U.S. presidential campaigns display the tension between faith-based conservative and progressive movements. Opposing political messages appeal to different religious ­impulses: inclusion or exclusion, mercy or judg­ment, restoring past greatness or seek­ing future justice.

This summer, evangelical Christians tightened their embrace of Donald Trump. The crowd at a Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., cheered the former president’s assurance that “I love you, Christians” and his prediction that in four years “it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

The temptation wasn’t subtle: Put your faith in me. I will gather as much power as I can for you. I will fulfill your dream of a Christian nation.

For some evangelicals, Trump’s vow to establish Christian sovereignty covers a multitude of sins, from his racist and sexist insulting of rivals to the Republican National Convention’s bizarre lineup featuring the wrestler Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt and bellowing about how much “real Americans” love Trump, followed by a prayer by the evangelist Franklin Graham.

Whether all the Christians Trump claims as his own actually love him matters less than their fierce loyalty. The irony of their allegiance lies in the mismatch of God’s supposed anointing of a man whose actions (inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol) and words (calling undocumented immigrants “savage monsters”) disdain democratic and Christian values.

A midsummer brush with death multiplied the religious fervor. After a would-be assassin’s bullet bloodied Trump’s ear at a rally in Pennsylvania, the word went forth from pulpits across the country that God had miraculously spared the former president’s life. The candidate himself attested: “I had God on my side.”

For their part, Democrats invoke religion more often than in the past. While conservative evangelicals embrace Trump as a Christian nationalist savior, progressive people of faith — including Christians who refuse to cede the term “evangelical” to the religious right — assert that God is not a Republican (or a Democrat) and that liberalism need not be secular.

An inclusive and compassionate expression of faith holds a unifying vision for a diverse nation. At the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, quoted the prophet Micah’s call to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. He called for people to care for one another, referring to Israelis and Palestinians, as well as people in Haiti, Congo and Ukraine, as “all God’s children.” As a pastor, he upheld the church’s role as the conscience of the state, as Martin Luther King Jr. said it should be. He appealed to the better angels of our nature, as President Abraham Lincoln once said, in contrast to Trump’s spiteful mockery and JD Vance’s denigrating of childless women.

In an election year, Anabaptists exercise our responsibilities as dual citizens of God’s kingdom and of a multifaith democracy. In a time when Americans’ political and religious identities have become closely entwined, we stand with those who reject a politicized faith. We believe it is a nonparti­san act to advocate for racial justice, economic equity and peace abroad. Conservative and progressive Anabaptists alike can find common ground in working for urgent moral causes like ending Israel’s war in Gaza.

Americans outside the right-wing Christian hothouse observe with alarm a version of Christianity that hungers for political power. They see Christians praising a man whose values could not be further from the gospel’s. They see a version of Christianity that fears the racial and religious diversity that is a nation’s strength. They see Christians seeking to impose their religious beliefs and ­cultural preferences on others. They see intolerance, cruelty and disrepect from those who ought to espouse humility, kindness and civility. Many will welcome any effort to bring the latter qualities to the campaign.