Imagine that an American politician, competing with a dozen other candidates for media attention, launched his presidential campaign by describing the nation\u2019s evangelical Christians as a problem: \u201cThey\u2019re charlatans who raise money from poor people to spend on private jets,\u201d\u009d he says. \u201cThey have multiple affairs and sexually abuse children. And, some, I assume, are good people.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Millions of evangelical Christians would be fighting mad, and rightly so. While there have been a few, highly publicized cases of professing evangelicals committing these sins and crimes, the overwhelming majority have not. This charge against believers would be what the Bible calls bearing false witness, and what the world calls slander.<\/p>\n
No presidential candidate would make such a claim, as no candidate would want to alienate millions of evangelicals. And yet this blanket slander is precisely what Donald Trump did in recent days by describing Mexican immigrants as \u201cbringing crime\u201d\u009d to the U.S. and as \u201crapists.\u201d\u009d Mr. Trump then \u201cclarified\u201d\u009d his views by suggesting that the problem is \u201cnot just Mexico,\u201d\u009d but immigrants from other parts of the world as well.<\/p>\n