Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here

In the Trump era, a surprising number of evangelicals are rejecting modesty and turning toward the risqué.

The “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America” 2024 pinup calendar features old-school images of sexiness — bikinis, a red sports car, a bubble bath.

The models are influencers and aspiring politicians familiar to the very online pro-Trump right. In one image, a BlazeTV host in a short skirt lights a copy of The New York Times on fire with a cigar. Another model, the former N.R.A. spokeswoman Dana Loesch, hoists two rifles.

Published by a “woke-free beer” company hastily launched last year as an alternative to Bud Light, the calendar was clearly meant to provoke liberals. But when photos of it began circulating online in December, progressives did not pay much attention. Instead, it sparked a heated squabble on the right over whether “conservative dads” who happen to be Christians should reject the calendar on moral grounds, or embrace it as an irreverent win for the good guys.

Allie Beth Stuckey, an evangelical commentator and podcaster, condemned the calendar as “soft porn” marketed to married men, and saw it as proof of growing polarization between Christian and secular conservatism. Other prominent Christian conservatives joined her in expressing their disgust.

But the calendar itself suggested that Christian and secular conservatism are not exactly as distinct as Ms. Stuckey and others might wish. The calendar’s cover model, Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer and activist against transgender women’s participation in women’s sports, frequently speaks at church events and evangelical conferences, and frames her cause as a “spiritual battle.”