Someone I ‘know’ retweeted the following from an SBC (Southern Baptist Conference) pastor, named Alan Cross. He is a pastor who has focused on intercultural (missionary) and racial reconciliation work. But what he tweet-stormed reflects, apparently the ideology he has submitted to in his work. His tweet is an attack on Donald Trump, with particular reference to Franklin Graham and the pervasive Q (and those evangelicals who are Qanons). Beyond this being a critique of Graham, Q, and those evangelicals who support any of these entities, it is really a critique of anyone who supports Trump for POTUS. In other words, it engages, by suggestion, in a guilt by association (with Graham and Q) and poisoning of the well for anyone who also supports Trump. It engages in these informal logical fallacies because not all who support Trump are supporters of Graham, Q, or the type of evangelicalism that endorses that type of ‘Christian’ engagement. In other words, there are millions of Christian people out there, like me, who do not support Graham, Q, or the types of evangelicalism that does endorse Graham, Q et al., but who do support Trump for POTUS. Beyond the fallacies noted, the ones Cross makes, he also works from a false dilemma: i.e. ‘either you are against Trump, or you’re for Trump, Graham, Q, and that type of evangelicalism.’ This makes his tweet, just at this level, both sloppy and non-starting. Here is what he has tweeted:

Franklin Graham says God’s using Trump to hold back the storm of hatred that will come against Christians as soon as he is out of office. He prays for God to give 4 more years of protection of Christians and Western Civilization. Says when Trump is gone, then comes “the storm.” Bible does say a storm will come upon God’s people – it is called a whirlwind and desolation. But, it will come because we don’t listen to God and promote true judgments, kindness & mercy, or oppose oppression to the widow, fatherless, sojourner, and poor. Zechariah 7:8-14 — Basically, whirlwind and desolation coming upon the church will come from closing our ears to God calling us to care for the widow, orphan (fatherless), sojourner (immigrant/refugee), and poor among us and our hearts grew diamond hard. When we fail to love, devastation comes. Followers of Jesus will always be opposed by the world. But, it needs to be because we are actually following Jesus, not because we are grasping for power to protect ourselves. Romans 12 explains well how we should treat those who oppose us: We should bless and love them. I’ve said since 2016 that as soon as Trump is out of office, a massive backlash will come against white evangelicals for what we promoted/sided w/ during this season without prophetically opposing the wrong promoted. There will be retribution. You live and die by the sword. So, I agree with Graham that a storm is coming for the church. I’ve said it many times. But, I see it through Zechariah 7 instead of as though God has just mercifully given us more time to not experience the storm. Our hearts are being revealed and we will reap the whirlwind. But, Read Isaiah 58 about true worship. It isn’t about our religious festivals, prayer, and fasting. It’s about how we see God and how we treat the poor, oppressed, hungry, and cast our wanderer. THEN our righteousness will break forth and we will rebuild ruined cities. So, yes, a storm is coming for those whose hearts are hard to God – love, truth, mercy, kindness, loosing chains of oppression, caring for the poor wanderer, etc. When our hearts are hard, we become barren and don’t produce good fruit. When opposition rises, it overwhelms us. And for those saying this is Q-related, Billy Graham warned of a coming storm way back in the 70s and this came out in 2010 with Franklin, so this has been said a long time. It isn’t new. One could even say that if hardness of heart, spiritual barrenness, division, dissension, anger, and callousness are signs of the whirlwind of devastation, then for many, the storm has already come upon them. Either way, it’s a good time to repent and turn to Jesus.[1]

According to Cross, if you’re for Trump for POTUS, then you cannot affirm any of the biblically Christian virtues he indexes for us. The problem Cross, and those who endorse Cross’s thinking come up against, though, is that when the Christian critically engages with the actual policies Trump has put forward (and enacted), Cross’s critique (fallacious as it is) does not withstand that sort of scrutiny. As such, Cross’s tweet plays well with ‘his type of people’ (another informal logical fallacy), but it does not work under any sort of serious consideration.[2]

