For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump – Ralph Reed

Ralph Reed is one of the founders of the Christian Coalition as well as the founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. I chose to read this book because of its title and author. I had hoped to learn something to help me understand what made so many Evangelical Christians abandon the sacred values of their faith to support Trump in 2016 and why they still stand by him. This review may be shorter than most because after suffering through all 330 pages I learned virtually nothing of value.

The book is mostly a history of Trump’s transition (starting in 2010) from a marginally legal business mogul with amoral character to autocratic style politician, his run for the White House, and his presidency. In the very first couple of chapters my hopes of learning anything useful or honest were dashed. The author essentially regurgitated all the Trump and Republican talking points. He attacked Democrats as socialists bent on taking away Evangelicals’ right to free speech and religious freedom, promoting abortion on demand at any time during pregnancy and at tax payer’s expense, and stacking the court with judges who will not respect the Constitution. Trump and Evangelicals in general he claims are both victims of this extreme Left conspiracy.

Chapter by chapter the author repeats the Trump mantra:  crooked Hillary; liberal hypocrisy, fake news, no Russia collusion, perfect call to Ukraine. Mr. Reed does a brilliant job of lying, spinning, twisting, and misrepresenting the facts of President Trump’s tenure in office. He gives Trump a pass on every amoral, hateful, and vindictive act by Biblical rationalization or assigning it to the past. Sadly, the author advances and strengthens the proposition that national evangelical leaders’ goals are political rather than spiritual. He promotes the very intolerance and hatred too many of those leaders express toward anyone whose beliefs and goals even slightly challenge evangelicals’ right to force Americans to submit to their dogma.