Not the church I knew: Evangelical leaders grow more dishonest in defense of Trump

I was raised in the church. They call us “pew babies.” My maternal great-grandfather was a preacher who often did tent crusades with Oral Roberts in Oklahoma, and my younger brother was a preacher for two decades.

The church is in my DNA, as it is with most African Americans. But I have been wondering lately what is going on with my white brothers and sisters in the evangelical church and their steadfast support of President Donald Trump, even as he faces an impeachment inquiry.

At the United Nations last week, Trump made history as the first American president to host a forum on protecting religious freedom, announcing that his administration would dedicate $25 million to the cause and form a coalition of U.S. businesses to promote it.

Are the political gains worth it?

Although I support in theory what the president proposed, it does not match up with the way he lives, speaks and tweets. And it most certainly does not square with his Muslim ban, anti-immigrant policies, mistreatment of migrant children and general neglect of the feed-the-hungry, clothe-the-poor cornerstone of Christian faith.

Maybe it’s just me, but whatever happened to the once powerful "Christian Coalition” — you know, the moral majority, family values, book of virtues crowd?

Though still influential, their leaders seem to have abandoned those values in their embrace of Trump. They seem to care more about Supreme Court and federal judges and 401(k)s than about Jesus and his teachings.

Trump is their hero: White evangelicals fear the future and yearn for the past.

I am old enough to remember the mostly white-male values-crusaders like Jerry Falwell Sr. (founder of Liberty University), Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Bill Bennett, Kenneth Copeland and others who formed what was known as the religious right.

These evangelicals were indefatigable moralists who did not appreciate presidential candidates given to too much wine, to women not their wives, or to the use of vulgar language (aka locker room talk) or, heaven forbid, something far worse like support for same-sex unions or marriage. Netflix actually has a powerful documentary entitled “The Family,” which chronicles the influence of these men and specifically one man, Doug Coe.

In 1994, these men helped Rep. Newt Gingrich and his fellow Republicans regain control of the Congress for the first time in 40 years. These men hated President Bill Clinton and his liberal ilk, with their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies toward gays in the military and their connection to the free-love, pot-smoking, Woodstockian ways of the late 1960s.

Yet some of the same white, Christian evangelicals who were once the backbone of the GOP and who said they stood against what was morally unacceptable in America seem to have fallen into great folly and public sin themselves.

Jerry Falwell Jr. — the latest example

Last month, Politico magazine published an exposé of the powerful Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of Liberty’s founder and a leading Trump disciple.

In a normal world, the allegations against him would probably be career ending. In fact, students and faculty alike have tried to rise up against him. One group has called for an investigation. But in Trump’s new religious immoral majority (my phrase) it doesn’t seem to matter. Just look at what Falwell is alleged to have done here. He has been accused of sending sexually provocative photos of his wife to friends and his trainer and enlisting Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s assistance in containing the photos.

He is alleged to be a bully, writing nasty emails and threatening people in his employ. He attacks students who do not agree with him (Whatever happened to religious conservatives loving free speech?) and blocks them on Twitter.

For his part, Falwell has denied the accusations and asked for an FBI investigation. He has called students “retarded” and refuses to explain himself.

The question now for me, as an evangelical Christian, is has this generation of largely white male evangelical pastors and personalities destroyed their credibility by attaching themselves to Trump? Have they driven away a generation of young parishioners watching them all bathe in hypocrisy as what they teach in the pulpit is not what they practice in the public policy arena?

I think the answer is a resounding … yes! Influential megachurch pastors like Franklin Graham, Jentezen Franklin, James Robison, Harry Jackson and even Martin Luther King’s niece, Alveda King, have all tethered themselves to Trump despite his horrific personal conduct (paying off women with whom he cheated on his wife comes to mind), his financial dealings, his henchmen like Michael Cohen, and his divisive, racist rhetoric. Not to mention his latest inexcusable pressure on the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Biden family.

Even the famously moralistic and straight-laced Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, defends him no matter what.

The question is why? Why have they stood by in silence as Trump routinely tramples ethical boundaries and several of the Ten Commandments?

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Some, like Graham, have vehemently defended him and allowed Trump to proclaim, as he did recently at a North Carolina rally, that Democrats "are not big believers in religion." Trump boasted, "Whether it has to do with religion, or our evangelicals ... what we've done for them and for religion is so important."

The only conclusions I can draw are ones I do not want to draw; namely, that race and culture have everything to with this sudden “change” in the behavior of white religious conservatives. The reality is that, just as Dr. King said almost six decades ago, Sunday morning is still the most segregated time in America.

I refuse to believe that men and women of faith are wedded to a president who violates every moral code they profess to embrace, simply because of judges and finances. No. It has everything to do with fear of a changing America and a cultural displacement. And fear of one day being in the minority. I cannot make excuses for them, or suggest they really believe Trump is God’s anointed servant. That fails on its face. Trump is not a man of God.

If this is true, faith leaders like Falwell would do well to understand that heaven will not be about us versus them. Heaven will be about who got it right and who got it wrong.

Sophia A. Nelson is an MSNBC commentator, journalist and author of “E Pluribus One: Reclaiming Our Founders' Vision for a United America.” Follow her on Twitter: @IAmSophiaNelson

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Not the church I knew: The evangelical leaders that pander to Trump