Trump, as I wrote about yesterday, is embroiled with Christianity Today (CT), and, arguably, evangelical Christianity. Whether or not CT represents evangelical Christianity or not is another question. But, like it or not, a whole can of worms has opened up for him. Mark Galli from CT, who wrote the op-ed, was interviewed by CNN, and it is worth a watch:
Chris Cuomo locked horns with evangelical talkshow host Eric Metaxas, starting on this topic, and then moving onto abortion. What made me nod my head in understanding in this interview was when evangelical Eric Metaxas talked about justification for supporting Trump.
Metaxas likened it to his airline pilot having tattoos and being on his fourth wife, but being an amazing pilot; he would prefer a pilot being married for forty years to the same woman, but you have to think long and hard about “what matters”. As I have said many times, this is consequentialism of the highest order. I would love it if evangelicals owned up to such obvious moral consequentialism, and then looked at theological morality with the same light and framework. Double standards.
At about 9 minutes, Cuomo challenges Metaxas on character, and this was also revealing. As Cuomo points out, evangelicals used to say “character counts”, and Metaxas basically denies this. Unfortunately, Metaxas doesn’t quite answer when Cuomo challenges him on whether Trump practices mercy and love.
This all comes after Trump really distastefully implied in his latest rally that the later longest-ever-serving congressman John Dingell was staring up at them from hell. Even the crowd didn’t quite know how to take it, and Dingell’s wife and congresswoman remained nothing if not dignified and professional:
This was not well received by even Conservative media commentators:
In other Trump news, military personnel seem to be deserting support for Trump, largely on the back of his disastrous decisions regarding Syria. Another interesting point here is that Bernie Sanders is receiving more funding through donations from military personnel than the next 3 top Democrat candidates AND Trump combined:
Whether or not these absolute humdingers make any longterm dents in his approval rating from his core supporters is another thing. I am certainly interested to see what evangelicals on the ground think in terms of Trump’s behaviour. It is one thing to have the CT produce an op-ed against Trump, but quite another for the general evangelical public to openly show any kind of disdain.
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