Christianity Today has renewed its scathing criticism of Donald Trump in a new editorial that condemns his “obvious misuses of power” and “rampant immorality, greed, and corruption.”
It comes a week after the influential American magazine, founded by late evangelical minister Billy Graham, published a controversial leader column calling for the US President’s impeachment.
Responding to criticism from some readers over the first editorial, written by editor-in-chief Mark Galli, Mr Dalrymple warned “the perception of wholesale evangelical support for the administration” had “made toxic the reputation” of the church.
Evangelicals have been a bedrock of support for the Republican president, and the magazine noted in its new editorial titled "The Flag in the Whirlwind,” that Mr Trump "has done a lot of good for causes we all care about."
But Mr Dalrymple wrote that evangelicals' embrace of Mr Trump means being tied to his "rampant immorality, greed, and corruption; his divisiveness and race-baiting; his cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees."
"With profound love and respect," Mr Dalrymple wrote, "we ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to consider whether they have given to Caesar what belongs only to God: their unconditional loyalty."
He pledged to open up a “serious discussion about how our activity as Christians shapes our activity as citizens” in 2020.
The editorials have been a rare political intervention from the magazine, which has a circulation of 130,000 and 4.3 million monthly online readers.
He wrote that the magazine "has been doing poorly and hasn't been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years", while he questions if it would prefer a Democratic president "to guard their religion".
Mr Galli, asked by CNN about Mr Trump's outburst, said the president's characterization of the magazine as far left was "far from accurate."
"I don't have any imagination that my editorial is going to shift their views on this matter," he said of the president's supporters.
But he asserted that the facts "are unambiguous" when it comes to the acts that led to the president's impeachment this week.
