Donald Trump is not pleased with Christianity Today after the evangelical magazine called for his removal from office. As usual, his objections are less convincing than the thing he’s raging against.
“But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: 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 editor of Christianity Today wrote. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Perhaps anticipating what was to come next, the editorial also notes that Trump’s “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.”
And right on schedule, Trump tweeted, “A far left magazine, or very ‘progressive,’ as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather...” continuing “...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. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!”
Well, he’d have trouble reading ET, since Entertainment Tonight is a television show. As for Christianity Today, it’s a safe bet Trump only ever read it if aides gave him large-print photocopies of articles praising him.
But the editorial had also anticipated Trump’s response, preanswering it: “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? 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?”
Trump’s evangelical supporters don’t think morality or character matter, though. If they did, they wouldn’t be his supporters.