As 2019 turned over its last page, it not only brought a year to an end but an entire decade. There were many news worthy stories in 2019, including an economy that was arguably the best this country has experienced, but all were overshadowed by the almost fanatical attempts to remove President Donald Trump from office. That caused the past year to be one of the most chaotic, divided, and tumultuous years in our nation’s history. All this is part of the larger “Trump effect.”
It was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush who first labeled Donald Trump the “chaos candidate.” This, in turn, led evangelical leader Lance Wallnau to title his best selling 2016 book, God’s Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling.
The atmosphere of chaos and shaking is one in which Trump appears to thrive, as the constant disruptions seek to make him stronger. And that’s why, in 2019, the political establishment felt so threatened. The spirit of political correctness was mocked. The swamp was challenged. And religious hypocrisy was exposed.
Last year, we saw emotions boil over — in the home, in the workplace, and on social media. The year 2019 was not for the faint of heart. But it was also a year of clarity, as everyone began revealing their true colors, for better or for worse, from the media, to the Democrats and Republicans, to students on their campuses, to preachers behind their pulpits. We saw how biased some of us are. How bigoted. How mean-spirited. How partisan. How angry.
For the past two years liberals and their friends in the media had predicted the Robert Mueller investigation would be the bombshell that would topple Trump’s presidency. When Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee in July, the bombshell turned out to be a dud and no proof was found that Trump had conspired with the Russians. The extremely disappointed Trump haters went into mourning. Then they began frantically searching for another excuse to get rid of Trump.
They found it when a whistleblower claimed that in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine if Mr. Zelensky did not look into allegations against Joe Biden’s son. Despite President Trump urging that unequivocally he did not threaten to withhold aid, he became the third U.S. president to be impeached. All of this appears to have been a complete waste of time as the Republican controlled Senate will almost certainly not vote to remove the President. This latest attempt to bring down Trump, within a year of an election when voters could decide his fate, was so poorly handled that his approval rating actually went up.
This impeachment is truly a sad chapter in American politics. Historical objectivity will show that other Presidents have done much worse than what this President has been accused of doing, but there were never any efforts to impeach. Trump’s impeachment is simply evidence of the great divide that has existed between Americans for quite some time. Americans have always disagreed and vigorously debated over many things, but not since the Civil War have we been so separated over core values and in 2019 this divide reached a new level. Today there is little to no middle ground for compromise. There is just chaotic division.
This is what makes the impeachment of the President so significant, so sad, especially for conservative evangelicals. And this is why when Christianity Today wrote an editorial calling for the President’s removal; it was indicative of the way even some evangelicals are wrongly divided. Not that Trump is anyone’s Savior, but he does have more in common with them than they have with Progressives. The gist of the editorial was that no matter how much good this president does, it is less important than his personal flaws.
Why is this wrong?
First, because it devalues policies that benefit millions of people. And second, because it is a simplistic view of moral values. To assess a person’s morals it is important to look at how one’s actions affect others.To evangelicals, enabling millions of black Americans to find work – resulting in the lowest black unemployment rate ever recorded – is a moral issue. To us, more Americans than ever being employed and almost four million Americans freed from reliance on food stamps is a moral issue. To us, appointing more conservative judges than any president in history – over the same period of time – is a moral issue. To us, moving the American embassy to Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem is a moral issue, not to mention profoundly courageous. And courage is a moral virtue. To us, increasing the U.S. military budget – after the severe cuts of the previous eight years – is a moral issue. As conservatives see it, the American military is the world’s greatest guarantor of world peace. To us, standing strongly for pro-life and pro-family issues show moral values.
The institution of government was created by God to govern man — to protect and defend and to administer justice. Our president is not a pastor who must exhibit godly character traits to stay in office; he is to be a terror to those who do evil (cf. Romans 13).
I like Eric Metaxas’ analogy of an airline pilot. When I get on a plane, I’m not too concerned about the pilot’s past morality or tweeting history. I want to know if he can fly the plane and get my family home safely. The alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency is no different than my alliance with the pilot to do his job. We both must succeed, or we both fail.
That the editor of Christianity Today and everyone else who think the president’s personal flaws, whatever they might be, are more important than all the positive things that he has accomplished for Christians, for Jews, for blacks and for America as a whole, tells us very clearly that in 2019, people’s hatred for Donald Trump overrode their love for the success and well-being of our country.
Many evangelicals have spoken out against abrasive comments and cynical tweets of our president, but it is clear in their minds that his many positive accomplishments trump his annoying flaws.
As was 2019, 2020 promises to be a time of great upheaval and chaos. But, it can also be a time of holy upheaval and divine clarity. A time when God’s people rise up with wisdom and insight and courage, transcending the political fray. And it can be a time of growth and maturity, as we learn to find stability in divine truth rather than in circumstances, and we put our trust in eternal scriptural principles rather than fleeting human opinion.