Although President Donald Trump is enthusiastically supported by Christianity’s lunatic fringe — that is, white Christian right evangelicals such as Franklin Graham, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins and Liberty University’s Jerry Falwell, Jr. — he is not universally loved in Christianity by any means. Vehement criticism of Trump has come from everyone from Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (a practicing Episcopalian) to the Rev. Al Sharpton to members of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. And Christian psychologist Chris Thurman, in some blistering op-eds for the Christian Post, denounces Trump’s far-right white evangelical supporters as “fools” who have been taken in by an opportunist.
“I believe evangelicals who support Donald Trump are being both blind and foolish to do so, and that labeling them as such is not sinful but appropriate and necessary,” Thurman asserts. “By support, I’m not referring to evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2016; I’m referring to those evangelicals who continue to hold Trump up as a great leader, say he is God’s chosen one for the presidency, applaud his appalling words and actions, ignore his glaring moral defects, and enable his dangerous presidency to continue by giving him their time, talents and treasures.”
Thurman first called out Trump’s evangelical supporters in a December 4 op-ed, inspiring some angry responses from pro-Trump evangelicals. One of them came from fellow Christian Post contributor Michael Brown, who wrote on December 6 that Thurman is “blind to Trump’s strengths and his potential to help America greatly.” But Thurman didn’t back down. Instead, he doubled down in an equally blistering op-ed for the Christian Post on December 10.