Are US Evangelicals Becoming A Laughingstock?

"It was the clearly hand of God that gave us Mr. Trump
as our president."  - Franklin Graham

When it comes to matters of faith, I'm wary of labels. I'd rather be known as simply a follower of Jesus.

Yet many of my beliefs and values are aligned with those held by millions of evangelicals around the world. For example, I am a part of a faith community that takes Jesus and the Bible seriously, and celebrates the possibility of radical redemption and transformation of people regardless of their past. And I am even more pro-life than most evangelicals, not favoring abortion but also refusing to support war or capital punishment.

But in the wake of a growing alignment of evangelicalism with immoral and insane levels of defense spending, with policies that are unwelcoming to foreigners and strangers and with a tendency to defend politicians with a history of sexual misconduct, I must draw a line.

So just call me a follower of Jesus. Please.

Conservative columnist George Will, in a piece published in our local paper, states that "values voters" and "evangelicals" (Will's quotation marks) "have some repenting to do before trying to claim their role as arbiters of Republican and American righteousness." He adds, "We have, alas, not heard the last from them, but the first reaction to their 'witness' should be resounding guffaws."

Guffaws? Ouch. Are evangelicals, and Christians in general, becoming a laughingstock to unbelievers, and especially to young adults who are already leaving the church in droves?

Meanwhile, we should have all cringed when Franklin Graham, in one of his 2015 Facebook posts, proposed an outright ban on all Muslims entering the US,  “We are under attack by Muslims at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized―and they do their killing to honor their religion and Muhammad.”  

Only a few months later, then-candidate Donald Trump endorsed that very position and made it one of his campaign promises. Later, in the months prior to the 2016 election, Graham held evangelical "prayer rallies" in every state capital in support of the Republican ticket.

I'm guessing that Jesus, clearly not a member of either party, had other engagements.

For more on evangelicalism and its sometimes strange bedfellows: 
http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2016/11/hook-line-and-sinker-how-white.html