Matt Barber, one of the founding members of the #NeverTrump faction, has said he’s glad he attended the gathering of evangelical leaders in New York City last week to meet with Donald Trump.
The founder and editor of BarbWire.com was an early and enthusiastic supporter of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Republican presidential primary. But he recently wrote about his experience in The Big Apple for his website, noting the experience has moved him away from #NeverTrump to #MaybeTrump:
For better or worse, this election has come down to two people: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Anyone who thinks that some third-party candidate or parliamentary shenanigans at the GOP Convention in Cleveland will change this reality are fooling themselves. Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.
I believe that if Hillary Clinton is elected, America is done, the U.S. Constitution is toast, and she will finish what Obama began—the “fundamental transformation” of America into a godless, neo-Marxist Third World banana republic. We’ve had decades of the Clintons to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that this woman is not only the most corrupt elitist to ever seek the presidency, she’s an evil ideologue hell-bent on the abolition of individual liberties and religious freedom. While Great Britain just voted to reclaim its national sovereignty, a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to completely relinquish our own.
That leaves just Donald Trump, who “remains a wild card.” Barber said he remains skeptical, but saw a different side of the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting last week. Among the aspects of the likely GOP contender he likes:
- “He displayed a level of genuine humility, I believe, and a sincere willingness to listen and understand both our concerns about him and his past, as well as our concerns about America’s future.”
- “Mr. Trump was clearly out of his comfort zone, the business world, yet had the mettle to answer tough questions in a room with nearly 1,000 highly dubious evangelical and Catholic leaders.”
- “He pledged … to always appoint strict constructionist, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and pro-religious liberty judges and justices, and further promised to do away with the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which, as most credible legal scholars agree, unconstitutionally muzzles pastors from the pulpit on issues relating to politics and political candidates.”
- “Mr. Trump gave the strongest indication yet that he intends to be an unwavering ally to Israel.”
But, there’s still a ways to go to completely win Barber—and likely, many others like him—over. One of the biggest issues, he said, was Trump’s “roundabout answers” to questions about the “radical LGBT agenda,” and how he would use his constitutional authority to protect religious liberty and the safety of women and children in bathrooms.
And while some have mocked Trump’s comments about the need to “spiritize this country,” Barber—who has written about the same issue in his book Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity—said he agreed with the sentiment. And, in closing, he said all Christians need to “humbly seek God’s wisdom in all we do and say,” as well as how they vote.
“I can’t know what God’s doing here. None of us can,” he wrote. “If he’s planning to use Donald Trump as our next president—as our King Cyrus—then the last thing I want is to stand in His way.
“Should you vote for Donald Trump? I don’t have the answer. Pray about it. That’s what I’m doing.”
