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Regular-article-logo Friday, 26 April 2024

Christian magazine seeks Trump removal

The editorial was a surprising move for a publication that has generally avoided jumping into bitter partisan battles

Elizabeth Dias/New York Times News Service New York Published 20.12.19, 10:11 PM
“The President of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the President’s political opponents,” Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, wrote in the editorial.

“The President of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the President’s political opponents,” Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, wrote in the editorial. File picture

Christianity Today, a prominent evangelical magazine, called for President Trump to be removed from office in a blistering editorial on Thursday, a day after he became the third president in history to be impeached and face expulsion by the Senate.

The move was the most notable example of dissent among the religious conservative base that has supported Trump through controversy after controversy, and came at one of the most vulnerable moments of his presidency.

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“The President of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the President’s political opponents,” Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, wrote in the editorial. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

The editorial was a surprising move for a publication that has generally avoided jumping into bitter partisan battles.

But it was unlikely to signal a significant change in Trump’s core support; the magazine has long represented more centrist thought, and popular evangelical leaders with large followings continue to rally behind the President.

“My father would be embarrassed,” Franklin Graham said in an interview of how his father, Billy Graham, who founded the magazine in 1956, would view the move.

“There’s a liberal element within the evangelical movement. Christianity Today represents that.” Galli’s words appealed directly to Trump’s evangelical base, a group that he said continues “to support Trump in spite of his blackened moral record”, in the apparent hope of rallying a fragmented resistance.

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