Not long ago, the conservative evangelical
magazine, Christianity Today (19
December 2019), received considerable press coverage for its call for the
U.S. president to be removed from office on moral grounds. The January 2020 issue
of Graham’s Decision magazine proclaims a decidedly different conservative
political message, which notes the accomplishments of the Trump administration.
Decision magazine is the flagship
publication of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). The
association is celebrating 70 years (1950-2020) of “Proclaiming the Gospel.” Decision’s
subtitle is The Evangelical Voice for Today.
The theme for the current issue is “America on the
Brink: What’s at Stake in 2020.” The photo suggests America is dangerously
close to falling off a cliff.
Franklin Graham kicks off the featured articles
with “2020:
A Nation on the Brink.” Two accomplishments of the current president are
noted in the second and third paragraphs—appointment of conservative judges and
protection of religious liberties.
Other concerns of Graham include LGBTQ
issues (“Will the ungodly sexual
agenda of the LGBTQ lobby be forced down the throats of our schools and our
children?”) and the decline of the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian.
Next, Jerry Pierce
wrote “2020: A
Year of Decision.” His list of items includes religious liberty related to
concerns about the LGBTQ movement and abortion.
“In eight
years under the previous administration, a rash of White House executive
orders, directives and bureaucratic rules were used to press the hobnail boot
of the LGBTQ movement and the abortion lobby against people with sincere
Biblical convictions.”
Mat Staver’s article, “Living in a Parallel
Universe” opens with the case of Sandra Merritt and Planned Parenthood.
I could to on, but I won’t. My point is simply that politics and religion are married for conservative Christian Republicans.
As was evident in our research findings (JPT, 2019),
a dual identity is present for American Christians who identify as evangelicals
and Republicans. This Decision magazine issue illustrates the committed relationship of evangelicals to President Trump and the Republicans.
Instead of a separation of church and state, there is a
separation between Republican Christians and non-Republican Christians when it comes to the laws that govern Americans.
The salient
sabres are support for life or death of the unborn and support or lack of
support for the rights of sexual minorities. These are not surprising issues, which is why I included both of them in A House Divided: Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures and why I pay attention to such topics.
There are other concerns in the magazine, but I was struck by the cover
and the lead articles focusing on political decisions and those limited to the
USA in contrast to possible articles about Christians living out their faith in other dimensions of life and in various parts of the world.
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