One Evangelical's Reasons For Not Supporting Trump

Baptist Press: Does Character Count? Adrian Rogers, 1998

Opening Quote:  "Vice is a monster of such awful men, that to be haved needs but to be seen, but seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace."  

In November of 1998, while Republicans in Congress were marching toward impeachment of President Clinton, based on claims of deception surrounding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Dr. Adrian Rogers, a highly influential, well-known pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the largest churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, preached a sermon aimed at a larger Evangelical audience, for the purpose of justifying their expectations that a higher level of personal character and morality was indeed a requirement and a qualification for holding public office in a democracy.  Rogers told the congregation that Christians should look beyond acceptable moral character, and in casting their ballot, consider those candidates whose morals were supported by their own spiritual experience with God, and their "biblical worldview" because those were the only values that were truly trustworthy.  

Obviously, the sermon was intended to justify support for the impeachment of  President Clinton.  It was also to discourage any doubters among the flock that Democrats could not achieve the expected level of morality and character necessary to get Christian votes, and to pull Evangelicals more closely into the Republican political fold. 

The big problem Republicans and Evangelicals now have with Dr Rogers' sermon is that he preached it in 1998, it is on the record, and this is now 2024, and the Republicans have buried themselves underneath a cataract of bad character from one of their former Presidents and current nominee that includes compulsive, pathological lying, all kinds of fraud, more adultery that the combined total of ten years of daytime soap operas, incitement of an insurrection and attacks on law enforcement, 34 felony convictions surrounding an affair with a porn star and a coverup that makes the Lewinsky incident look like a Sunday School picnic.  Dr. Rogers established a standard by which Christians should apply to qualify candidates before they give them their support and their vote, and Trump's immorality and worldliness problem is far greater than Clinton's was, if a heirarchy of immorality can be established.  

I believe Baptist Press still has an online transcript of Dr. Rogers' sermon, if anyone wants to read the whole thing.  It was widely distributed for the purpose of applying it to President Clinton, but Evangelicals are loathe now to trot it out, because Trump's immorality is far worse than anything Clinton did, and it is just as applicable as it was when he first preached it in 1998.  Dr. Rogers passed away in 2005, so this can't be walked back, changed, mis-interpreted or mis-applied.  But even if he were still alive, it would be impossible to retain the slightest shred of credibility if he had come out as a Trump supporter, after preaching this very pointed and direct sermon.    

So it is that, according to Dr. Adrian Rogers, a conservative pastor who served two terms as President of the nation's largest Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, those Evangelical Christians who have rushed to embrace Trump, who have allowed themselves to be associated with everything he stands for, which is the epitome of a worldliness diametrically opposite the Christian gospel, are being disobedient to the Christian gospel, and are valuing politics and political rhetoric over the kind of character the Christian gospel says is necessary for leadership.  Evangelical supporters of Trump have completely set aside the counsel and the words of Dr. Rogers, which he claims are based on an inerrant, infallible Bible, and they are abandoning every principle he preached in that sermon.  

Dr. Rogers elevates character to the top position as a means for Christians to evaluate and qualify leaders for whom they will cast a ballot.  His conclusion is that if the character isn't there, then Christian support should also not be there.  And while he did not specifically or directly address President Clinton, there were many Evangelical leaders who used this sermon as a basis for their public condemnation of President Clinton's qualification to be President.  And much of that rhetoric and attitude spilled over and had an effect on Christian support for Vice President Al Gore,when he decided to run for President.  

An Evangelical Theological Case Against Supporting Trump 

I am not, by any means, naive enough to think that this example of Evangelical hypocrisy, one of many, but a notable and significant example, since it shows the duplicity and dishonesty which are characteristics of most of Evangelical Christianity, will change very many minds among Evangelicals that have been completely radicalized and committed to Trump.  The kind of hypocrisy and duplicity that is seen in the difference between the way Evangelicals condemned and vilified President Clinton, because of an alleged affair, and used that to condemn his character, but embrace Trump, whose character issues are far more numerous and worse, is evidence that they cannot be trusted to set the qualifications for any American political leader and letting anyone they support close to positions of leadership is asking for more of the kind of confusion and chaos promoted by the likes of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs and Matt Gaetz, and the spineless conciliation of Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.  

I'm noting that it is one of their own who is calling Trump supporters disobedient to their own faith by supporting him.    

Here's the main point of what Dr. Rogers had to say about the connection between character and leadership in a political candidate.    

"Then there is a third response to serious  moral and ethical charges against a person in high office.  This is the group I want to talk about, because it is here that America's shocking, degrading moral crisis rears its ugly head.  

This third group of people are those who, instead of saying the accused is guilty or innocent, say "SO WHAT?"  Who carea?  Guilty, innocent--what difference does it make so long as he is doing a good job?"  

"These people argue that there is no connection between a man's personal life and his political abilities.  And according to all indications, this response to scandal and serious charges is the most common response among Americans."  

Here's where Dr. Rogers makes his conclusion.  

"But make no mistake.  It makes every difference what a person in leadership believes and does in his personal life.  Character counts with God and it must count with us if we want to stay the judgement of God on this grear nation."

So I believe we can all conclude, that the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, pastor of Memphis's Bellevue Baptist Church, former two-term President of the Southern Baptist Convention, is saying that the support being given by Christians to Donald Trump is endangering this nation and will bring about God's judgement upon it.