COVID‐19 and Evangelical Christianity: Growing Distrust and Faith Among White Rural Americans.

Since the middle of the twentieth century, white rural Americans have suffered multiple forms of loss. Cycles of economic decline, population loss, and out‐migration on one side, and in‐migration, gentrification, and development on the other, have transformed the cultural, economic, and political landscapes of many rural communities. Amid this context, Evangelical Christian churches, especially non‐denominational and charismatic congregations, have emerged as critical meaning‐making institutions, enabling congregants to lament these grievances, interpret their losses, and envision an alternative future beyond governmental reach. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research conducted across Oregon between 2020–2022, this article underscores how the COVID‐19 pandemic inflamed feelings of loss and dispossession among white rural communities in the United States. Due to the perception of heightened governmental incursion through public health mandates, the pandemic hardened an already embedded "us" vs. "them" mentality among white rural populations in Oregon, whereby long‐time white residents perceived governmental and public health officials as menacing outsiders aiming to eliminate their autonomy and self‐determination. This environment of simmering distrust cemented the entrenched role of Evangelical Christianity as the medium through which residents simultaneously expressed their sense of governmental betrayal and advanced an alternative Christian‐based vision of health, authority, knowledge, and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]