{"id":17688,"date":"2023-05-23T14:45:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T18:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=17688"},"modified":"2023-05-29T20:22:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T00:22:47","slug":"christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","title":{"rendered":"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Shutterstock.com | Grindstone Media Group \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, spoke with NBC\u2019s Chuck Todd, casting doubt on how strongly evangelicals will turn out to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 election. \u201cAlmost every family that I know has people who don\u2019t speak to each other anymore about this personality and this figure, and I think there are a lot of people, including conservative evangelicals like me, who are looking at this and saying, \u2018Are we really going to do this again? Haven\u2019t we seen this already? Do we really want to repeat it?\u2019 And I suppose that will be the question for the rest of the year,\u201d Moore said. At the center of Moore\u2019s concerns with the former president are his present legal troubles, including charges by New York DA Alan Bragg and Trump\u2019s having been found liable for defamation and sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll.<\/p>\n

Moore had previously written about his concerns in March, right as the former president announced he expected charges. He stated that Christians would have to look past whether Trump is \u201con their side\u201d and determine if he is actually guilty of the charges. He also differentiated between issues of criminality and morality. \u201cCheating on one\u2019s wife with a porn star is not a crime. Lying to one\u2019s spouse and to one\u2019s supporters is not itself a crime. All sorts of things that aren\u2019t prosecutable offenses\u2014nor should they be\u2014are nonetheless morally repulsive. Just as those of us who are not Trump supporters must be forceful in stating that Donald Trump (and anyone else) is innocent until proven guilty, Trump supporters should recognize what now should be obvious: Personal character does indeed matter,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Evangelicals like Moore- those who have often struggled with whether or not to support someone who politically aligns with them but has character issues- are not the only ones struggling with the former president. Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of the Iowa-based Family Leader organization, criticized a recent CNN town hall President Trump participated in. \u201cThe former president could take a victory lap by just saying, \u2018Hey, look at I\u2019m the guy who gave you three Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade. But instead, he then alienates himself from the pro-life community by saying you\u2019re the reason we didn\u2019t do better in 2022,\u201d said Plaats in regards to what he saw as Trump \u201cdodging\u201d a question about whether or not he would support a federal abortion ban. Trump also recently criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for signing a heartbeat bill, calling it \u201ctoo harsh,\u201d further driving a wedge between himself and pro-life evangelicals. Donald Trump remains the frontrunner in polling, however, Senator Tim Scott has just recently entered the race, joining Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Larry Elder. Scott often aligned himself with President Trump during his presidency but has less character problems and has also openly spoken about his faith, which may appeal to evangelical leaders. Ron DeSantis, who has received a lot of criticism from Donald Trump as a perceived threat to his candidacy, is also rumored to be announcing his candidacy later this week, offering another possible option for evangelicals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, spoke with NBC\u2019s Chuck Todd, casting doubt on how strongly evangelicals will turn out to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 election. \u201cAlmost every family that I know has people who don\u2019t speak to each other anymore about this personality and this figure, and I think there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":17727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nChristianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Russell Moore recently spoke about his doubts that evangelicals will vote from Donald Trump in the upcoming election.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Russell Moore recently spoke about his doubts that evangelicals will vote from Donald Trump in the upcoming election.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-23T18:45:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-05-30T00:22:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/05\/trump-church_credit-Grindstone-Media-Group-Shutterstock-1-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals","description":"Russell Moore recently spoke about his doubts that evangelicals will vote from Donald Trump in the upcoming election.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals","og_description":"Russell Moore recently spoke about his doubts that evangelicals will vote from Donald Trump in the upcoming election.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2023-05-23T18:45:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-05-30T00:22:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/05\/trump-church_credit-Grindstone-Media-Group-Shutterstock-1-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals","name":"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/05\/trump-church_credit-Grindstone-Media-Group-Shutterstock-1-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2023-05-23T18:45:55+00:00","dateModified":"2023-05-30T00:22:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"Russell Moore recently spoke about his doubts that evangelicals will vote from Donald Trump in the upcoming election.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/05\/trump-church_credit-Grindstone-Media-Group-Shutterstock-1-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/05\/trump-church_credit-Grindstone-Media-Group-Shutterstock-1-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"Shutterstock.com | Grindstone Media Group \/ Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/05\/christianity-todays-russell-moore-questions-donald-trumps-electability-amongst-evangelicals#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christianity Today\u2019s Russell Moore Questions Donald Trump\u2019s Electability Amongst Evangelicals"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a","name":"Leigh Pizzutilla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","caption":"Leigh Pizzutilla"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/lpizzutilla"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17730,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17688\/revisions\/17730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}