Whose Christianity Today?

     Let us note and pass by the presumption in calling a factional journal Christianity Today.
     Meanwhile, we can scarcely avoid noting the fuss over the magazine's assertion that President Trump should be removed from office.
     In the high dudgeon he favors as a public posture, Billy Graham's graceless son Franklin struggled to grasp the apostasy: "Unfathomable," he said, for the evangelical organ to "side with the Democrat Party."
     Graham had already been known to mingle earthly opinion with spiritual precept. About government sanction of gay marriage, he once said that people who differed with his opposition were shaking a fist at God. No sign indicates that he has since resolved his confusion about who is Who.
      In the mendacity he seems unable to control, President Trump called Christianity Today a "far left magazine." This is simply silly. Billy Graham founded the publication in 1956 as a centrist evangelical voice. Its editorial comments on secular matters have been moderate.
     The magazine's comment on Trump was incisive:
 " ...this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- his habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused. ...
     "The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president's moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president's positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character."
     Positives?
     The magazine nods toward these:
     "Trump's evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president."
     Some of these assertions are debatable in phrasing and in fact. But, taken at face value for the moment, they may be heard to imply that an evangelical agenda in public policy would be proper if only it were championed by a moral man.
     The notion that American secular law could appropriately serve one faction of one faith is inimical to the principles on which this country was founded. It is inimical to basic concepts of right and wrong. It is, at best, foolishly naive. Stated plainly, the proposition mocks itself: Empower the lawmakers of today to enforce our doctrines, and never mind whose doctrines might be chosen for enforcement by the lawmakers of tomorrow.
     In attempting to inject faith into politics, the Christian right has recklessly ignored the obvious risk that the injection would flow in the other direction. And so it lamentably has. The attempt to dance with the devil has stained the name of evangelical Christianity; it has enabled sectarian leaders who are palpably covetous of political power, as much for themselves as for faith; and it has exalted intolerance in our national discourse .