Following Evangelical magazine Christianity Today’s viral editorial titled “Trump Should Be Removed From Office,” the late founder’s son tweeted on Friday that he’d be “disappointed” to know about it.
“Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office — and they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so I feel it is important for me to respond,” Franklin Graham wrote on Facebook Friday. “Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed.”
“I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now,” he continued. “My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.”
Trump also lashed out at the publication Friday morning.
The president wrote, “A far left magazine, or very “progressive,” as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather…..”
He continued, “….have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!”
Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli responded to Trump’s tweets in real time on CNN Friday morning, saying he disagreed with the president “on seven or eight different levels”: “His characterization of us as being far left is far from accurate.”
In his editorial, Galli wrote that he and others at the publication try to avoid politics but “do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear–always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.”
“But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral,” Galli continued. “The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration.”