Christianity Today president defends editorial saying Trump should be removed from office
The president of Christianity Today has written a column in response to the controversy over the evangelical Christian publication’s recent editorial calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office.
Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli penned a column arguing that Trump should be removed from office due to him being “profoundly immoral” and for violating the Constitution.
“The facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” wrote Galli.
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“The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration … His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
CT President Timothy Dalrymple wrote a column titled “The Flag in the Whirlwind: An Update from CT’s President” Sunday in which he rejected the claim by Trump and his supporters that the publication was “far left.”
“Christianity Today is theologically conservative. We are pro-life and pro-family. We are firm supporters of religious liberties and economic opportunity for men and women to exercise their gifts and create value in the world. We believe in the authority of Scripture,” wrote Dalrymple.
“The global Body of Christ—and the community of evangelicals—is vastly larger than our domestic political squabbles. But partly on behalf of that global body, we can no longer stay silent.”
Dalrymple said that he welcomed the debate over the editorial, declaring “we write for a readership of One. God is our Tower. Let the whirlwind come.”
“American evangelicals have always been a loose coalition of tribes. We have fought one another as often as we have fought together,” he continued.
“We at Christianity Today believe we need to relearn the art of balancing two things: having a firm opinion and inviting free discussion. We need, in other words, both a flag and a table.”
Dalrymple also stated that “CT does not have an editorial board” and thus editors like Galli “publish under their own names.”
“Yet Galli has stood in the trenches for men and women of faith for over three decades. He has been an outstanding editor in chief,” added Dalrymple.
“While he does not speak for everyone in the ministry—our board and our staff hold a range of opinions—he carries the editorial voice of the magazine.”
While many both within and without the American evangelical community celebrated the Galli column calling for Trump’s removal, other evangelical leaders have taken issue with it.
The Reverend Franklin Graham, whose father founded CT, argued that the late Reverend Billy Graham would be “very disappointed” with the Galli piece.
“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,” stated Graham on his official Facebook page.
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable.”
In addition to Graham, nearly 200 evangelical leaders signed on to an open letter denouncing the Galli column as wrongfully vilifying the “tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations.”
“We are, in fact, not ‘far-right’ evangelicals as characterized by the author,” stated the letter. “Rather, we are Bible-believing Christians and patriotic Americans who are simply grateful that our president has sought our advice as his administration has advanced policies [we support].”
“We are proud to be numbered among those in history who, like Jesus, have been pretentiously accused of having too much grace for tax collectors and sinners, and we take deeply our personal responsibility to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's — our public service.”
