Evangelical Magazine Supports Impeachment and Removal

[Dill]

(12-21-2019, 03:49 AM)Benton Wrote: And that's something I think a lot of evangelicals are forgetting. To people outside the faith, one of the figureheads of evangelicals (trump) behaves consistently in opposition of how  Jesus asked his disciples to behave. For anyone who isnt a Christian and watching the recent political attempts to compare trump to Jesus, the desire to become a moral scumbag probably isn't appealing.

Some, at least, are remembering it now. Hence the CT editorial.

To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Most Christians, especially those who read the NT, are quite prepared to define what behavior is Christian and what is not. How could they teach it if they could not? They recognize there is no ethical or debate advantage in claiming not to  "judge" who really is Christian and who is not, as Christians have been doing exactly that for 2000 years. My parents would refuse to "judge" other Christians, or deny their Christianity--to a degree.  ("We don't say Catholics aren't Christian" they would say.) But neither they nor their friends would claim total (and crippling) inability to decide whether others were really Christian or not. I remember perusing Christian bookstores with all manner of books and pamphlets explaining why this or that sect (e.g., Mormons) were not really Christian.

I suspect that in many Evangelical families, it has become more and more difficult for the father/husband to explain to his wife and children why they have to uphold standards that their political champion trashes. The danger of claiming "god uses evil to do good" to justify short-term political advantage is becoming more and more apparent. Following someone as immoral and "ethically incompetent" as Trump while presuming not to judge his Christianity is to eviscerate Christianity of any ethical force claimed for it.