The Christian Post’s editor resigns in disgust over the magazine’s defense of Trump
On the eve of Christmas 2019, the evangelical Christian world is having its “come to Jesus” moment as a schism erupts over the movements up-until-now nearly universal support for Donald Trump.
While there have always been a number of progressive evangelical pastors who have made their opposition to the decidedly un-Christ-like policies of the Trump administration and the Republican party quite clear — John Pavlovitz’s posts on Twitter being a saintly example — the previously silent division among the denizens of mega-churches and the promoters of conservative values masquerading as true manifestations of Christ’s teachings made itself manifest in a surprising editorial last week in Christianity Today.
The editorial in the magazine founded by evangelical OG Billy Graham denounced those in the evangelical movement who supported the “immorality, greed, and corruption, divisiveness and race-baiting” of the Trump administration in exchange for his support for their anti-reproductive freedom agenda and the life-time appointment of radically conservative judges, many of whom have been deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association.
Many Trump supporters in right-wing Christian circles were outraged by the Christianity Today editorial, with nearly 200 evangelical leaders saying that the statements made by its author Mark Galli about Donald Trump’s “grossly immoral character” “offensively” dismissed their backing of the president and laughably labeling the publication as “a far-left magazine.”
In the aftermath of the editorial and its blowback, evangelical leaders are choosing sides.
Late yesterday, Napp Nazworth, an editor at The Christian Post announced that he was resigning his position at the prominent evangelical publication after they published an editorial attacking the earlier Christianity Today editorial and reiterating their support for Trump.
Nazworth, who was a member of The Christian Post’s editorial board as their politics editor, explained his decision to leave his position in a lengthy Twitter thread.
I'm saddened by what happened for many reasons. I've been with CP for over 8.5 years, made many friendships, and had lots of exciting opportunities along the way. …
— Napp Nazworth (@NappNazworth) December 24, 2019
When the editors had disagreements, we would work through them, letting those discussions and debates inform and improve our coverage. Now, CP has chosen to go in a different direction. Like so many other media companies, they've chosen to silo themselves. …
— Napp Nazworth (@NappNazworth) December 24, 2019
… it's bad for Democracy, and bad for the Gospel. It means there will be one more place where readers can go for bias confirmation, but one less place where readers can go to exercise their brains on diversity of thought. {end}
— Napp Nazworth (@NappNazworth) December 24, 2019
Nazworth further explained his decision in an article in The Washington Post.
“’I never got the gist they were gung-ho Trumpian types,’ Nazworth said. ‘Everything has escalated with the Christianity Today editorial.’”
“Nazworth, who has been critical of Trump and suggested leaders who supported him have ‘traded their moral authority,’ said he doesn’t know what he will do next.”
“’I said, if you post this, you’re saying, you’re now on team Trump,’ he said. He said he was told that’s what the news outlet wanted to do.”
“’I’m just shocked that they would go this path,’ he said, adding that even though he felt ‘forced’ to make the decision to quit, the parting was a mutual agreement between him and the outlet.”
As Christians around the world get ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it appears that a large number of American evangelicals would rather pay lip service to the teachings attributed to their savior and instead support the policies of Donald Trump and his administration — policies that the more attentive and pious members of their denominations would traditionally characterize as the sinful product of Satan.
The signs of disillusionment and dissent in the previously nearly unilateral evangelical support for Trump, however, bode well for the eventual repentance and salvation of many evangelicals who have yet to deeply examine the behavior of the administration they are backing.
For the rest of us, perhaps it’s best to quote Jesus of Nazareth himself when regarding those misguided souls who refuse to see the evil of the man that many others consider a virtual anti-Christ.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at The Washington Post, Veronica Stracqualursi at CNN, Isabel Togoh at Forbes, and Joan McCarter at Daily Kos.
