It’s wrong for evangelical Christians to support President Donald Trump against the Democrats’ partisan impeachment charade. That’s the basic argument offered by Christianity Today’s outgoing editor-in-chief Mark Galli in an editorial. Galli asserts, “The facts in this [impeachment] are unambiguous: The president attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Evidently, Galli has elected to both accept the Democrats’ partisan conjecture and unsubstantiated talking points as a substitute for actual evidence and facts, but to make matters worse he has used the CT platform to moralize the Democrats’ anti-Trump message.

While admitting to the blatant partisan and fundamentally unjust manner in which the House Democrats conducted their impeachment case against Trump, Galli dubiously claims that the only moral choice for Christians is to support Trump’s removal from office. “That [Trump] should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator and the Ten Commandments,” Galli writes.

So, swallowing the Democrats’ many demonstrably false assertions against Trump comports with the Ninth Commandment’s prohibition against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor? Furthermore, the broad-brush insinuation that Christians who support Trump and reject the assertion that he deserves to be impeached and removed from office are doing so out of blind “partisan loyalties” ironically smacks of blind anti-Trump partisan animus.

Taking a page from Hillary Clinton’s arrogant description of Trump supporters as “deplorables,” Galli insisted Trump supporters “often haven’t finished college, and if they have jobs (and apparently a lot of them don’t), they are blue-collar jobs or entry level work.”

Galli added, “I know hardly anyone, let alone any evangelical Christian who voted for Trump.” That is an astounding statement, revealing that he and his elitist CT editors, who are headquartered in a Chicago suburb, are isolated from blue-collar Americans.

Galli’s editorial resulted in a swift rebuke from evangelical Christian leaders nationwide.

Among Galli’s dissenters, is Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, whose father founded CT Magazine. Graham declared that his father “would be very disappointed” and “would not agree” with their editorial, explaining: “I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.”

So, according to Galli, Billy Graham is one of those “deplorables.”

Franklin Graham concluded that the CT editors are being “used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of [its readership].”

To that end, in a followup interview defending his elitist opinions, Galli insisted, “We want…everybody…of every variety of sexualities – we want them to prosper.” How many varieties would that be, Mr. Galli?

The fundamental flaw in Galli’s opinion is conflating support for Trump’s presidency with justification for his entire “blackened moral record.” Galli asks, “Can [Christians] say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?” But is that actually what Christians have been saying?

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins gave a cogent response that says otherwise: “Putting aside Galli’s holier-than-thou patronization, the underdeveloped political theology advanced here represents a failure to look at Trump’s record and the growing contrast between the two parties on life, family, and religious liberty. Although Galli recognizes Trump’s accomplishments in these areas, Galli goes on to say these positives do not compensate for Trump’s failings in other areas. And while President Trump is certainly not perfect, it is totally unfair to imply that support for Trump jeopardizes Christian witness to Christ when many Christians support the president because of his commitment to policies that are grounded in a biblical worldview. Not only is it unfair, but it betrays the prudence and measured judgment that Christians ought to be bringing to a broken world, and a political system which is not perfect but requires us to apply our faith in the best way we can.”

As Mark Alexander observes: “It is one thing to disagree with Trump’s history of moral lapses or his administration’s policies, but quite another for editors of an evangelical Christian publication to advocate for a purely political ruse to remove a president. Predictably, the Leftmedia has now found an evangelical Christian they love.”

In the end, Galli’s screed comes off as just another textbook example of the “orange man bad” polemic. It is merely a repackaging of Barack Obama’s condescending “wrong side of history” trope, only aimed at Christians. And we should all expect better from the publication started by Billy Graham.

(Responding to the firestorm over the Galli editorial, CT president Timothy Dalrymple attempted to cut a firebreak between Galli’s arrogant and detached assertions, and the magazines current leadership. In “The Flag in the Whirlwind,” Dalrymple attempts to answer the question, “Why our editor in chief spoke out against Trump,” and declared, “As an institution, Christianity Today has no interest in partisan politics.” He attempted to make that case by asserting his editors’ opinions are independent of the publication. Uh, no. Galli has announced he is resigning – and not a second too soon.)

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