Evangelicals ridiculously asked to apologize for supporting Trump

OPINION:

We are now officially less than two weeks into the Biden administration, and our new president has a list of “accomplishments” as long as your arm of which he can boast.   

Bragging points include:

The degrading of women by telling them they no longer have the right to their own dignity, their own identity or even their own sports; The denial of science by appointing a man who doesn’t even believe in the science of anatomy to be our nation’s assistant secretary of health; The execution of our country’s youngest babies by celebrating the left’s genocidal desire to kill these children just minutes before they are born; The escalation of racism by embracing critical race theory’s (CRT’s) racist manipulation of race; The destruction of our nation by destroying its borders (For what nation can exist if it no longer has any borders to define its existence?);

The return to the insanity of making us dependent on our enemies for the fuel needed to heat our homes, move our cars, and run our military; The evisceration of our economy by telling people the way for them to have more money is for the government to print it rather than let them work for it; And the theft of our religious freedom by forcing all of us to bow to the godawful religion of government as God.  

And while all of this has been happening, what has the cry been from our nation’s evangelical leaders? Has it been that the prophets of Baal should repent? Has it been that we should stop sacrificing our children to Moloch? Has it been that we should all join Nehemiah, with a trawl in one hand and a sword in the other, as we rebuild the walls of our God-given freedom? Has it been to plead with our nation’s leaders to humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways?

No. This is not the message we hear from the church’s higher echelons of power.  

In fact, it is the opposite. It seems that in the progressive spirit of reversing all narratives to suit your own political fancies, that today’s church leaders think young David, rather than defying the moral monstrosity called Goliath, instead turned and threw stones at his brothers. Consider the following.  

Ed Stetzer, head of the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois, says, “It’s time for a reckoning” for American evangelical Christians. David French, the senior editor for The Dispatch, calls on evangelicals to publicly apologize to the nation. Jo Anne Lyon, general superintendent emerita and ambassador of the Wesleyan Church, posts on social media that many parishioners within her own denomination might be unwittingly members of a cult and in need of being “reprogrammed.”  

And what is the mortal sin for which we must repent and be reprogrammed? Millions of Christians dared to stand against the race to hell led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris by supporting the one man on the ticket who had proven himself willing to stand in their way. 

“But, in supporting the Orange Man, you implicitly endorsed his childish antics and his boorish behavior,” they cry. “You changed your morality.”  

There is, however, a problem with this accusation. 

Put simply — it’s not true. 

I don’t know one biblically grounded Christian who ever endorsed Donald Trump’s sins. I know thousands, however, who rightly considered the sins of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and all those who voted to empower them, to be much greater.   

Failing to see this distinction in sin’s moral magnitude is the problem with the ongoing drumbeat of Never-Trumpism. Putting Mr. Trump’s boorishness on the same moral plane as killing children, denying women’s identity and crushing human freedom simply makes no logical, legal or biblical sense.  

Many of us who are faithful followers of Christ believe that if we have a choice between life and death that we should choose life every time. Millions of the faithful understand that if we can vote for religious freedom and against ideological fascism, we should. We recognize that when the choice is between one cad and another, we must stand with the guy who guards life and liberty, no matter how much of a prurient pagan he may be. To put it another way, we simply have our priorities straight. We understand the nuance of moral significance and moral weight. 

C.S. Lewis once said, “Put first things first, and we get second things thrown in: put second things first, and we lose both first and second things.” Human life and human freedom are First Things. Intemperate tweets and tirades are not. 

For the past four years, millions of Americans had their priorities straight. In fact, we refused to change our morality and voted accordingly. I did so in 2016 and did so in 2020, and for that, I will not apologize.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery).