What to do when our departures and reversals from prior positions or statements<\/a> are this blatantly self-serving\u2014oh the hypocrisy.\u00a0 What are we to make of people who, it turns out, haven\u2019t much of a memory?\u00a0 I believe people will look back at the years of the Trump presidency and see any evangelical defender as either blissfully ignorant, or intentionally complicit in support of the idea power trumps ethics and decency.\u00a0 And that brings me to Wayne Grudem.<\/p>\n Grudem, he of two minds, (more on that in a moment), recently made these comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cI strongly disapprove of adultery and being unfaithful in marriage,\u201d Grudem says, \u201cbut I still support [Trump\u2019s] actions as president. I\u2019m glad he\u2019s president, and I would vote for him again.\u201d<\/p>\n To which, I thought:<\/p>\n Really?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who blatantly lies<\/a> on a constant basis, and at a level never, ever, seen before?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president whose every organization, basically everything he has touched, is under criminal investigation<\/a>?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president whose charity foundation<\/a> was shut down due to, \u201ca shocking pattern of illegality\u2026\u201d?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who has emboldened, and given voice to, racist<\/a> elements in our culture?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who has presided over, and encouraged, an attitude toward immigrants<\/a> that has probably led to the death of children in his administration\u2019s custody?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who regularly and flagrantly violates and doesn\u2019t understand the concept of the rule of law? <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Is he glad we have a president who, every day it appears more and more likely sold<\/a> American foreign policy to the highest bidder?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who surrounds himself with people who either resign out of principle, are forced out, or indicted?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who is believed by some of the \u201cbest people\u201d he hired, to be a moron?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who regularly talks like a mob boss, disparages the FBI, and routinely believes hostile state actors over his own intelligence services\u2014even regarding the killing of an American resident<\/a>?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who regularly puts journalists at risk by calling them, \u201cfake news,\u201d and creates a national hostile work environment for them?\u00a0 Is he glad we have a president who is incompetent<\/a>, bitter, resentful, mean, and small? One could go on and on.\u00a0 I\u2019ve barely scratched the surface.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>And to claim one would vote for him again, given the above, while not even knowing what Mueller\u2019s report might contain, or who Trump\u2019s opponent might be, displays at best, a terrible short-sightedness, and at worst, a disturbing lack of wisdom.<\/p>\n Rather than having anything to do with marriage or adultery, this is about competence, fitness, intelligence, and decency, all of which Trump hasn\u2019t a whit.\u00a0 Where the marriage and adultery come into play is, rather, more a matter of hypocrisy.\u00a0 And I would make these claims and criticisms regardless of party affiliation, political bent-liberal or conservative.\u00a0 Something Gruden can\u2019t do it would appear.\u00a0 Clearly, his ethical standards only apply to liberals and Democrats.\u00a0 For him, policy (right doctrine) trumps decency, ethics, and character.<\/p>\n If we were to use the standards<\/a> evangelicals have applied to all presidents before Trump, when it came to sexual ethics, marriage, and character in general, a case for Trump could never have been made without a resort to straight-up hypocrisy, which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n Many, even conservative, evangelicals pointed this out, notably here<\/a> and here<\/a>.\u00a0 We have those who sounded the alarm, and then we have people like Grudem.\u00a0 Running up to the election he wrote this piece<\/a>.\u00a0 And, if you read the editor\u2019s note and see Grudem\u2019s other essays, we see he came to his senses after the Access Hollywood<\/em> tape came out.\u00a0 However, then, he (of two minds) writes a final deciding the abject hypocrisy was worth it if power was the prize.<\/p>\n If a liberal-to-moderate Democrat president had said or done even a sliver of what Trump has, people like Grudem would have denounced, pilloried, and held them up as signs of the apocalypse.\u00a0 What are we to make then, of people like this who twist themselves into pretzels to justify the unjustifiable?\u00a0 It is embarrassing.\u00a0 If they haven\u2019t the sense to be embarrassed, we will be embarrassed for them.<\/p>\n What will history make of Grudem and the other prominent evangelical leaders<\/a> who supported and still support Trump?\u00a0 Only an about-face, an apology and denouncement of Trump would begin to repair the damage he and these others have done to their reputations and the reputation of evangelicalism in general.\u00a0 But such is unlikely given these recent remarks.<\/p>\n Regardless, these men (and women) and any other evangelical leaders who supported or continue to defend Trump should just fade away.\u00a0 Please\u2014just go away.\u00a0 And they should never be consulted again regarding anything having to do with the political realm and morality, given their egregious lack of wisdom and hypocrisy in both areas.\u00a0 Will history<\/a> write anything different of them than it has regarding those who in the past supported George Wallace, Jim Crow laws, segregation, or anti-Semitism?\u00a0 I doubt it.<\/p>\n How sad we have to hear from Generals<\/a> and politicians<\/a>, the sort of things we should<\/em> hear from theologians like Grudem.<\/p>\n Trump was a line in the sand.\u00a0 He was a bridge too far.\u00a0 He will forever separate evangelicals and history will remember which line, which side, one was on in that moment.\u00a0 These are the moments given to some generations\u2014the moments when they either walk-the-walk, are consistent in the standards they applied prior, or end up just being hot air, hypocrites.\u00a0 Both types are becoming more and more evident.\u00a0 Such is certainly the case with poor Mr. Grudem.<\/p>\n