Evangelical leader resigns in protest of Donald Trump
As Donald Trump has made increasingly racist statements over the past week with regard to the Charlottesville white supremacist terrorist attack, a number of business leaders and public figures have resigned from Trump’s committees and advisory boards in protest. So many CEOs quit Trump’s manufacturing board that it had to be shut down. Then, everyone on his arts committee resigned. Now a member of Trump’s evangelical council has resigned as well.
It’s staggering that Donald Trump even has something called a “President’s Evangelical Advisory Board” as the separation of church and state raises a number of red flags. But nonetheless, such an entity exists within Trump’s administration. And as of today it’s short a member. Pastor A. R. Bernard used his Twitter page (link) to announce his resignation from the council today, posting the following message in the process:
“In a social and political climate such as ours, it often takes a gathering of unlikely individuals to shape the future of our nation on issues of faith and inner city initiatives. I was willing to be one of those unlikely individuals, and that is why I agreed to serve on the President’s Evangelical Advisory Board. However it became obvious that there was a deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration. I quietly stepped away from the Board several months ago, and submitted my letter of formal resignation as of Tues. Aug. 15, 2017.”
It’s not clear why Pastor Bernard waited to post this announcement on Friday, after he apparently resigned on Tuesday. But he had been pushing back against the white supremacist movement on his Twitter account throughout the week. While Bernard was much more polite in his resignation letter than the arts council was with its own mass-resignation earlier in the day, it could serve to hurt Trump a lot more. Evangelicals voted heavily for Trump – yet now a prominent evangelical pastor is flat out saying that Trump is not in line with his values.
