Galli, who’s worked at CT for 30 years, calls Trump’s characterization of the magazine “far from accurate” and says he’s not worried about losing readers. “We speak for moderate, center-right, and center-left evangelicals,” he says, admitting that it’s impossible to represent all Christians. CT, which has a circulation of about 130,000, will have a new editor-in-chief next month, after Galli’s planned retirement.
Division among evangelicals isn’t new, Galli says, adding, “It’s not my responsibility to heal the breach.” Instead, his job is to “speak the truth” and see what God does with it.
Political commentators seem doubtful that CT’s editorial will hurt Trump’s support among conservative Christians. According to a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, 99 percent of Republican white evangelical Protestants oppose Trump’s impeachment.
In a New York Magazine article titled, “No, Evangelicals Aren’t Turning on Trump,” Sarah Jones says CT was silent for too long about Trump’s immorality, causing it to lose “whatever power it had to persuade.” She adds, “The editorial is not an act of courage but a grudging concession to reality. It also will not alter Evangelical support for Trump at all.”
Radio host Michael Brown urges Christians to humble themselves, have honest conversations, and pray for God’s will to be done—“because the stakes are very high.” Brown tweets: “We have a man in the White House who does a lot of good for Christian causes (and for the nation as a whole) but who also acts in very unchristian ways. [Why] can’t we just say it like that?”
