I could multiply these examples of far too many American church leaders "giving Trump a chance." In Germany the churches gave Hitler a chance, and we all know how that turned out.
So what's the answer? Again Bonhoeffer, with his penchant for transportation metaphors has a blunt prescription. "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice," he said, "we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."
It wasn't just empty words, as his role in plots to overthrow and even assassinate Hitler attest. Active resistance cost Bonhoeffer his life, and whether he was right or wrong to get involved in such plots is beside the point I want to make here. The point is simple: because Bonhoeffer declined to board Hitler's train in the first place, history now judges him favorably. How will history (or God, for that matter) judge those American church leaders for taking a ride on Trump's train? No-one knows for sure where this particularly train is headed, but already it has passed through some pretty ominous-looking stations.
It is time for church leaders (and Christians generally) to disembark before it is too late.
[1] G. Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964, pp. 81-2.
[2] R. Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth For The Dumb: The German Evangelical Church and the Jews 1879-1950. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976, p. 270, 282.
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