in 2024.
Apostle Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and an adviser to Trump, claimed that 70% of Latino evangelicals who supported Trump because of his values are now facing a “moment of desperation.”
“The Latin Christian church is suffering in such a forceful way,” he warned. “A pastor of a well-known church said, ‘I’m going to have to close my church.’”
These rifts run deep and suggest the coalition of Christian conservatives that has powered Donald Trump’s election campaigns cannot hold. They also suggest opportunities for far more justice-minded religious and political leadership to emerge from the current crises.
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Frederick Clarkson is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive, social justice think tank in Somerville, Massachusetts.