WASHINGTON, Dec 21, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump lashed out
on Friday at a leading evangelical Christian publication after it published a
scathing editorial that branded him morally unfit to remain in the White
House.
Trump, in a series of tweets, accused Christianity Today magazine of being
“far left” and claimed he was the best ally evangelicals have ever had as
president.
“The fact is, no President has ever done what I have done for Evangelicals,
or religion itself!” Trump said.
Christianity Today “would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants
to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President,” he
said.
The magazine, a day after Trump was impeached by the House of
Representatives, said it was “necessary from time to time to make our own
opinions on political matters clear.”
“The facts in this instance are unambiguous,” it said in a reference to
Trump’s bid to obtain political dirt from Ukraine on his potential 2020
election rival, Democrat Joe Biden.
“The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to
coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s
political opponents,” the magazine said.
“That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is
profoundly immoral.”
Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham, a prominent Christian
evangelist who died last year, but the Graham family is no longer associated
with the publication.
Franklin Graham, the late Baptist minister’s son, is also an influential
Christian evangelical leader and a staunch Trump supporter and he denounced
Christianity Today on Friday.
“Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would
not agree with their opinion piece,” Graham said in a Facebook post. “In
fact, he would be very disappointed.
“My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for
Donald Trump,” Graham said. “He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for
this hour in history for our nation.”
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally
partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable,”
Graham added. “It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and
is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.”
– ‘Broken character’ –
Another prominent evangelical leader, Jerry Falwell Jr, issued a series of
tweets in support of Trump.
Trump tweeted his thanks to Graham for his support and “the work we have
all done together!”
The Trump re-election campaign also announced plans to hold an
“Evangelicals for Trump” event in Miami on January 3.
Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, which has a circulation
of 130,000, rejected the president’s assertion the magazine was “far left.”
“Most people consider us a pretty centrist magazine in the evangelical
world,” Galli told CNN.
Christianity Today said Trump “has admitted to immoral actions in business
and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud.”
“His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of
mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders — is a near perfect example of a
human being who is morally lost and confused,” it said.
The magazine added: “Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his
Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship
of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their
support.”
But Trump’s moral failings outweighed those considerations.
“Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot
be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken
character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?”
Christianity Today said.
The magazine described the debate among Trump critics over whether to
remove him by impeachment or via the next election as “a matter of prudential
judgment.”
“That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan
loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments,” it concluded.
Trump has enjoyed solid support from white evangelical Christians although
a Fox News poll in October found that those backing him had slipped from 81
percent in the 2016 election to around 70 percent now.