The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

Now here’s a revelation. An evangelical Christian magazine with widespread circulation founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham published an editorial on Thursday calling for President Donald Trump’s removal from office by the Senate or popular vote in 2020.

An Associated Press story about it being shared far and wide on Facebook failed to provide a link to the story or adequately quote what editor-in-chief Mark Galli said in the top story on Christianity Today’s website.

So we offer our readers this.

While the story hems and haws around in the beginning about letting Christians make up their own minds about politics and how to vote, it does not beat around the bush about Trump’s guilt or lack of fitness for office.

“… 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,” the editorial makes clear. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

The reason many are not shocked about this, according to the piece, is that “this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. 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.”

The conclusion is unequivocal.

“We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear … that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.”

The question now is, will voters on the Christian Right, and their Senators, find the courage and conscience to do the right thing next year and vote to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors and remove him from the White House, thus saving the country and the world more pain and grief?

The AP story talked about the “durability” of Trump’s support among “conservative evangelicals,” who it says “have proven to be a critical component of his political base.”

“Remember who you are and whom you serve,” Galli writes. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord …. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.”

Galli’s piece rehashes how the magazine stood editorially on the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, calling the Democrat “morally unable to lead.”

“Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president,” Galli writes.

The magazine was founded about six decades ago by Graham, a leader of the so-called “evangelical movement,” who was seen on multiple occasions counseling previous presidents.

His son Franklin Graham has been one of Trump’s most outspoken religious-political supporters, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of Trump’s lack of moral rectitude.

The Christian right has so far gone along with Trump on this amoral hayride in the service of “political expediency,” according to Galli, to get conservative justices on the Supreme Court, to try to overturn Roe v. Wade, and to allow churches to be used for political purposes — in direct violation of a founding American principle: The separation of church and state.

Thomas Jefferson and other founders of the republic of the United States communicated with and got along with preachers of many faiths, including the Baptists, knowing they needed their support to win the American Revolution for self government against the British Empire. But they also knew that the extent to which religion creeps into government that could undermine not only our drive for a successful secular democracy, but also the freedom of religion itself.

Nowhere in my experience was this more clearly articulated than the decision by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in the case that led to removing former judge Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building, and ultimately Moore from office as Chief Justice.

I covered that trial for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, as well as the New York Times. Expert witnesses testified that the separation of church and state was considered critical in protecting the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause, since it applied to all religions, not just the favorite denomination of a majority.

Now, this AP story about the Christianity Today editorial cites a Pew Research Center survey — from August — showing that 77 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump’s job performance. Many pundits for other mainstream news outlets have reported similar results, although they all do a disservice to the American public by not reporting this Gallup poll far and wide, as we did.

Gallup Poll: Trump’s Personal Approval Falls With Republicans and Church Goers

As long as Republicans in the Senate think Republican voters and Christians are with them in supporting Trump, they will never vote to remove him from office. But what if the truth is something different, and the American public doesn’t find out in time?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed sending the articles of impeachment, passed by the House this week, over to the Senate for at least a couple of weeks while Congress is in recess. She is demanding to see a set of rules in place that guarantees a fair trial for Trump before naming the House prosecutors.

So we have a little more time to reach out and communicate with Republicans, Christians and Senators over the Christmas and New Years holiday. So by all means enjoy the break and the holiday, but maybe take a few minutes to communicate your feelings about Trump and how your Senators should vote over the next few days too. Call and email your Senators. The chance of success may not be high, but there is a chance here to make a difference — if you are willing to go to the trouble to try.

Secular democracy can’t work without a free press — or without an active, engaged role by an educated public, a.k.a. “the people.” In the final analysis, it really is up to you.