Tag Archives: White Evangelicals

Millions of White Evangelicals are Now Supporting a Legally Defined Sexual Predator

Donald Trump has now been found liable by a jury for sexual assault and must pay over five million dollars for assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a clothing store in 1996. However, she is far from the only one who has testified that Trump has committed assaults:

Jessica Leeds has recounted that Trump touched her breasts and ran his hand up under her skirt in the early 1980s.

Kristin Anderson has said that Trump reached under her skirt and touched her genitals in the early 1990s.

Jill Harth told how Trump repeatedly sexually harassed her and groped her under a table in 1993.

Temple Taggart McDowell, former Miss Utah, said that Trump kissed her directly on the lips the first time she met him in 1997.

Cathy Heller said Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her at Trump’s luxury resort Mar-a-Lago in 1997.

Karena Virginia recounted that Trump groped her during the US Open golf tournament in 1998.

Mindy McGillivray said Trump groped her while she was at a concert at Mar-a-Lago in 2003.

Rachel Crooks said she was assaulted by Trump in an elevator at Trump Tower in 2005.

Natasha Stoynoff recounted that Trump pushed her against a wall and stuck his tongue far down her throat at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

Jennifer Murphy, a participant in Trump’s TV show The Apprentice, said Trump kissed her on the lips after a job interview in 2005.

Ninni Laaksonen, former Miss Finland, told how “Trump was standing right next to me and suddenly squeezed my buttocks” in July 2006 when they were backstage to appear on The Late Show.

Jessica Drake told how Trump grabbed her and kissed her without consent, and then offered her $10,000 for sex in 2006.

Summer Zervos, another participant in The Apprentice, told how Trump started kissing her, touched her breasts, and pressed his groin against her in 2007.

Cassandra Searles, a model who participated in Miss USA, which Trump owned, told how he grabbed her buttocks and invited her to his hotel room in 2013.

Last but not least:

Donald Trump himself boasted in 2005 to his friend Billy Bush about how he usually assaults women by “grabbing them by the pussy” and getting away with it because he is so famous, and how he, for the same reason, usually has sex with married women.

Isn’t Trump innocent until proven guilty? Legally, absolutely – he cannot be punished solely based on accusations – but that is not the same as saying that all these women are liars until proven otherwise. Especially not when Trump is a proven liar with this verdict (and according to his own words when he thought no one but Billy Bush could hear him).

The fact that many Americans, including many Christians, now openly express their continued support and defense for the sex offender Trump after the guilty verdict is sheer madness.

It was only 25 years ago when the Souther Baptist Convention passed their “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials”, which states: “Some journalists report that many Americans are willing to excuse or overlook immoral or illegal conduct by unrepentant public officials so long as economic prosperity prevails. […] Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”

If white evangelicals in the US want to be viewed as anything else than immoral, misogynistic hypocrites, they need to abandon the Trump train immediately. The fact that they’ve been on it for seven years is disastrous in and of itself, but to save whatever integrity they have left, now is the time to repent.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Featured image of Trump by Gage Skidmore, creative commons.

Trump’s Pornstar Infidelity Highlights the Evangelical Hypocrisy in America

Yesterday, Donald Trump was indicted for having paid over a hundred thousand dollars to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their sexual encounter shortly after his wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to the crime, calling it a “sex scandal of biblical proportions” and admitting that it was done on Trump’s orders.

Trump also accidentally admitted to the crime in 2018, but has since denied it. He is really bad at playing innocent – he recently threatened “death and destruction” if he is charged. Several of his supporters call it persecution and communism that he is being charged – they do not care that Trump himself has already admitted to it.

The millions of (white) evangelical Christians who still support Trump also do not seem to care about his infidelity with porn stars and other women. In fact, after the infamous video where Trump boasted about committing sexual assault (“grab them by the pussy”) and sleeping with married women was released, he became more popular among white evangelicals.

This is largely due to the fact that many white evangelicals value traditional patriarchal masculinity, as historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez shows in her book Jesus and John Wayne. While they verbally condemn sexual assault and infidelity, it is something many evangelical men engage in themselves and are quite impressed by, and women are taught to accept sexual assault and rape in popular evangelical books about marriage and relationships. The book The Great Sex Rescue goes through this in detail and shows that evangelicals who have a so-called “complementarian” view of women and men have significantly worse marriages that often lead to divorce.

These statistics show beyond any reasonable doubt that the white evangelical endorsement of Trump has radically changed their values. In 2011, over 60 percent of them said that an elected official who commits an immoral act in their private life cannot behave ethically in their public life. In the Trump era, this conviction remains among less than 20 percent. Falwell Jr. and other evangelical leaders have convinced millions of Christians that a good character simply isn’t relevant when it comes to leadership, despite there being hundreds of verses in the Scriptures that suggest otherwise.

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