For example, Trump has ‘defunded’ abortion mills like no other POTUS, since Roe v Wade; Trump has imposed tariffs on China, making them pay their fair share for intellectual and industrial development; Trump has brought millions of jobs back from China, thus removing the capacity of China to engage in sweat-shop slavery with its own people (the tariffs also work to this end); Trump has sought to enforce the rule of law, particularly when it comes to immigration; Trump has brought stability to the world by building up a strong military, which has a deterrent effect; Trump has made it easier for small businesses to flourish in America; Trump has brought criminal justice reform, rolling back decades of democratic policies that have impacted minority communities, and the poor, in inequitable ways; Trump has promoted judges who affirm the Constitution, contra those who engage in revisionist readings of the Constitution and its intent; so on and so forth. These are just things I can come up with off the top. There is plenty more that Trump has done, that correlates with the virtues Cross asserts are the Christian ones. Indeed, they are, but insofar as a profane person in a profane political office can meet those expectations, Trump has come much closer to those than any POTUS in the past; and definitely more than his competition (in Biden and Harris).

Alan Cross’s tweet-storm cannot be taken seriously, and can be thrown into the waste basket after a simple and cursory engagement as this post represents. He starts from non-starting premises, and then caricatures Trump based on non-realist realities. In other words, Cross’s “critique” is out of touch with reality. Sure, it plays well with ‘the people,’ but that isn’t a good standard for determining whether or not Trump is a good “Christian” candidate for POTUS.

Cross claims that ANY Christian who supports Trump must be doing so because they want to hold onto power; another fallacy (red herring). This isn’t about power, it is, indeed, about con-serving values and virtues that correlate most fittingly with the Christian expectation.

Further, people like Cross seem to get hung up on the moral character of Trump himself. “Evangelicals” like this will often bring up the Trump trope: ‘the guy who said he grabs pussy,’ as if this represents Trump today. And even if it did represent Trump today, who are his competitors? On a grade, who is worse, even at that level? Biden, who sniffs little girl’s hair in front of millions of people, or a womanizing Trump? And do Christians believe that someone can repent and be forgiven, or not. The nearest reference we have for Trump’s womanizing ways might be as near as thirteen or fourteen years ago. There is no evidence that since then he has engaged in this sort of activity. The point: Christians believe in forgiveness, and in the ideal that people can actually be changed from the inside/out. Has this actually happened in Trump? The Lord knows. What we do know is that there is nothing in Trump’s current iteration that his opponents can charge him with; they have to refer back to over a decade ago to find anything like that. But this is much bigger than that. Christians are to be shrewd as a serpent, according to Jesus, in this current evil age. Shrewdness, based on Trump’s enacted policies, says that Trump is indeed the evangelical’s candidate. Evangelicals aren’t voting for pastor-in-chief, we already have that in Jesus Christ, we are attempting to be prudent [and shrewd] with the choices we have before us.

Anti-Trumpers, particularly evangelical ones, have no better alternative than Trump. The alternative is literally a communist-leftist agenda, that supports the continued and amped up slaughter of innocent babies in the womb. The alternative supports racist actions in the very name of Black Lives Matter (the neo-Marxist organization behind much of the rioting and revolutionary activity in America). The alternative of Biden/Harris ingratiates the USA to a globalist pact that seeks to rule the masses in a way that is ultimately antithetical to the Christian reality; insofar that it seeks to embolden Chinese slavery, and other creational destructiveness, that is incommensurate with the virtues that Cross indexes for us. Trump comes much closer to the Christian virtues (ironically), policy wise, than does the alternative. So, what in the world is Cross talking about?!

[1] Alan Cross, Anti-Trump Tweet-storm, accessed 09-01-2020.

[2] I said on Facebook that I would be writing a post defending an evangelical vote for Trump. This isn’t what I had in mind, per se. But it will have to suffice for now.