Counterpoint

Most conservative Christians in this country have swung behind our current president –they’re willing to overlook the policies Robby mentions because he delivers pro-life judges. Does that show a failure by Christians to draw necessary lines?

[Cornel] West: I don’t think that the vast majority of Christians who voted for Donald Trump were, or are, excited about him. A slice, but not the vast majority. Most of those Christians feel caught. They chose between a milquetoast neoliberal candidate who looks down on them, and Trump, who they didn’t really like but who they felt was a politician willing to speak to them in a manner that was not condescending.

I think most Christians find President Trump’s behavior degrading. It’s very important that we don’t use any lazy stereotypes to characterize even evangelical Christians’ relation with Trump. Brother Robby and I were recently speaking at Liberty University in Virginia, a conservative evangelical school whose president is the prominent Trump supporter Jerry Falwell Jr. We didn’t run into any uncritical defenders of Trump there at all.

The Politics of the Gospel: An Interview with Cornel West and Robert P. George