Free Republic

For millions of evangelical Christians, President Trump’s announcement Monday night was the vision they held in their heads as they stepped into the polling booth almost two years ago: a Republican president, filling the Supreme Court with more conservative justices who might drastically curtail access to legal abortion and advance other conservative Christian priorities. As Trump prepared to announce his second nominee to the court in his 18-month term, these conservative Christians saw much of their dream realized. “It’s a generational decision,” exulted Jack Graham, a Texas pastor who is on Trump’s informal evangelical advisory board. “It’s a decision that...

We hear this on a daily, if not hourly basis. Evangelicals have hurt their witness by voting for Trump. Evangelicals have lost their credibility by supporting Trump. Evangelicals can no longer be taken seriously because they're in bed with Trump. And on and on it goes. It doesn't matter who he appoints to the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter if he improves the economy. Or strengthens the military. Or helps stabilize the Middle East. Not at all. Trump is a heartless, misogynistic, immoral, narcissistic, xenophobic monster, and whoever voted for him (or continues to support him) is not worthy of...

The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has conservative Christians excited about a huge opportunity to shift American laws on issues like religious freedom and abortion. President Donald Trump has noted he has a list of 25 names as possible Supreme Court candidates, but there's one name that pro-lifers seem to really love. CBN's Chief Political Correspondent David Brody says evangelical circles are buzzing about Amy Coney Barrett. "Many of my sources, evangelical in nature, love her. They believe that she is the one that if they had their dream pick that she would be the one," Brody said...

Hillary Clinton's campaign communications director mocked conservative Catholics and evangelicals in leaked emails from 2011 released on Tuesday. The messages are part of a reported batch hacked from Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta, with thousands more to come. The Democrat's communications director Jennifer Palmieri and Center for American Progress (CAP) fellow John Halpin allegedly made the comments in an email chain titled "Conservative Catholics" released on WikiLeaks. "They can throw around 'Thomistic' thought and 'subsidiarity' and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they're talking about," Halpin wrote to Palmieri and Podesta. The emails date from 2011 when...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders urged religious groups on Monday to "open their doors" to undocumented families, after several prominent conservative evangelicals criticized the Trump administration for separating children from their parents at the border. "I think any evangelical, or any church for that matter, that feels strongly about that, should open their doors and facilitate some of these individuals," Sanders told reporters during a tense late afternoon briefing. "That’s their calling, and if they want to change the laws they should call their members of Congress," she added.

Over 16,000 pro-life Christians have recently signed a petition asking that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be protected from drilling. The reason we are speaking out is because we are "called by God to be a steward of America's majesty." And the Arctic Refuge is one of the most majestic places in our nation. Unfortunately, the Arctic Refuge has never been more imperiled. After four decades of attempts, last year drilling proponents succeeded in attaching an amendment allowing drilling to a must-pass spending bill. Even past staunch Republican defenders of the Arctic Refuge voted the wrong way this time. Before...

Vice President Mike Pence's speech at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting Wednesday has left some Christians unhappy, especially the newly chosen leader of the SBC.

KENOSHA, Wis. — Jill Gilmore is one of those voters who have confounded both Democrats and Never Trump Republicans the most. She is a college-educated, gun-owning female conservative Republican who voted for Donald Trump. But here’s the real kicker: She is also a devout Evangelical Christian. “In the list of what is most important to myself and my family, faith is always first,” said the striking 34-year-old mother of seven, small business owner, and community volunteer who says she and her husband teach their children daily that behavior and respect towards others is not an option, but a requirement. Contrast...

It's no secret that President Donald Trump loathes his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The reason it's no secret is because on a weekly basis -- and sometimes even a daily basis -- the President is tweeting his distaste for Sessions. Just when you thought the bullying couldn't get any worse -- Trump has repeatedly said he would never and should never have hired Sessions, called him "beleaguered," "very weak" and "disgraceful," and reportedly refers to the former Alabama senator as "Mr. Magoo" -- today happened. The scene: A FEMA briefing in which Trump and a number of his Cabinet officials...

California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte on Franklin Graham encouraging Evangelicals in California to get out and vote, the latest in California's governor's race and the debate over the state's new gas tax hike. Video at link!

