{"id":40416,"date":"2019-12-21T21:20:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T21:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40416"},"modified":"2019-12-21T21:20:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T21:20:29","slug":"who-would-have-thought-it-evangelical-leaders-rally-behind-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40416","title":{"rendered":"Who would have thought it? Evangelical leaders rally behind Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23evangelicalmovement%20%23ChristianityToday%20%23BillyGraham%20%23FranklinGraham%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_40388\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40388\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/donald-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40388\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/donald-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/donald-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/donald-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/donald-1.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-40388\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Donald J. Trump has just received a well-deserved roasting from Christianity Today, a mainstream magazine founded by the late, great Rev. Billy Graham.<\/p>\n<p>The publication calls Trump &#8220;profoundly immoral&#8221; and declared its belief that he needs to be kicked out of office.<\/p>\n<p>The reaction to the magazine&#8217;s blistering critique? What did current evangelical leaders say and do? They&#8217;re standing behind Trump. They aren&#8217;t criticizing the magazine&#8217;s assertions, per se. They just want their guy to remain in office so he can appoint conservative judges to the federal bench and push policies with which they are most comfortable.<\/p>\n<p>There you have it. Politics and policy mean more to these folks than the behavior, the history and the proclivities of the individual who is their champion.<\/p>\n<p>According to the New York Times: <em>The response from his leading Christian supporters was laced with animosity that mimicked Mr. Trump&#8217;s signature style, and reflected the extent to which they have moved into lock step with him, even in rhetoric.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>None of this is a big surprise. Christianity Today has become almost quaint in its mainstream view of Christianity. As the editor in chief, Mark Galli, has noted, evangelical Christianity is a &#8220;diverse&#8221; group that comprises faithful believers of all stripes and political persuasions. The politically active evangelical movement doesn&#8217;t seem to mirror that big-tent view.<\/p>\n<p>Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, says his father would be &#8220;disappointed&#8221; in the publication he founded. I believe he would be even more disappointed in the highly partisan posture his son has assumed, given Billy Graham&#8217;s aversion to such overt political activity.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the editorial is worth reading. It is worth studying. It is worth heeding.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2019\/december-web-only\/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html\">It&#8217;s a beaut.<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23evangelicalmovement%20%23ChristianityToday%20%23BillyGraham%20%23FranklinGraham%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald J. Trump has just received a well-deserved roasting from Christianity Today, a mainstream magazine founded by the late, great Rev. Billy Graham. The publication calls Trump &#8220;profoundly immoral&#8221; and declared its belief that he needs to be kicked out of office. The reaction to the magazine&#8217;s blistering critique? What did current evangelical leaders say &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40416\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Who would have thought it? Evangelical leaders rally behind Trump<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[5805,9105,1424,7210,5804],"class_list":["post-40416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","category-religious-news","tag-billy-graham","tag-christianity-today","tag-donald-trump","tag-evangelical-movement","tag-franklin-graham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40417,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40416\/revisions\/40417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}