This subject wasn’t next on my list, but a curious dialogue emerged this week and I had to jump on the opportunity. The magazine Christianity Today, founded by the late Billy Graham, published an article called Trump Should Be Removed From Office, which argued that President Trump, whatever political advantages he may offer, needs to be removed from office on moral grounds.

I am not a Christian and I’m not endorsing CT, but the article is worth reading. They make a fully compelling case, and it is notably grounded in principle. They start with the disclaimer that they had no desire to make a political statement, and they parrot the right wing tropes that the Democrats have “had it out” for Trump since day one and that the impeachment hearings were not fair to him. Then they begin making their case, and it is airtight.

They go on to explain that they made this case against President Clinton 20 years ago, and that the very same moral arguments they made against him back then apply tenfold to President Trump now, and this cannot be ignored. They also take care to acknowledge the political victories Trump has given them, to include all those judges and Justices. But they argue that no amount of political transactions are worth the price paid for dancing with the devil.

“None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.”

“To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?”

What made the CT article particularly interesting is that Billy Graham’s son Franklin is one of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, and is tremendously influential within the evangelical community. Graham apparently read the article and gave careful consideration to the argument being made, searched his soul for the right answer, prayed on it, and then penned a thoughtful, reflective piece that acknowledged CT’s point and agreed that the United States should have a President with character that is beyond reproach.

Just kidding… he slammed the piece as pro-Democrat, and he wrote CT off as a leftist rag. Nowhere in his 5-paragraph response does Graham engage the argument being made in the CT piece. Instead he spends his intellectual energy engaging arguments that were not being made, citing irrelevant political talking points, touting the Presidents accomplishments, condemning the impeachment, defending Trump, and accusing CT of being controlled by elite liberals. At the end Graham casually mentions that Trump is a sinner just like everyone else, but that is the full extent to which he even touches the question of ethics.

Transactionalism in Action

In his response, Graham exhibits a case study in the political transactionalism of today’s evangelicals. It is uniquely instructive, because in it you can see his mask actually come off in real time. Graham does not even attempt to defend DT on moral ground, instead he appeals to the many political transactions that he and the evangelical community has benefited from during this administration.

A transactional relationship is one that is based purely on the transaction of specific items or services of value from another, with a full disregard for any other considerations. This is appropriate in many cases – when you purchase celery at the store, you really don’t need to be concerned with anything more than the price of celery. As long as the celery is clean, healthy, and priced right, you have little cause to consider anything else. I’ll give you the money, you give me the celery.

But most social interactions avoid this, in recognition that circumstances which may not be immediately relevant to the particular transaction may have second and third order consequences that far outweigh the benefits of a particular transaction. For example, we don’t buy stolen good because we recognize that in doing so, we create a demand signal for more theft, and it’s only a matter of time before that directly impacts us or someone we care about. It also raises the prices of good sold in the legitimate market. So while it might be nice to get a $600 TV for $50, we realize that the price we pay on the whole is way more than any TV is worth.

This, in fact, is the exact argument being made by CT.

“no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down.”

Graham misses the point in spectacular fashion. Instead of defending Trump from a moral standpoint, he instead begins listing out the specific transactions that justify his support. Instead of arguing that his support for Trump isn’t transactional, he instead speaks glowingly of all the wonderful transactions he has received.

“Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time. The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans. The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important—and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that, to say it doesn’t count?”

Let’s ignore, for the moment, the veracity of these claims. Let’s pretend they are all true (they aren’t). If Graham regarded the President’s character as a non-issue, that would be bad enough. But the truth is even worse – he sees these accomplishments as an acceptable trade for moral reprobation in the highest level of our government. To him, the television is so nice, it really doesn’t matter whose living room it was taken from.

Why does this matter?

So Franklin Graham is willing to turn a blind eye to behavior that most people find reprehensible in order to get his political victories. So what, right? Doesn’t everyone do that?

