'Shame on Him': Evangelicals Call Out Trump on Syria

Evangelicals oppose Trump over Syria

 who stood by the president during the
 storm over the “Access Hollywood” tape and
 who called the idea of impeachment “absurd.” 

One called President Donald Trump’s decision “an egregious act of betrayal.” Another said the policy could be “the biggest mistake of his presidency.” A third said Trump “is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven.”

Conservative Christians have ardently stood by Trump at most every turn, from allegations of sexual misconduct to his policy of separating migrant families at the border and the Russia investigation.

But this week, some of Trump’s top evangelical supporters broke rank to raise alarms over his move to withdraw troops from Syria, which prompted Turkish forces to launch a ground and air assault against a Kurdish-led militia that has been a crucial ally in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State militant group.

As Turkish warplanes began to bomb Syrian towns on Wednesday, prominent evangelist Franklin Graham called for Trump to reconsider his decision, and worried that the Kurds — and the Christian minorities in the region they have defended — could be annihilated.

“We have many friends in the Kurdish areas,” said Graham, whose humanitarian organization, Samaritan’s Purse, has done relief work in the region. “We know people on the ground.”

The concern resonated for many conservative evangelicals who have supported Trump, and called into question his much-touted commitment to religious freedom, a top value for his base. The opposition has arrived at an inopportune time for the president: The administration is weathering a heated battle with Congress, and according to a Fox News poll, more than half of voters now support the president’s impeachment.

Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, is calling on the administration to actively demonstrate its support for persecuted religious minorities in the aftermath of the withdrawal. “This is inconsistent with what the president has done,” he said.

Erick Erickson, a well-known conservative evangelical blogger, wrote on Twitter that Trump had committed “an egregious act of betrayal” to the Kurds. “Shame on him,” he said.

Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said he was “appalled” by the president’s decision, and added that “the president of the United States is in great danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who rarely breaks with the president, said it could be “the biggest mistake of his presidency.”

Current disappointment is unlikely to translate into substantial or lasting opposition. And not all evangelical supporters have taken issue with Trump’s decision. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and a prominent supporter of Trump, said he “happily” deferred to the commander-in-chief, and he praised Trump for carrying through on a campaign promise to end U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts.

“Some evangelicals may disagree with the president’s decision,” Jeffress said, “but I guarantee you there is not one evangelical supporter of the president who would switch their vote and support Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden over a Syria decision.”

Franklin Graham stopped short of condemning Trump’s policy outright. The evangelist said he communicated with the president or vice president — he would not specify which leader — about the troop withdrawal within the last 48 hours, and said he ultimately deferred to their determinations. He declined to give specifics of his conversation.

“There are so many other issues at stake here,” he said, listing things such as Turkey’s membership in NATO and U.S. military bases in the country. “It is a very hard decision.”

Perkins pointed to the administration’s other efforts for religious freedom, and said that “one incident doesn’t make an administration.”

Religious freedom, like anti-abortion policy and conservative judges, has often been a point of pride for many of Trump’s supporters.

At the United Nations last month, Trump earned praise from supporters for highlighting religious freedom instead of prioritizing a major climate summit. As Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine roiled Washington last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical who often weaves together Christianity and foreign policy, spoke on religious freedom in Rome.

This summer, around the time of the Mueller hearings on Capitol Hill, the State Department convened a celebrated gathering to advance global religious freedom.

Conservative Christians can point to the administration’s priority of defending religious freedom, but action and policy are more revealing than words, said Meighan Stone, an evangelical Christian and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“If this administration can’t be good allies to the Kurds in this battle, where is this policy that is supposed to be protecting persecuted religious minorities around the world?” she asked. “It is nonexistent.”

When asked about human rights abuses of non-Christian communities, or in regions that are not as tied to biblical history — for example, how China has targeted Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in the autonomous region of Xinjiang — Graham demurred.

“I am not familiar with these people,” Graham said of the Uighurs, noting that he had not visited the region. “I’d certainly condemn China for, it’s not just the Uighurs, they’ve been destroying churches.”

Churches across Christian traditions — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant — often share spiritual and personal ties to congregations in the Middle East, praying for their pastors or families by name, or inviting them to speak when they visit the United States.

Many church leaders galvanized support in 2014 when Islamic State fighters targeted, killed and raped fleeing religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis.

Now, that fear is remerging and motivating evangelical alarm, explained Jeremy Courtney, who leads a relief effort called Preemptive Love that works in northeastern Syria and in the Al Hol tent camp, which has been described as a growing hotbed of Islamic State fighters and their families.

“Another way to view it is Christian self-interest, that if ISIS reconstitutes, then there will be another ISIS genocide against Christians, and maybe Arabs get killed, maybe Yazidis will get killed, but the subtle undercurrent is that maybe Christians will get killed,” said Courtney, who was raised as an evangelical in Texas and has lived north of Baghdad for almost 13 years.

“That is a legitimate concern, it is just disturbing to me,” he said. “Christians speaking out on this should be concerned about the Muslims who will lose their lives because of this policy as well.”

The troop withdrawal in Syria is likely to be a topic of conversation this weekend at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, where Trump is scheduled to speak to hundreds of conservative leaders. At the event, evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson, whom Turkey accused of spying and detained for two years, will receive an award marking the one-year anniversary of his release.

For many conservative Christians, Brunson has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting persecuted Christians in unfriendly regions. This week, Trump said on Twitter that America’s relationship with Turkey “has been very good.”

In a phone call Thursday evening, Brunson said the decision to withdraw troops from Syria and the ensuing Turkish attack have left him “distressed.” He spoke of the refugees he met working in the Syrian-Turkish border region, including friends who had converted to Christianity and who were currently in Kobani, a Syrian town now under Turkish assault.

“I don’t think Turkey is a friend of the West anymore,” Brunson said. “This is a point of great concern to me, obviously.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2019 The New York Times Company