Some Christian Leaders Again Abandon Moral Character to Support Donald Trump

A public gathering a few weeks ago of Christian leaders affirmed their support once again for Donald Trump’s candidacy for President of the United States, despite the presence of acceptable candidates for the Republican nomination in the field and the opportunity to encourage others to seek the GOP nomination. Instead of pretending that Trump is a person of good character, as some Trump supporters have done since his first candidacy, these Christian pastors and other church leaders justified their support of the draft-dodger, serial adulterer, misogynist and admitted sexual harasser, crooked businessman and well-documented liar who was twice impeached, twice-indicted and under multiple criminal investigations put their political preferences above morals by repeating the excuse that nominations or elections for public office are not the equivalent of elections of pastors. In other words, they are promoting the heretical beliefs that character only matters for church officials, not public officials, and that it is morally acceptable for voters to elect to public office those of manifestly poor character as not to be trustworthy with such a charge. Both these ideas are contrary to the principled conservative argument in defense of character made in 1999 after the revelations about Bill Clinton committing perjury as a defendant in a sexual harassment civil suit against about sexual acts committed with a subordinate while in office. Most liberals expressly excused Clinton’s misbehavior because they agreed with his policies. Trump’s supporters similarly deny, minimize or excuse Trump’s misbehavior or focus only on the policies or character of his opponents. They thus had to overlook how his poor character continued into office, with his promotion of falsehoods and baseless conspiracy theories, his abuse of office to promote his businesses, his acceptance of foreign influence through patronage of his businesses, and his cruelty and increasing authoritarianism that undermined American leadership on human rights and thus made the world less secure by enabling tyrants. In the name of being in favor of the protection of innocent life, they overlooked Trump’s hostility to it, such as his barring of refugees seeking asylum from persecution, his pardoning of war criminals who murdered innocent people, and his support for the Filipino President’s policy of encouraging murder. Furthermore, they overlook his callous disregard for innocent human life, such as his Muslim travel ban that killed an American whose organ donor was barred entry, his deportation of migrants that led to fatal results because it put their health or security at risk, and his placement of the economy above protecting public health in the face of a deadly pandemic he repeatedly minimized after he had eliminated both federal pandemic response agencies. The support of “Christian” leaders for Trump, therefore, shows clearly that their priorities are partisan or ideological, not moral. It is Christian to vote for those of good moral character over those of bad moral character because it is reasonable to expect that the latter are unlikely to be faithful to their charge, which provides them an opportunity to betray the trust to engage in corruption, which harms the public and undermines public confidence. Instead, Christians should elect people of good reputation and hold public officials accountable, instead of vilifying those public officials who are faithful and who do try to hold corrupt officials accountable, as many Trump supporters do. There are plenty of qualified people to support over Trump.