From January, 2018

It has been the one thing that I've never been able to wrap my brain around: the evangelical support for Donald J. Trump. And Franklin Graham, the son of "America's Preacher" Billy Graham, has been at the forefront of that support.

Now one would suppose that having an extramarital affair with a porn star while your wife is home recovering from having your baby might make a Christian a little uncomfortable. But not Graham.

"I don’t have concern, in a sense, because these things happened many years ago — and there’s such bigger problems in front of us as a nation that we need to be dealing with than other things in his life a long time ago. I think some of these things — that’s for him and his wife to deal with. I think when the country went after President Clinton, the Republicans, that was a great mistake that should never have happened. And I think this thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business. And we’ve got other business at hand that we need to deal with."

Funny that comment about Clinton there. Because Graham was not so sanguine back in 1998, where he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, assuring us that Clinton's Sins Aren't Private:

If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?

Private conduct does have public consequences.

Has he had a "come to Jesus" moment (pardon the pun) about the private lives of politicians? Of course not. Graham simply reveals himself as a Republican tribalist above all else, including his Christian faith.

John Pavlovitz, of the Good Men Project, has noticed that Trump has caused many religious leaders to walk away from the words of Christ in favor of stumping for a cheating, lying, grifting, dementia-riddled, gluttonous, narcissistic, misogynist, racist conman.

You’re not sharing the Good News of Jesus.
You’re not evangelizing.
You’re not making disciples.
You’re not helping.

You’re making from the pulpit and platform, the greatest case for Atheism you could ever make.

You’re aligning God with an ignorant, petulant, narcissistic bully.
You’re putting God’s rubber stamp on unprecedented racism, bigotry, and violence.
You’re attributing to God, the most despicable treatment of women, the greatest intolerance toward the marginalized, the least compassion for the hurting.
In other words, you’re assassinating the character of Jesus in an effort to rub non-Christian’s noses in it.

Crediting Donald Trump’s win to “God” is the best conceivable argument for someone rejecting faith.

If God is responsible for the unbridled vulgarity, the viciousness toward people of color, the utter disregard for diversity that the President has so continually displayed this year—you can keep God.

If God sanctions someone like Trump to the highest place of leadership we have—you can have that God.

If God is that partisan, God is not a God who “so loved the world”, but One who has contempt for most of it.

If you’re asking me to agree that a God who is love, can also be a God who votes Trump, you can stop right now because that’s laughable and ludicrous.