The Red Letter Christians, a reference to the words of Jesus printed in some Bibles in red type. Wearing baggy clothes that he sews himself, Mr. Claiborne preaches the Gospel, lives among the poor and befriends prisoners on death row, modeling his ministry on the life of Jesus.
“There is another Gospel in our country right now, and it is the Gospel of Trump,” Mr. Claiborne preached at the revival in his Tennessee drawl. “It doesn’t look much like the Gospel of Jesus.”
But Red Letter Christians and other evangelicals have increasingly become frustrated that their church appears to be endorsing Mr. Trump’s program of deporting immigrants, fanning racial tension and passing a tax deal benefiting the rich.
“This is not of God,” thundered Barbara Williams-Skinner, an influential evangelical elder as the audience stood and clapped at the revival. “This is not worthy of our savior. This is not what he died for.”
“Let’s go where the Christians are, go where toxic Christianity lives,” Mr. Claiborne said last year, when proposing the idea for a revival in Lynchburg at an annual retreat for the Red Letter Christians.
But to the leaders of Liberty, he was a menace to their campus. He and his national network of liberal evangelicals, called the Red Letter Christians, were holding a revival meeting to protest in Liberty’s backyard.
Mr. Claiborne and his group are the other evangelicals. The Red Letter Christians, a reference to the words of Jesus printed in some Bibles in red type, are not the evangelicals invited for interviews on Fox News or MSNBC. They don’t align neatly with either political party. But they have fierce moral and theological objections to those evangelicals who have latched onto Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Mr. Golden had done refugee and missionary work in 70 countries. At age 51, with three daughters in college, he had left behind a fat salary in large ministries he called “Evangelical Inc.” and was on contract for the Red Letter Christians, without health insurance. Each morning he prayed to God to help him make it through the day without a mishap.
Their “Red Letter Revival” revealed the state of the evangelical church in 2018: The loudest voices and institutional power and money are with Mr. Trump; the dissenters are fired-up, underfunded and scattered; and the vast majority of pastors are silent for fear of dividing their congregations or risking their jobs.
Three days before the revival, Mr. Golden met for breakfast with a leader of a local evangelical church in the dim, empty back room of a downtown cafe, so as not to be seen together. The church leader, who spoke on the condition that neither he nor his church be identified, said he believed in the Red Letter campaign because he was concerned about white evangelicals’ bond with Mr. Trump.
But the leader said that his church could not participate in the revival. He and three other elders at the church had jobs at Liberty University.
“Everyone’s afraid,” he said, pausing. “That’s strong language. Everyone’s very mindful of how they speak and how they deliver the truth. It’s hard to tell the truth in a context like Lynchburg.”
Mr. Falwell never responded, though in addition to banning the Red Letter Christians from campus, he forbade the Liberty University student newspaper from covering the revival.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/us/anti-trump-evangelicals-lynchburg.html?rref=collection/issuecollection/todays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
“There is another Gospel in our country right now, and it is the Gospel of Trump,” Mr. Claiborne preached at the revival in his Tennessee drawl. “It doesn’t look much like the Gospel of Jesus.”
But Red Letter Christians and other evangelicals have increasingly become frustrated that their church appears to be endorsing Mr. Trump’s program of deporting immigrants, fanning racial tension and passing a tax deal benefiting the rich.
“This is not of God,” thundered Barbara Williams-Skinner, an influential evangelical elder as the audience stood and clapped at the revival. “This is not worthy of our savior. This is not what he died for.”
“Let’s go where the Christians are, go where toxic Christianity lives,” Mr. Claiborne said last year, when proposing the idea for a revival in Lynchburg at an annual retreat for the Red Letter Christians.
But to the leaders of Liberty, he was a menace to their campus. He and his national network of liberal evangelicals, called the Red Letter Christians, were holding a revival meeting to protest in Liberty’s backyard.
Mr. Claiborne and his group are the other evangelicals. The Red Letter Christians, a reference to the words of Jesus printed in some Bibles in red type, are not the evangelicals invited for interviews on Fox News or MSNBC. They don’t align neatly with either political party. But they have fierce moral and theological objections to those evangelicals who have latched onto Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Mr. Golden had done refugee and missionary work in 70 countries. At age 51, with three daughters in college, he had left behind a fat salary in large ministries he called “Evangelical Inc.” and was on contract for the Red Letter Christians, without health insurance. Each morning he prayed to God to help him make it through the day without a mishap.
Their “Red Letter Revival” revealed the state of the evangelical church in 2018: The loudest voices and institutional power and money are with Mr. Trump; the dissenters are fired-up, underfunded and scattered; and the vast majority of pastors are silent for fear of dividing their congregations or risking their jobs.
Three days before the revival, Mr. Golden met for breakfast with a leader of a local evangelical church in the dim, empty back room of a downtown cafe, so as not to be seen together. The church leader, who spoke on the condition that neither he nor his church be identified, said he believed in the Red Letter campaign because he was concerned about white evangelicals’ bond with Mr. Trump.
But the leader said that his church could not participate in the revival. He and three other elders at the church had jobs at Liberty University.
“Everyone’s afraid,” he said, pausing. “That’s strong language. Everyone’s very mindful of how they speak and how they deliver the truth. It’s hard to tell the truth in a context like Lynchburg.”
Mr. Falwell never responded, though in addition to banning the Red Letter Christians from campus, he forbade the Liberty University student newspaper from covering the revival.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/us/anti-trump-evangelicals-lynchburg.html?rref=collection/issuecollection/todays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
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