Evangelical magazine Christianity Today urged lawmakers to remove U.S. President Donald Trump from office in a scathing editorial published late Thursday.
Penned by Editor-in-chief Mark Galli, the flagship Evangelical magazine also warned like-minded Christians to abandon Trump for the sake of Jesus Christ or live with the religious consequences.
Galli wrote that the impeachment proceedings left no doubt that Trump has "used his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president's political opponents", which he claimed "is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral."
However, in a bid to play it nice with the solid Republican Evangelical base who supports Trump, he also spoke ill of Democrats, whom he accused of a "partisan" impeachment agenda from day one of Trump's presidency.
"Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment," he said.
Yet, his tone against Trump got harsher towards the end of the article when he gave an ultimatum to Evangelicals to "Remember" who they are and whom they serve.
"Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior," he said.
"Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments," Galli added.
After calling for "immoral" and spiritually "lost" Trump's removal from office, Christianity Today's website has crashed and Galli received several invitations from the main stream media that collaborates with the Democratic Party in the impeachment process of the president.
In a response to the magazine founded by Billy Graham, Trump defended himself as the only president that "has done more" for Evangelicals.
"A far left magazine, or very 'progressive,' as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn't been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.
"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. I won't be reading ET again!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
Despite the harsh rebuke from the magazine, evangelicals are not expected to defect, en masse, from Trump or the Republican Party.
