“There’s a conflict of worldviews, and it’s really serious,” said Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a group of culturally and socially conservative women. When the next president is faced with a life-or-death decision, she added, it is important to know that he or she will “get down on their knees and seek God’s direction.”

That is not something she said she can imagine Mr. Trump doing. “It’s important to us that where you’re drawing your worldview, your compass, it’s not just based on your gut,” Ms. Nance said. “We don’t think anyone is that blessed or thoughtful or smart. We think you need God.”…

Still, among conservatives, Mr. Trump has his defenders, which is sometimes puzzling to those on the right who try to call him out.

“I, for the life of me, can’t figure it out,” said Josh Kimbrell, host of a conservative, Christian-oriented radio program broadcast from Greenville, S.C.

Mr. Kimbrell said that whenever he is hard on Mr. Trump on the air, he gets pushback from some of his listeners almost immediately. “It’s almost like willful disbelief that the guy is a conservative,” he said.