Nearly 100 Evangelical Leaders Draft a Petition to Denounce Trump

Pastor Joshua Nink, right, prays for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as wife, Melania, left, watches after a Sunday service at First Christian Church Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

With so much news of evangelical voters backing Trump, it is a comfort to me that there are still Christian voters who see what is wrong with everything Trump represents and will not have their witness to the world compromised.

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According to the Hill:

A group of 94 Evangelical leaders has written an open letter condemning Donald Trump for fueling “racial, religious, and gender bigotry.”

“We believe the candidacy of Donald J. Trump has given voice to a movement that affirms racist elements in white culture — both explicit and implicit,” reads the letter, circulated Thursday as a petition on Change.org.

As of 10:30am today, the petition has garnered over 4,660 signatures.

The letter begins:

Imperfect elections and flawed candidates often make for complicated and difficult choices for Christians. But sometimes historic moments arise when more is at stake than partisan politics–when the meaning and integrity of our faith hangs in the balance. This is one of those moments.

This is something I’ve repeatedly stressed on the pages of RedState. This is about more than an election, or about the ability of any manmade system to fix what is going wrong in this country.

It is about our principle, our values, and our faith in God to sustain us, when we follow His directives to us that we stand on His word, and fear not, trusting that no matter what happens on November 8, 2016, God is still God on November 9, 2016.

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The letter further states:

We believe that the centrality of Christ, the importance of both conversion and discipleship, the authority of the Scriptures, and the “good news” of the gospel, especially for the poor and vulnerable, should prevail over ideological politics, and that we must respond when evangelicalism becomes dangerously identified with one particular candidate whose statements, practice, personal morality, and ideology risk damaging our witness to the gospel before the watching world.

This is in stark contrast to the pray-for-pay televangelists and other leaders from the faith community who have used worldly fear to attempt to drive Christians to vote for a man who has stated publicly that he doesn’t need God’s forgiveness.

I don’t know anything at all about who is behind the petition, other than to state that they bill themselves as coming from various denominations, political leanings, and backgrounds.

“Trump has steadily refused to clearly and aggressively confront extremist voices and movements of white supremacy, some of whom now call him their ‘champion,’ and has therefore helped to take the dangerous fringes of white nationalism in America to the mainstream of politics,” the letter reads.

The group also made clear that the letter was not meant as an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, who they said is both “supported and distrusted by a variety of Christian voters.”

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I’m in the camp of those who struggle with the idea that anyone could hold true to Christian faith, and still vote Democrat, with all that Democrats champion, but Republicans have pulled in a candidate who is no better, so for Christians, there is no clear choice at the top, this season.

At this point, the petition is just to make a statement. It will have no bearing on the race, because the players are already decided. It’s still good to see that there are leaders out there who are paying attention and forging on, based on their faith, not their fear.

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