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The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/Support for Trump comes at a high cost for Christian witness.
PETER WEHNER - 7/5/19
Last week, Ralph Reed, the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s founder and chairman, told the group, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!”
Reed is partially right; for many evangelical Christians, there is no political figure whom they have loved more than Donald Trump.
I recently exchanged emails with a pro-Trump figure who attended the president’s reelection rally in Orlando, Florida, on June 18. (He spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, so as to avoid personal or professional repercussions.) He had interviewed scores of people, many of them evangelical Christians. “I have never witnessed the kind of excitement and enthusiasm for a political figure in my life,” he told me. “I honestly couldn’t believe the unwavering support they have. And to a person, it was all about ‘the fight.’ There is a very strong sense (I believe justified, you disagree) that he has been wronged. Wronged by Mueller, wronged by the media, wronged by the anti-Trump forces. A passionate belief that he never gets credit for anything.”
—
The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing development of the Trump era. How can a group that for decades—and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency—insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him? Why are those who have been on the vanguard of “family values” so eager to give a man with a sordid personal and sexual history a mulligan?
—-
While on the Pacific Coast last week, I had lunch with Karel Coppock, whom I have known for many years and who has played an important role in my Christian pilgrimage. In speaking about the widespread, reflexive evangelical support for the president, Coppock—who is theologically orthodox and generally sympathetic to conservatism—lamented the effect this moral freak show is having, especially on the younger generation. With unusual passion, he told me, “We’re losing an entire generation. They’re just gone. It’s one of the worst things to happen to the Church.”
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40 replies
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I'll 
to that!
The more they support Trump and the murderous dictators popping up all over the world, the more they will lose us. 
Reason for celebration!!! 
White evangelicals are their own worst enemy, and rightly so.
Why do they so enthusiastically support an amoral sexual predator like Donald Trump?
That should be obvious; he represents their REAL values -- white privilege, paternalism over women, and the selfish glorification of wealth.
They reveal themselves to be the worst kind of hypocrites, which is why so many young people are being turned off to their brand of religion.
The worst hypocrite of all, perhaps, is Mike Pence:
Mike Pence's Towering Hypocrisy
The presidency's "powers are vast and consequential, its requirements -- from the outset and by definition -- impossible for mortals to fulfill without humility and insistent attention to its purposes as set forth in the Constitution of the United States," declared Pence, his gaze steely and his jaw firmly set. Of power, he said, "Those who are entrusted with it must educate themselves in self-restraint."
"A true statesman lives in what Churchill called a continuous 'stress of soul,'" Pence informed his audience. "And that's why you must always be wary of a president who seems to float upon his own greatness."
Pence told a story to illustrate the humanity and humility of Calvin Coolidge. "A sensibility like this -- and not power -- is the source of presidential dignity, and it must be restored," he said. "It depends entirely upon character, self-discipline and an understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie not only the republic but life itself.
"It communicates that the president feels the gravity of his office and is willing to sacrifice himself, that his eye is not upon his own prospects but upon the storm of history, through which it is his responsibility to navigate with the specific powers accorded to him and the limitations placed upon them not merely by man but by God."
The presidency's "powers are vast and consequential, its requirements -- from the outset and by definition -- impossible for mortals to fulfill without humility and insistent attention to its purposes as set forth in the Constitution of the United States," declared Pence, his gaze steely and his jaw firmly set. Of power, he said, "Those who are entrusted with it must educate themselves in self-restraint."
"A true statesman lives in what Churchill called a continuous 'stress of soul,'" Pence informed his audience. "And that's why you must always be wary of a president who seems to float upon his own greatness."
Pence told a story to illustrate the humanity and humility of Calvin Coolidge. "A sensibility like this -- and not power -- is the source of presidential dignity, and it must be restored," he said. "It depends entirely upon character, self-discipline and an understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie not only the republic but life itself.
"It communicates that the president feels the gravity of his office and is willing to sacrifice himself, that his eye is not upon his own prospects but upon the storm of history, through which it is his responsibility to navigate with the specific powers accorded to him and the limitations placed upon them not merely by man but by God."
Donald Trump is the antithesis of every virtue Pence insisted is required in a president, and yet Mike Pence supplicates himself as a bootlicking sycophant to the orange abomination.
