There Is No Christian Case for Trump
An editorial last month in the evangelical world’s flagship publication, Christianity Today, argued that Donald Trump should be removed from office.
The editorial, the last one written by the editor in chief Mark Galli before his planned retirement, heartened those evangelicals who have been unsettled by their co-religionists’ enthusiastic support for Trump. But the editorial upset many others, since white evangelicals constitute arguably the strongest base of support for the president.
Among those who fired back was Wayne Grudem, a distinguished research professor of theology and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Grudem is hardly a household name, but he is a significant theologian within evangelicalism. A dedicated Calvinist, he has been at the center of many recent theological debates. Grudem, who served as the general editor of the English Standard Version Study Bible, has taught ethics courses in higher education for more than 40 years. He’s the author of several major books.
In a lengthy rebuttal to the Christianity Today editorial, Grudem offers an impassioned defense of Trump, something he also did in 2016, in a column titled “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice.” Because Grudem carries considerable weight in certain evangelical quarters—to many, he’s an authoritative figure when it comes to biblical ethics—and because his position is representative of the views of many white evangelicals, it’s worth explaining why his case is ultimately unpersuasive.
Grudem begins his defense of Trump by arguing not only that Trump didn’t violate the Constitution when he withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine, but also that his actions were completely appropriate.
According to Grudem, it was reasonable for American government officials to press Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who was the Obama administration’s point man in removing the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, and Biden’s son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. “The president is empowered to investigate allegations of illegal activity,” Grudem writes. “I know of nothing in our Constitution or laws that says there is anything wrong with seeking help from a foreign government in investigating possible corruption.” Grudem puts it this way:
I see nothing wrong with the president doing things that will bring him personal, political benefit. In fact, I expect that every president in the history of the United States has done things that bring him personal political benefit every day of his term. It is preposterous to claim that it is unconstitutional for the president to act in a way that is politically
