“Many evangelical supporters of Trump have been quick to note that they are not racists…”

For those who think that these impulses are somehow at a great distance from Trump’s campaign and his White House, we need only note the appointment of Stephen Bannon as Trumps strategist and senior counselor, a position with direct access to and great influence over the president. Bannon himself described his own work as a platform for the “alt-right.”

Many evangelical supporters of Trump have been quick to note that they are not racists, anti-Semites, or misogynists themselves, but they have been slower to denounce the racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny that have ridden Trump’s coattails like an invisible down-ballot candidate. (Others have simply said that “there will always be crazies” attached to candidates from any party. “There will always be crazies” is not an appropriate response to David Duke and the KKK or to anti-Semitism or to the subjugation of women.)

Any evangelical Christian unwilling to acknowledge and repudiate the hatred that has been stoked by Trump’s campaign, and tempted to claim clean hands because they themselves don’t embody that hatred, should remember both the call to smash false values and the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 1:32, which condemn not only sinful deeds but also condemn giving approval of those who practice them.

-Noah Toly, “Needed! A New Evangelicalism: Ellul and the Election.” Toly is more optimistic about reforming Evangelicalism that I am but, nonetheless, it’s heartening to hear such clarity from a professor at Wheaton College.