The title of a recent New York Times guest editorial by noted progressive evangelical Tony Campolo was: "The Evangelicalism of Old White Men is Dead."
Campolo observed that, "Beginning in the 1980s, the religious right made a concerted effort to align evangelicalism with the Republican Party. By the mid '90s, the word evangelical had lost its positive connotations with many Americans who came to see Christians-and evangelicals in particular-as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-immigrant and champions of guns and war. Mr. Trump did not create these contradictions, but his victory pulled the roof off the building we once called home."
Donald Trump's view of his life-relationships beyond family seems to follow the dictum "Money is the measure of all things," with an associated ethic that the end-justifies-the-means. Long before Trump the candidate, evangelicals took upon themselves the mantel of the leaders and measure of authentic Christianity in the U.S. But exit polls showed that 50 percent of evangelicals that were expected to vote for Senator Cruz voted for Trump, and 80 percent voted for him in the general election. This, when there's hardly a word or action of Jesus that easily squares with Trump's.
The credibility and prevalence of Christianity in the U.S. may be diminished by the election of Trump. But this doesn't mean the existence of biblical faith is dependant on U.S. biblical faithfulness. If God is in charge, as some Dispatch reader-letters like to assert, it means God can tilt the nation's trajectory in either a positive or negative direction.
We should all pray for peace and prosperity under our president-elect. But the electorate has rejected many other candidates to put its stamp of approval on the one whose life-testimony seems the most unbiblical. There are biblical reasons this should cause some unease.
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Dick Peterson
Bloomington