When did we who are Christians decide that we could not support a politician who was not holy enough? When did we arrive at the point where we would not support an apparent unrepentant sinner — perhaps, say, a non-Christian — even if his policies are overtly and measurably returning us at least in small part to our Judeo-Christian heritage and improving the state of the nation? The answer? Apparently at the election of Donald Trump. This is not a hard case to make. There are two bookends to the case. First, evangelicals who voted for Trump in November and...

Over the past several years, the Social Justice Warrior movement has swelled to become a formidable beast in the US. Anyone who does not follow their strict doctrine is lambasted with terms such as “fascist”, “racist”, “mansplainer“, “deplorable” and an abundance of other dehumanizing insults. SJWs have corrupted academia, the media and politics. However, this isn’t the first time America has had to deal with such a corrosive ideology. The wave of Evangelicals that came during the last part of last century was (and still partially is) extremely similar to the SJW movement. Just to be clear, being a believer...

Writing in National Review, David French launched another attack on evangelical Christians who support President Trump, calling them out as sinful compromisers denying the supreme purpose of God in their lives. I wholeheartedly reject French’s rebuke as valid. It is wrong biblically, philosophically and, by extension, politically. By way of context, I became a follower of Jesus Christ in 1982 when I was 17. Due to my submission to the authority of Scripture, I likewise fall into the category of what is commonly called “evangelical” — a term that is as frequently misunderstood as it is misused. I mention these...

Ex-President Jimmy Carter says his push for Middle East Peace played an important role in turning the evangelical voting bloc into the arms of the Republican Party. Carter told the Associated Press, that he, “took a position of wanting to see balance between Israel and the Palestinians.” Carter wasn’t able to bring about a final peace deal and was seen by some as not being pro-Israel enough. He claims that this was a major factor in evangelicals aligning with the Republican Party, which has since adopted a hardline pro-Israel stance. They were a major factor in President Trump’s shocking upset...

CBN News has confirmed that at least a few people walked out of an intense invite-only evangelical meeting this week at Wheaton College after the affair turned into “crazy Trump bashing.” The two-day gathering involved a group of faith leaders and was billed as a discussion of the evangelical movement in light of Trump’s presidency. But it became more than that. Two sources with intimate knowledge of the meeting say the first day turned into a lot of “one-sided venting” against President Trump and the majority of evangelicals who voted for him. Both sources confirm that the issue of sin...

I’m considering filing for divorce. On the grounds of infidelity and betrayal — and I’m heartsick. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my husband. It’s my union with an intimate partner of more than three decades, the evangelical church, that’s in trouble.

Since President Trump was elected in 2016 with the help of white evangelicals, we have been told that in voting for him, we compromised our ethics and can no longer be taken seriously. The latest alleged evidence for this is found in reports that black evangelicals are leaving white evangelical churches because of the latter's support of Trump. What are we to make of this?The charge of white evangelical hypocrisy has been leveled most recently by Michael Gerson, writing in the Atlantic's April edition. The title and subtitle of his major, nearly 7,000 word article read: "The Last Temptation: How evangelicals, once...

CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday confronted the author of "God and Donald Trump," questioning how he can continue to back President Trump amid reports of extramarital affairs. "In order to receive forgiveness, don't you have to confess to your sins?" Camerota asked Stephen Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine. "Isn't that a tenant of the Bible? I mean don't you have to own up to these things? You know, Donald Trump famously said he's never asked God for forgiveness." Strang said that issue is between Trump and God, adding that he focuses on Trump's policies. "He supports the kinds...

Michael Gerson's much-ballyhooed articles in The Atlantic and The Washington Post have made quite a splash, at least among evangelicals. Much of the response has been of the hand-wringing kind. As in, what right does Gerson have to throw evangelicals under the bus because of their support for Donald Trump? Well, count me as an evangelical who mostly agrees with Michael Gerson. I believe that the overall support for Donald Trump is a self-imposed obstacle to evangelicals' ability to be a faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.When Gerson, after listing just some of Trump's sizeable moral failings,...

(Skip) “Most evangelical Christians like me exclaimed, ‘Who are these people?’” wrote Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, in his essay. “‘I know hardly anyone, let alone any evangelical Christian[s], who voted for Trump.’” In trying to understand Trump-supporting evangelicals, journalists and commentators have often smoothed over the vast diversity within evangelicalism. “Many of us shake our heads at the ‘evangelical leaders’ that the news media anoints for us,” wrote Tom Lin, the president of InterVarsity Fellowship, in his essay. (Skip) Fundamentalism, argued Mark Labberton, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, is the driving force behind the...