(1) Trump, Clinton, or Neither: How Evangelicals Are Expected to Vote (Christianity Today)
(2) With Cruz out, social conservative leaders rethink Trump (AP)
Now, with Trump the presumptive GOP nominee, there are recalculations being made by activist leaders who had backed Cruz, such as Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council.
“I endorsed Ted Cruz because of his clarity and conviction on issues that are central to our mission,” said Perkins “Now I’m going to step back and see what Donald Trump says.”
Two critical factors for Perkins: Who Trump picks as a running mate and what signals he sends about how he’d vet future judicial nominees.
(3) Donald Trump and the Catholic Vote (Crisis Magazine)
The best argument for Trump is that he may appoint better Supreme Court justices than Clinton (and it’s unlikely he could do worse). This is a significant consideration that, regrettably, makes voters easy to manipulate. With multiple justices aging, the next president may well have the opportunity to radically shift the profile of the nation’s highest court. Given that judicial activism is now regularly used as a means of advancing progressive social agendas, this is a serious threat.
(4) Now Trump Is Just Openly Attacking The Religious Right
On Monday morning, Trump published a tweet labeling Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, as “a terrible representative of Evangelicals.” Moore is an established leader of the Religious Right and has traditionally voiced support for Republican candidates, but has been unusually critical of Trump, who he sees as unrepresentative of evangelical Christian values.
(5) Hillary Clinton Is Now The Most Religious Candidate Running For President. Here’s Why That Matters
“I do believe that in many areas judgment should be left to God, that being more open, tolerant and respectful is part of what makes me humble about my faith,” she added. “I am in awe of people who truly turn the other cheek all the time, who can go that extra mile that we are called to go, who keep finding ways to forgive and move on.”
This thoughtful, conciliatory approach to religion rarely makes headlines these days, but it should sound familiar to millions of America’s so-called “Mainline Christians” — devotees of older, overwhelmingly white, and often liberal-leaning Christian denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), or Clinton’s own United Methodist Church (UMC).
(6) How Planned Parenthood won the Republican primary
…Among the ways Donald Trump has departed from his party’s line, one has gone relatively unnoticed: his refusal to demonize Planned Parenthood. Even as he vows to strip it of federal funding for contraception and sexual health services because Planned Parenthood affiliates perform abortions, Trump has insisted the organization also does “wonderful things.”
At the outset of the primary race, Republican voters had their pick of Rick Santorum (who said Planned Parenthood should be prosecuted), Mike Huckabee (who implicitly equated the group with the shooter who killed three people outside a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood), Rick Perry (who presided over some of the most zealous defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas), John Kasich (ditto in Ohio) Ted Cruz (who led the drive to shut down the federal government over Planned Parenthood funding), Jeb Bush (who said Planned Parenthood is “not actually doing women’s health issues”), Rand Paul (who proclaimed “there’s no reason in the world we have to fund Planned Parenthood at all”), Marco Rubio (who claimed Planned Parenthood offering fetal tissue donation “created an incentive for people to be pushed into abortion”), Chris Christie (who said of prioritizing defunding the group because it performs abortions, “I can’t think of anything bigger than that”), Ben Carson (who peddled the debunked myth that Planned Parenthood targets black neighborhoods), and Carly Fiorina (who falsely claimed Planned Parenthood was keeping fetuses alive to harvest their brains).
The voters passed. Instead, Republican voters lined up behind a man who said of Planned Parenthood, “I have a lot of respect for some of the things they do, the cervical cancer on women.”
(7) Franklin Graham’s response to federal recognition for Stonewall:
A monument to sin? That’s unbelievable. War heroes deserve a monument, our nation’s founding fathers deserve a monument, people who have helped to make America strong deserve a monument — but a monument to sin? The Washington Post reports that President Obama is poised to declare the first-ever national monument in New York recognizing “the struggle for gay rights.” It’s no surprise that the three officials who represent the area and support the monument are all openly gay. I can’t believe how far our country has digressed. I hope that the president will reconsider. Flaunting sin is a dangerous move. God’s Word tells us, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).
(8) Robert George: Are Christians ‘Ashamed of the Gospel? (NRB)
“The days of socially acceptable Christianity in the United States and throughout the West are over,” said George, who holds the McCormick Chair of Jurisprudence and is the founding Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“There are, to use that phrase made famous by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘costs of discipleship,’ and the costs are heavy,” George said, noting that Christians who continue to uphold biblical standards of morality about human life, marriage, and sexuality are being increasingly marginalized in America.
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