President Donald Trump on Twitter Friday called Christianity Today a “far left magazine” in a bid to discredit its recent editorial that called for his removal from office . On Monday, Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III stopped by Boston Public Radio to discuss the editorial, and its potential impact on Trump’s most steadfast base of supporters: evangelicals.
“It’s really a cowardice act,” Monroe said of the editorial. "I think it would have much more social cachet if [Christianity Today Editor Mark Galli] were staying in office, staying as the editor, and then marshaling in this sort of, you know … more moderate voice. … But he’s leaving. And so it really doesn’t matter.” Galli is set to retire Jan. 3.
The editorial referred to the president’s administration as “a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence” and warned that it would tarnish the "reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel."
Read More: Calling Trump 'Morally Lost,' 'Christianity Today' Editor Calls For Impeachment.
Price, however, offered praise for the magazine, arguing that it gave voice to the silent majority of moderate evangelicals. "There are so many different strands of evangelicalism,” Price said, "that there’s no one representative body, and those who speak with Robert Jeffress and the Paula Whites and … Franklin Graham, folks who are closest to President Trump, are a smaller body with a huge voice.”
Price continued, saying “the rest of evangelicalism has been quiet, because historically they have invested their time and energy in speaking into moral aspects and whatnot … and so for them to speak into … now, is really huge."
Despite the negative attention from the president, Christianity Today editor Mark Galli said in an MSNBC interview Sunday with Reverend Al Sharpton that business has spiked as a result of the editorial. “Although we’ve lost hundreds of subscribers, we’ve gained three times as many subscribers,” Galli said.
Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology.
Price is professor of worship, church & culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast , produced by WGBH.
