Christianity Today, the magazine founded by the late Billy Graham, renewed its criticism of US President Donald Trump in a new editorial that cited his “misuses of power” and asked fellow Christians to examine their loyalty to him, days after a controversial editorial that called for his impeachment.
The magazine, which has a circulation of 130,000 and 4.3 million monthly Web site viewers, in its editorial last week cited Trump’s “profoundly immoral” conduct in office, drawing immediate criticism from Trump and dozens of evangelical leaders.
Evangelicals have been a bedrock of support for the Republican president, and the magazine said in its new editorial published on Sunday that Trump “has done a lot of good for causes we all care about.”
However, magazine president Timothy Dalrymple wrote in the editorial, titled “The Flag in the Whirlwind,” that evangelicals’ embrace of Trump means being tied to his “rampant immorality, greed, and corruption; his divisiveness and race-baiting; his cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees.”
“With profound love and respect, we ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to consider whether they have given to Caesar what belongs only to God: their unconditional loyalty,” Dalrymple said.
The editorial praised the Trump administration’s judicial appointments, “advocacy of life, family, and religious liberty.”
However, it said: “It is one thing to praise his accomplishments; it is another to excuse and deny his obvious misuses of power.”
Dalrymple pledged to open up next year a “serious discussion about how our activity as Christians shapes our activity as citizens.”
He declined to be interviewed until after the Christmas holiday.
Evangelical Christians make up about 25 percent of the US population.
According to a Pew Research poll from January, 69 percent of white evangelicals approved of the job that Trump is doing, compared with 48 percent of white mainline Protestants and 12 percent of black Protestants.
On Friday next week, Trump is to hold an “Evangelicals for Trump coalition launch” in Miami.
Graham’s son, Franklin, had slammed the original Christianity Today editorial and said his father knew Trump, believed in him and voted for him, an endorsement that other family members dispute.
Dozens of evangelical leaders signed a letter criticizing the magazine’s impeachment call and Trump said on Twitter that he would stop reading the publication.
Christianity Today, founded in 1956, has a limited impact in the evangelical community, Lancaster Seminary New Testament professor Greg Carey said.
“Like other traditional media, their platform has fragmented, so I’m skeptical that they have the real punch to change a movement,” Carey added.
Still, the way Trump and others have pushed back showed the outlet is being heard.
“There are those who feel that a crack in that foundation [of evangelical support of Trump] is a threat” that needs to be patched, Carey said.
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