An Open Letter to Trump’s Evangelical Defenders

What Would Mr. French Have Us Do??

His main complaint is not that evangelicals begrudgingly voted for Trump, but that so many are still his cheerleaders every day, and are making all sorts of contorted excuses for his character, regularly trivializing conduct that both Christians and conservatives (Christian or not) have vocally disapproved of for decades.

He was not in favor of voting for Trump either, but that’s not what he’s talking about now.

As for voting, there is a huge middle ground between dewy eyed idealism (candidate must agree with me on nearly everything and have almost never made any mistakes) and crass pragmatism (whatever defeats the other guys is right, even if “our guy” is unfit for office and ruins what shaky reputation we had for an entire generation…or more). We need to find that middle again!

Trump was and is morally corrupt. But so was Hillary Clinton. She was also politically and even criminally corrupt. She had more baggage than all the major airlines combined. 2016 was not a presidential election where ‘personal morality and integrity’ was on the ballot. Not if you wanted your vote to have an actual say in the outcome.

What John E has gone through for his #nevertrump stand is something I have experienced as well, even though not to his degree.

For some people, the evangelical bandwagon is not just hitched to Trump, it’s absolutely married to him. And that’s a real problem because our purpose here isn’t to elect conservative people, it’s to introduce them to Jesus. And if Trump hinders that witness - which he absolutely does for some of the people that I have talked with - then Trump needs to be opposed for the higher good of the Cross.

[Jay]

…our purpose here isn’t to elect conservative people, it’s to introduce them to Jesus.

I think you’ll find very few here on SI who disagree, and in fact, even among those Christians who are truly rah-rah Trump supporters I know, they would say the same. I can’t speak for anyone else’s church here on SI, but at ours, we don’t preach support for the “value” of being right-leaning, nor against the “sin” of being left-leaning. We preach the Word and what is in there, and people can draw their own conclusions. We don’t do political rallies, or thinly-veiled “sermons” that are really political. If you visited our church, other than the fact we are between properties, and currently meet at a Ruritan club (meaning you can see a prominent US flag in the building, along with pro-armed forces pictures/plaques and similar memorabilia), unless you directly asked someone, you wouldn’t know who they support politically, because no one at our church makes the time at services about political ideas.

[Jay]

And if Trump hinders that witness - which he absolutely does for some of the people that I have talked with - then Trump needs to be opposed for the higher good of the Cross.

Well…no. I’m not going to just immediately agree with someone I’m trying to witness to that someone or something must be opposed/supported for them to give me an ear, though I’m willing to listen, and would definitely not defend anyone’s behaviors that are contrary to scripture. I’m going to stick to my own principles. I held my nose and voted for Trump, and in spite of all that’s happened in the almost 1.5 years since, I still think he’s better for the U.S. than the opposition would have been. In my mind, he’s neither the devil nor the 2nd coming, especially when none of the other choices are anything close to angels either. I can’t support his personal morals, obvious lying, etc., but I’m still very thankful that I put my trust in God, not the American president, no matter who is in office. He isn’t Nero, but Paul, who lived during Nero’s time, preached respect for government when such a leader was in power. I respected Obama even though I didn’t agree with his administration and opposed many of his policies, and I’ll do the same with this president. If Trump at some point decides his policy is again pro-choice or supports some other policy a Christian can’t support, then I’ll oppose that policy, but the man is in power because God put him there. As far as the next election, I’d like to have a better choice, but if the choices are similar to what was available in 2016, I suspect I’ll make a similar choice in my vote.

I am not a Trump supporter and did not vote for him. But I find interesting that many Christians, who are against Trump, are still searching for this perfect Christian to lead them and have the same qualifications that we see in Timothy. My take is that we should continue to expect the dwindling of morales from candidates, and the increasing hostility toward traditional Christian beliefs. Legislating morality has never worked long term and we see it increasingly falling apart. We are heading down the same path as every civilization that has ever existed on the face of this earth. America is not a theocracy and is not unique. It may have had a unique moment in history, but that has passed long time ago. The womanizing that Trump is accused of, has been significantly more open in past presidencies, but our memory as a nation is short lived. We are going to increasingly have to choose between very flawed people or do nothing at all. It is great to rally around fringe candidates or those who have no chance of winning. While I have despised much of what Trump has done, I can tell you two things that I am thankful for, that we would not have gotten with Clinton or voting for any other candidate. That is 1) a conservative Supreme Court Justice that will solidify what I view as a more rightful view of the Constitution for decades to come, and 2) some of the pro-business support that he has pushed for and signed. Having Clinton in office, and choosing a liberal Supreme Court Justice would have had significantly more detrimental impacts on society than dealing with Trump having had an affair a number of years ago with a porn star.

I didn’t so much vote for Trump as much as I voted against my local pols Pelosi and Spier. And will do so in 2020