President Donald Trump continues to fail to take even the slightest criticism remotely well — and the same goes for some of his prominent evangelical Christian supporters like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr., who leads the conservative Christian Liberty University. Following a denunciation of Trump in an opinion piece in Christianity Today in which the editor-in-chief said Trump should be impeached and removed from office, both Graham and Falwell, who’ve publicly touted Trump numerous times before, publicly criticized the magazine as supposedly not representative of actual Christian sentiment. In other words, they’re willing to start intrareligious loyalty tests before they’re willing to admit even the slightest wrongdoing by their Dear Leader.
Once upon a time, Christianity Today was actually founded by Franklin’s father, the well-known evangelist Billy Graham. The Grahams no longer lead the magazine, and Franklin revealed this week that his late father even supported and voted for Trump.
Graham railed:
‘For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable. Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President. I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him… This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president? They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States… Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.’
My Response to Christianity Today:Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be…
Posted by Franklin Graham on Thursday, December 19, 2019
There is no actual evidence for political bias affecting the impeachment case against the president. The evidence against the president is public at this point — it’s all right there. He abruptly delayed military aid for Ukraine and his team told the country that “everything” that they wanted from the U.S. would be dependent on them investigating the Bidens. That’s incredibly straightforward. It’s not ambiguous. Yet, as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noted in his arguments closing impeachment debate — Republicans seem to be asking why we should care.
Falwell added:
‘Less than 20% of evangelicals supported @HillaryClinton in 2016 but now @CTmagazine has removed any doubt that they are part of the same 17% or so of liberal evangelicals who have preached social gospel for decades! CT unmasked!’
Less than 20% of evangelicals supported @HillaryClinton in 2016 but now @CTmagazine has removed any doubt that they are part of the same 17% or so of liberal evangelicals who have preached social gospel for decades! CT unmasked! https://t.co/O7WjyZSwiW
— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) December 20, 2019
Falwell actually has somewhat of a very personal stake in defending Trump’s corruption. As POLITICO notes, Trump’s former, now jailed “fixer” Michael Cohen “claimed that he had helped Falwell clean up racy “personal” photographs.”
Trump himself has also spoken out against Christianity Today, insisting that he won’t be reading them anytime soon — but that’s probably not exactly going to keep the editors up at night.
….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
Now, the impeachment case is slated to move to the Senate for a trial, but House Dems have said they’ll be waiting until they see some kind of fairness guaranteed by the Senate. It’s not going well: prominent Republicans including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) already explicitly said, in their words, that they would not be “impartial jurors.”
