When it comes to Trump, evangelicals can’t have it both ways
As Christians celebrate the miracle of Christmas, let us all take a moment to reflect on what the magazine founded by evangelist Billy Graham, Christianity Today, just said about President Trump: “None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.” Finally. Only now, nearly three years into his presidency, are some in the evangelical Christian community beginning to face what should have always been a central issue for anyone trying to lead a moral life: what Christianity Today, in an editorial advocating Trump’s removal from office, called the president’s “bent and broken” character.
“To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve,” the editorial warned. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?”
The answer is no. Evangelicals cannot have it both ways. They can’t claim to be a clarion voice of Christian values in the public square while at the same time behaving in politics like amoral secularists. Why should anyone take them seriously if they talk the talk but won’t walk the walk?
I should note that we are talking primarily about white evangelicals, who form the core of Trump’s loyal base. I should also note that the president and his supporters, in reaction to the Christianity Today piece, are freaking out.
Trump squealed on Twitter, of course, calling the anti-abortion, pro-family magazine “far-left” and claiming its editors “would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close.”
The Trump campaign scheduled an event Jan. 3 in Miami billed as “Evangelicals for Trump.” Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Pence, went on the Sunday talk shows to trumpet Trump administration policies popular with evangelicals, including its uncritical support for Israel. And nearly 200 prominent evangelicals sent a letter to Christianity Today’s president protesting the editorial and reaffirming their support for Trump.
But all the huffing and puffing just focuses more attention on the editorial and its powerful argument. Written by editor-in-chief Mark Galli, the piece begins by endorsing some of the arguments made by Republicans against the process that led to Trump’s impeachment. “The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of suspicion,” Galli wrote. “And no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings.”
But the piece finds it “unambiguous” that Trump “attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents.” This is “profoundly immoral,” the editorial says, and Trump should be ousted either by the Senate at his trial or by the voters in November.
Trump would seem to have little to fear from the Senate, since Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear that the fix is in. The election is another story, however. Roughly 80% of white voters who self-identified as born-again or evangelical Christians chose
Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to exit polls. If that percentage falls in 2020, or if significant numbers of evangelicals decide to stay home on Election Day, Trump’s reelection is in serious trouble.
The president — who has “admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud,” Christianity Today noted — has sought to cement his relationship with evangelicals by encouraging them to see themselves as under siege. He went so far as to invent an imaginary “war on Christmas,” which he now claims to have won.
His evangelical enablers argue that we are all imperfect, we are all sinners, and, anyway, just look at all the anti-abortion judges Trump has appointed.
But come on. Can a Christian movement completely ignore morality? Can it pretend not to know the difference between a leader who strives to be good and one who doesn’t? Tell me: Where in the Bible does it say anything goes?