Actually, no. Most people recognize that the character of the people one deals with or endorse matters a great deal. Franklin is particularly influential, so his transactional approach to political support is likely to circulate throughout the evangelical community. It’s a sinister vice because the consequences really don’t manifest themselves in any immediate fashion. It’s a range-of-the-moment approach that cannot end in any way other than disaster. It’s a moral “ponzi scheme” with no payoff at the end, and most people don’t realize they’ve been had until they find themselves victimized by the unethical behavior they’ve enabled.

But what’s most astounding about this particular case is that Graham’s approach doesn’t even pass muster in his own theology! Full disclosure: I don’t believe a single word written in the Bible, but I do believe that it represents some of the most sophisticated moral wisdom that was available at the time it was written (a time that has long passed). But what I believe isn’t at issue here – Graham and all his evangelicals seem to believe that the bible is a morally authoritative document, and that Jesus represents the moral gold standard.

So what does the bible teach about transactionalism? Is there an example set by Jesus himself? Actually, there is. Matthew Chapter 4 tells a story in which Jesus was led into the wilderness for 40 days without any food, at which time he was “tempted” by the devil. The famous story of temptation depicts Jesus refusing to cooperate with the devil at all, even in the most inconsequential of ways. Jesus steadfastly refuses to do anything the devil suggests… even feeding himself… simply for the fact that it was the devil who suggested it.

Think about that. Jesus famously fed 5000 hungry people bread and fish. In his famous prayer, he said “give us this day our daily bread”. When the Jews were wandering around in the wilderness, God dropped bread on them daily. Bread is depicted all throughout the bible as being a good thing both literally and symbolically, but Jesus would not consider feeding himself bread when it was the devil who asked it of him. He was not willing to engage in even the most ordinary and healthy of transactions if the devil was in any way involved.

The bible is rife with stories of people refusing to deal with those they considered evil. Non-compliance, martyrdom, civil disobedience to corrupt rulers… this theme runs throughout the book from beginning to end.

Donald Trump is a veritable checklist of all of the things the bible warned about in a ruler. First and foremost, he claims to be a Christian but when asked if he had ever asked for god’s forgiveness, he famously admitted that he never has (after trying to dodge the question for over a minute). Now I’m no theologian, but I’m pretty certain that repentance and asking god for forgiveness is not only a prerequisite to be a Christian – it is literally the only prerequisite.

The bigger picture

Graham’s transactionalism is a microcosm of what’s happening in the American political right today. One by one we’ve seen people who, unimpressed by Trump’s political prospects, offered up their unvarnished feelings about him, only to do a complete reversal when they realized he could provide them political advantages. Lindsey Graham called Trump a kook who wasn’t fit for office, then a year later accused the media of holding that position. Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, Kellyanne Conway, and many others voiced their strong condemnation of Trump’s character before jumping on his bandwagon, and when asked about why they support someone who behaves in such obviously unethical ways, they immediately point to his “accomplishments” as justification.

For evangelicals, there seems to be a rift taking place between those who are loyal to their principles and those for whom principles are for sale to the highest political bidder. For the American political right writ large, this sort of transactionalism seems to be the new normal. As CT pointed out, “this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration.” And this culture of transactionalism starts right from the very top – Trump has repeatedly complained “Why would you want to impeach a President who is doing such a great job?” (as though job performance is relevant to impeachable behavior). Today, the President of the United States can stand in front of a raucous crowd and joke that a United States Representative is in hell right now and no one bats an eye. It doesn’t even register on the radar. He can accuse sitting members of Congress of treason for having the audacity to engage in oversight. This is how far the ethical expectations for our President have fallen, and there seems to be no bottom.

This political transactionism is not without consequence. The consequences won’t be immediately apparent, but when they become apparent, it will be catastrophic. You can make a deal with the devil, but you will not escape when he comes around to collect.

Update: In an almost perfect segue, Trump blasted the CT article by accusing them of being a “far left” magazine (their article had no political aspect to it at all – it was about morality) and insisted they “would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns”. That’s right, he claimed that Christianity Today wants a leader that will take away your religion. But that isn’t the “perfect” part. The perfect part is that he completely validated my thesis with this statement: “No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close, You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage.”If you weren’t convinced before, there it is in black and white. He makes no attempt to defend his ethics; he just appeals to what he has done for the evangelical community. It’s all about transactions.