President Trump today went after Christianity Today after it published an editorial calling for his removal from office, saying the flagship evangelical magazine was “far left” and claiming it has been “doing poorly.”
The piece, attributed to Christianity Today Editor in Chief Mark Galli, notes that 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. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”
It continues: “We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. … To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence.”
Trump, as expected, didn’t take kindly to the editorial, tweeting:
“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 have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.”
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…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019
Trump added that “no president” before him has done more for the evangelical community and said he wouldn’t be reading the publication again.
….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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019
The editorial also issued a direct appeal to the magazine’s evangelical readers.
Cover of Dec. 2019 edition of Christianity Today.
“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. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior,” Galli wrote. “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.”
The editorial came as an unexpected move for the magazine, founded by Billy Graham in 1956, which normally avoids weighing in on the political conversation.
Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham who has often defended Trump, issued his own response on social media, saying his father wouldn’t have agreed with the editorial and would have been “disappointed” by it.
Graham criticized the publication for invoking his father’s name in the piece.
Graham also shared on Twitter that his father voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, something he said he felt the need to reveal following the Christianity Today editorial.
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable,” Graham wrote in a Facebook post, cheering the president for his accomplishments and for being ” the most pro-life president in modern history.”
The former casino owner who has been been married three times, admitted to committing numerous affairs, and been accused of making a hush payment to a porn star, has said he had never asked God for forgiveness.
“I think if I do something wrong, I think I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture,” Trump said.
“When we go to church and when I drink my little wine, which is about the only wine I drink, and have my little cracker, I guess that’s a form of asking for forgiveness.”
When he addressed students at Liberty University in 2016, members of the audience laughed at him for citing a passage from “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.”
Trump blamed Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, for the error.
In Trump’s bestselling book The Art of the Deal, which was published in 1987, he never mentions the importance of religion, faith, God, or the Bible in his life.
In fact, a search for the words “faith”, “religion”, “church”, “Christian”, “God”, “Jesus”, “Bible”, “Presbyterian” and “Protestant” yielded five combined hits.
None of the words were used in a religious context or in describing Trump’s spirituality.
The editorial came one day after the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against Trump for abusing his office in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructing the congressional inquiry into those dealings.
The House Democrats’ case centers on a July 25 call during which Trump asks Ukraine’s president to “look into” a debunked theory about Kyiv’s involvement in the 2016 Democratic National Committee hack as well as former Vice President Joe Biden — a 2020 presidential candidate — and his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly defended the call as “perfect” as he did in the tweets on Friday, accusing House Democrats of a partisan attempt to overturn the results of 2016 and damage him ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
The GOP-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump in a Senate trial come January, though House Democrats have said they will withhold the articles until they see what the process will look like in the upper chamber.