Pastor blows up the 'love affair between Donald Trump and American evangelicals'

Evangelical Christians are not going to be convinced by the left to reject Donald Trump, but there's still hope it may happen anyway, according to one former pastor.

Nathaniel Manderson, who was educated at a conservative seminary and has been a pastor, a career counselor, and a high school teacher, said in a piece published on Sunday that evangelical Christianity can only be "saved" if it "dumps Trump."

"Liberal mockery will never break the spell. My fellow evangelical believers have to look within themselves," Manderson writes in the Salon article.

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He claims that the former president is the "bad boy" that "many liberals have been warning Christians about — and now, the more dangerous he seems, the more they like him."

Manderson goes on to compare the evangelical Christian movement's "love affair" with Trump to any other toxic relationship.

"Another way to look at this is that someone only ends an unhealthy relationship if they can come to that conclusion on their own. Evangelicals will never dump Trump because of some clever argument by Rachel Maddow, or a brilliant takedown by Bill Maher. Such a breakup, if it ever happens, must come from within the evangelical movement itself."

Manderson says such a shift won't be easy:

"The only way we will ever see that kind of change today is from a movement from the evangelical church itself. But there's a big problem: Evangelicals must do something that, so far, most simply do not want to do," he wrote. "They must reject the last 50 years of political posturing, at least, embraced and endorsed by the evangelical church and its leadership. They must reject the very foundations of the political agenda that has provided the evangelical church with so much power, even as its absolute numbers in society have continued to decline."

Still, there is hope:

"At risk of repeating myself, the Christian faith is based on love, forgiveness and grace. Without those elements then it is something else entirely, and no longer preaching the message of Christ. Rejecting Donald Trump and what he stands for is nowhere near the end of the fight to save the Christian faith in America, but it's a good place to start. If evangelical Christians really want to save this country and redeem the message of Christ — as I believe most of them do — they must begin by renouncing the Antichrist who has led them so far into darkness."

Read the full article here.