Michael Gerson on the Loss of the “Evangelical Gag Reflex”

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian and former George W. Bush speechwriter, wonders why the court evangelicals are not sick to their stomachs right now.   We wrote about this piece of evangelical history on January 13, 2018.

It is also noteworthy that Gerson is now freely using the phrase “court evangelicals.”  I guess it’s a mainstream term now.

Here is a taste of Gerson’s piece, “The Trump Evangelicals Have Lost Their Gag Reflex”

Graham was in denial about Watergate until the last. When he finally read through the Watergate tape transcripts — including profanity, political corruption, lying, racism and sexism — Graham remembers becoming physically ill. He said later of Nixon: “I wonder whether I might have exaggerated his spirituality in my own mind.” Graham’s biographer William Martin quoted a close Graham associate who was more blunt: “For the life of me, I honestly believe that after all these years, Billy still has no idea of how badly Nixon snookered him.”

And later in the piece:

The problem, however, runs deeper. Trump’s court evangelicals have become active participants in the moral deregulation of our political life. Never mind whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is of good repute. Some evangelicals are busy erasing bright lines and destroying moral landmarks. In the process, they are associating evangelicalism with bigotry, selfishness and deception. They are playing a grubby political game for the highest of stakes: the reputation of their faith.

Not long after Watergate broke, a chastened Billy Graham addressed a conference in Switzerland, warning that an evangelist should be careful not “to identify the Gospel with any one particular political program or culture,” and adding, “this has been my own danger.”

The danger endures.

Read it all here.