Here is a taste of Emma Green’s interview with Christianity Today’s Mark Galli in the wake of the magazine’s call to remove Donald Trump:
Green: One of the things that you seem most concerned about in the editorial is the reputation of evangelicalism—of Christianity—and the damage that this association with Trump might do to Christian witness.
I wonder how much that motivates you—your belief that the association with Trump is going to do long-term damage to the ability of Christians to share the Gospel.
Galli: Oh my God. It’s going to be horrific.
We’ve been a movement that has said the moral character of our leaders is really important. And if they fail in that department, they can’t be a good influence. That’s what CT said when Nixon’s immoralities were discovered. That’s what we said when Clinton’s immoralities were discovered. And one of the reasons I thought we should say it now is because it’s pretty clear that this is the case with Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, a number of my brothers and sisters will just defend him to the end. They somehow think that’s going to be a good witness to the Gospel. It’s unimaginable to me how they think that, but they do. And I just think it’s a big mistake….
Green: Do you feel that you’re out of step with the body of evangelicals in the United States—and particularly white evangelicals—who are mostly supportive of Trump?
Galli: Yeah. That’s just a fact of life. At least as long as I’ve been editor in chief, I’ve never imagined that we at Christianity Today speak for all evangelicals. We speak for moderate, center-right, and center-left evangelicals. The far right—they don’t read us. They don’t care what we think. They think we’ve been co-opted by liberalism. So I understand that we do not represent the entire movement. And anyone who thinks that CT does, that’s just not the case.
I look at my brothers and sisters who are supportive of Trump, and I see the other things they’re doing: the life of their churches, the type of causes they support overseas. I can praise and honor them for those things. So I still see them as brothers and sisters. But we’re not in the same world when it comes to this sort of thing, right now.
Read the entire interview here.
