Feeding Christians to the Lions - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Feeding Christians to the Lions
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President Trump at the funeral service for the Rev. Billy Graham, March 3, 2018 (Wikimedia Commons)

The other day the media got very excited about an editorial in Christianity Today calling for Trump’s removal from office. The media normally instructs Christians to keep their faith out of politics. But suddenly pundits favor inserting faith into it. They quoted approvingly the editorial’s ludicrous line, “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

Wow, weighty stuff. But wait, isn’t Christianity Today in favor of watering the Ten Commandments down? And since when has the media cared about loyalty to the creator? I thought left-leaning evangelicals and their allies in the media were in favor of Christians compromising with the world. “Grow up,” they would say. “Be realistic.” But now they demand a doctrinaire approach to politics. Never mind that it would guarantee Christians are fed to the lions.

Be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves, Jesus Christ told his disciples. In dealing with enemies, in other words, prudence is not a vice and stupidity is not a virtue. The Christians who support Trump have simply sized up the opposition as far worse than him. Their support for Trump is really no more complicated than that.

In an attempt to bolster Christianity Today’s lame editorial, the media noted that Billy Graham had founded it. But Franklin Graham quickly pointed out that his father had voted for Donald Trump:

Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.

The media also neglected to mention Billy Graham’s friendship with Richard Nixon and his steadfast support for him during his many trials.

The question-begging quality of the editorial — it nowhere establishes that Trump’s behavior is impeachable and takes the most tendentious readings of it as undeniably true — is obvious. But even more striking about the editorial is its utter indifference to what Trump has actually done. Were this presidency a parable, Trump is far more like the good steward than the bad one. As Franklin Graham puts it,

The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that, to say it doesn’t count? The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Christianity Today feels he should be removed from office because of false accusations that the President emphatically denies.

The chattering class is no more interested in the “good of Christianity” than the “good of the GOP.” Beware whenever it offers unsolicited advice to Christians or Republicans; the advice is intended to destroy, not preserve. The media would like nothing more than to see Christians abandon Trump and fall into the hands of Democrats who seek to persecute them. The liberal Christians who join the media in that call do so not out of concern for the faith’s integrity but out of worldliness — a desire to ingratiate themselves with the liberal elite. Those same “progressive” Christians never call for opposition to the Joe Bidens of the world out of “loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.” On the contrary, they make excuses for pols whose pro-abortion policies routinely violate the Ten Commandments.

Talk about straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel. Christianity Today gets worked up about Trump’s tweets while ignoring his defense of the Ten Commandments. He is the most pro-life president since Reagan and has carved out a large space for Christians at a time when Dems sought to close it. After Obama, Christians needed a Constantine and found one in Trump. They bet on him and won — and an anti-Christian media can’t stand it.

George Neumayr
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George Neumayr, a senior editor at The American Spectator, is author most recently of The Biden Deception: Moderate, Opportunist, or the Democrats' Crypto-Socialist?
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