How Should Clergy Engage Politics?

This post originally appeared here in its entirety on The Stream.

Recently hundreds of religious conservatives, mostly Evangelicals, met with Donald Trump in a highly publicized New York summit. Most who spoke publicly afterwards were supportive. Two dozen prominent Evangelicals were announced as Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory board.

One board member, longtime broadcaster James Dobson, commented that Trump had been led to Christ by another board member who’s a controversial female prosperity Gospel exponent. The claim that Trump was now a newly converted “baby Christian” whose malapropisms should be minimized provoked widespread derision until Dobson sort of backtracked on the story, which the Trump campaign declined to confirm.

Jerry Falwell Jr. attracted similar derisive attention for a photo of himself and his wife with Trump in Trump’s office, with an old Playboy framed magazine cover bearing an image of a much younger Trump appearing on the wall behind Mrs. Falwell. The late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. was a Religious Right founder and anti-pornographer crusader.

Pro-Trump Evangelicals have been criticized by Never Trump conservative Evangelicals who see support for him as a betrayal of traditional Christian moral and political concerns. Of course, liberal religionists and secularists have joined in the fray. The New York convo between Christian conservatives and the often colorfully bohemian casino and real estate magnate more famous for sexual conquests than for piety has already become politically iconic.

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