Christianity Today Editor Says Magazine Gained Subscriptions After Calling for Trump's Removal
Days after President Donald Trump lashed out at Christianity Today for calling for his removal, the evangelical magazine’s editor-in-chief said the publication has been gaining subscribers.
“Although we’ve lost hundreds of subscribers, we’ve gained three times as many subscribers,” Christianity Today editor Mark Galli told Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC Sunday.
Last week, Galli published a controversial op-ed calling for Trump’s removal from office that asked readers to “remember who you are and whom you serve,” stating that Trump’s actions have been “immoral.”
“The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” Galli wrote in the op-ed. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”
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Trump — who had just become the third president in U.S. history to be impeached the day before — fired back on Twitter, misspelling the publication in the process.
“No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close,” Trump tweeted. “You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!”
....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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019
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Christianity Today primarily stays in the center, politically speaking. In Galli’s own words, “the typical CT approach is to stay above the fray” and leave readers to their own political opinions, though a reported 81 percent of evangelicals voted for Trump in the 2016 election.
But the magazine’s editor-in-chief is now calling for Christianity Today‘s primarily evangelical readership to reconsider voting the same in 2020.
“We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath,” Galli wrote last Thursday. “The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people.”
From Christianity Today’s editor in chief https://t.co/NVdQjg4odC
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 19, 2019
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Last week’s editorial highlighted a shift in the religious base that helped elect Trump in 2016.
“To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that 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,” Galli wrote. “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. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.”
