Cancelled By His Conservative Church, David French Speaks Out Against Racism, Trump Authoritarianism
If Trump wins, supporters will see divine intervention as the reason
Writer and attorney David French has crossed the political divide. Formerly a staff writer for the conservative National Review, he has argued high-profile religious liberty cases in the courts. A military veteran who served in Iraq, he considers himself both theologically and politically conservative.
Yet in adopting a dark-skinned girl from Ethiopia in 2010 and writing pieces critical of Donald Trump since 2015, he lost a lot of friends. He has now been cancelled as a speaker by the Presbyterian Church in America, a small, theologically conservative Christian denomination that was his family’s church home for more than 15 years.
“I am now deemed too divisive to speak to a gathering of Christians who share my faith,” he wrote in The New York Times (free link). He was originally invited to speak on the topic of supporting your pastor and church leaders in a polarized political year. But the personal attacks against him and his family were so intense that denomination leaders felt compelled to withdraw his invitation to speak because the panel topic “threatened the peace and unity of the church.”
When he joined the church in 2004 and for years afterwards, “I perceived the denomination as relatively apolitical. I never heard political messages from the pulpit, and I worshiped alongside Democratic friends.”
“…The anger against me wasn’t simply over my opposition to Trump. It was directly related to the authoritarian turn in white evangelical politics. My commitment to individual liberty and pluralism means that I defend the civil liberties of all Americans, including people with whom I have substantial disagreements.”
His report on his church’s transformation is riveting and very disturbing. Read the whole thing.
In an interview with Amanpour and Company, he discussed conservative evangelical culture and how, if Trump wins, many in conservative churches will interpret his victory as divine intervention.