Embattled US President, Donald Trump, has reacted angrily after a leading Christian magazine founded by late evangelist Billy Graham published an op-ed on Thursday demanding that he (Trump) be removed from office and urging evangelicals not to support him.
“Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment,” Christianity Today’s editor in chief, Mark Galli, wrote in the op-ed.
“That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”
Galli later told CNN’s on Friday that he is leaving the publication, adding that, “We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath.
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“The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see.
“None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character,” he added.
The publication, an influential one among evangelicals, has criticized Trump before on immigration and other issues, but never before called for his removal.
“To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve,” Galli wrote. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. 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.”
Reacting to this, Trump dismissed the criticism calling the publication a “far left magazine” and drawing a contrast between himself and the Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.
Trump tweeted, “A far left magazine, or very ‘progressive,’ as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.
“No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!”
