Two editorials in Christianity Today, one by Mark Galli, editor of the magazine, and the other by Timothy Dalrymple, president and CEO, rocked the evangelical world and sent waves into the secular media.
The off-quoted figure of white evangelicals who supported Donald Trump in 2016 is 81 percent. On December 19, Galli called for the removal of Trump from office following his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives. So many people tried to sign on to the magazine’s website, that it temporarily went down.
On December 22, Dalrymple wrote his own thoughtful opinion piece. He spoke of the reaction by the magazine’s readership to Galli’s editorial. Some readers were moved and said they no longer felt alone. Others were incensed and insulted.
Speaking of Galli, Dalrymple said: “While he does not speak for everyone in the ministry . . . he carries the editorial voice of the magazine. We support CT’s editorial independence and believe it’s vital to our mission for the editor in chief to speak out on the issues of the day.”
He went on to say, “We are happy to celebrate the positive things the administration has accomplished. The problem is that we as evangelicals are also associated with President Trump’s rampant immorality, greed, and corruption; his divisiveness and race-baiting; his cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees; and more. The problem is the wholeheartedness of the embrace.”
Long before Trump, some evangelicals shifted toward politics to enforce a religious agenda.
As white American evangelicals began to identify with political parties, their young people drifted away and attendance fell in their churches. Rightly or wrongly, they are associated in many people’s minds with a particular political agenda, not with the good news of Jesus.
A religion seeking to use secular power to enforce its beliefs almost always becomes corrupted by that power. Witness what happened to European Christianity during the Middle Ages. Eventually, religious wars devastated the continent and led to a weakening of the Christian faith.
In a democracy, individuals vote, and Christians certainly have the duty to vote wisely, and to become involved in government. But all human activity is subject to error and should be undertaken in humility and with respect for those who disagree. Holding up any political party as chosen by God is, I believe, a dangerous position.
Jesus knew the dangers of worshiping power. When people wanted to make him a king, he sent them away. When finally the time came for him to present himself publically, he entered Jerusalem, not on a charging white steed, but on a poor person’s donkey.
Christ’s model is not political power. It is healing and kindness and the embrace of outcasts. It remains the model for today.