Rachel Held Evans nails it when it comes to describing the incompatibility of the Gospel and Donald Trump’s racist message. The greedy white supremacist has tweeted lies describing black people as inherently violent and has said that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists”. Many of the Afro-Americans and Mexicans that he attacks with his KKK-rhetoric are Christians, mind you. Yet suddenly he gets to speak at the Christian Liberty University and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him. Held Evans writes:

You would think it would be a hard sell given the fact that the real estate mogul and reality star has boasted about his extramarital affairs, profited off casinos and strip clubs, said he doesn’t need to ask God for forgiveness, called for targeting innocent civilians in war, mocked a reporter with a disability, threatened the religious liberty of minority groups in the U.S., and gained wide support among white nationalists for consistently lying about and demeaning blacks, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, and Syrian refugees. But polls show that despite all of this, Trump remains favored among evangelical voters.

Interestingly, only 5% of Republican pastors would vote for Trump, so there’s a gap here between the pew and the pulpit. Noting that, we still have to admit that there is a lot of racism among white evangelicals and so they like Trump not despite his racism but because of it. Held Evans points out that Liberty University did oppose racial integration in the past and fellow MennoNerd Ebony spoke about the evangelical racism in the US a few months ago:

All of this makes me ask the question: would evangelicals vote for satan if he ran for President? I know that many have been convinced that they voted against satan – basically every President the last, I don’t know, 50 years have been accused of being the Anti-Christ by people who don’t sympathize with their party. In fact, if Trump ran for the Democrats Republican Christians surely would point out his sins and stupidity and probably argue that he’s doing the works of the devil.

But they’re blind for their own party. So let’s assume that the devil, seeking to corrupt and destroy the church, would run as a Republican. What would he be able to do and say? Well, look at Trump. He would be able to praise dictators, attack minorities and declare that he can kill people without losing voters.

Satan is the father of lies so of course he would claim to be a Christian while at the same time stating that he doesn’t need to ask God for forgiveness for his multiple sins, as Trump did. In fact, we know from Matthew 4 that satan would be able to quote the Bible even better than Trump! That very passage ends with:

The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. (Mt 4:8-11).

Christians ought to say the same thing to Trump.