Christianity Today editor laments evangelicals defending Trump like 'the left in the Clinton era'

07 June 2024

Although plenty of practicing Christians, from Mainline Protestants to Catholics, have said that they plan to vote against Donald Trump in the United States' 2024 presidential election, the presumptive GOP nominee continues to enjoy major support among a specific group of Christians: far-right white evangelical fundamentalists.

Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and an unwavering Trump supporter, has said that it is unfair to penalize Trump because of "moral failings in the past" — which is a huge departure from the nonstop attacks former President Bill Clinton received from the religious right during the 1990s.

Christianity Today Editor Russell Moore discussed white evangelicals' bond with Trump during an early June interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, who noted that Trump's evangelical supporters are saying voters should distinguish between the former president's public behavior and private behavior.

After Cooper played a clip of Reed making that argument, Moore responded, "That's not an argument I accept, and it's not an argument that we, as evangelical Christians, have made over the last 50 years."

Moore continued, "Instead, what we've always said is that if you can't trust someone with your daughter or your wife, you shouldn't trust that person with the nuclear codes. The sort of argument that that we here there, I've heard before — but we heard it from the left in the Clinton era. I never imagined then that I would be hearing it now from us."

Founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham in 1956, Christianity Today has been in publication for 58 years.

Graham's son Franklin Graham has, like Reed, been a committed Trump supporter.

Watch the full video at this link.

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