Evangelicals and Immigration

In December 2019, the magazine Christianity Today published a controversial essay in which editor-in-chief Mark Galli argued that evangelical Christians should stand for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump. Days later, Timothy Dalrymple, the president of Christianity Today International, the magazine’s parent organization, published a second essay defending both Galli and the magazine’s choice to publish Galli's piece. In “The Flag in the Whirlwind,” Dalrymple argued that evangelicals should put greater distance between themselves and the president, listing a number of moral and political commitments that may compromise evangelical witness. Among other issues noted by Dalrymple: “The problem is that we as evangelicals are also associated with President Trump’s ... cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees.” Readers of Dalrymple’s essay would have picked up on the tension implied in his point. On the one hand, evangelicals are identified with cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees. On the other hand, Dalrymple implies that this is against the grain of Christianity, in general, and of evangelical Christianity, in particular.

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