Former Pastor Tears Into Donald Trump

A former pastor has branded Donald Trump the "Antichrist" for his supposed hold over evangelical Christians.

In an article published on progressive news website Salon, Nathaniel Manderson said his fellow evangelical believers should reject the former president. "If evangelical Christians really want to save this country and redeem the message of Christ — as I believe most of them do — they must begin by renouncing the Antichrist who has led them so far into darkness," the journalist and former pastor wrote.

Trump has long been popular with evangelical voters. In the Iowa caucuses last month, the former president received 53 percent of their vote. This week, he will speak at the International Christian Media Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Newsweek has contacted Trump via the press form on his website on Monday.

However, despite Trump's popularity, Manderson said that evangelicals should "reject the last 50 years of political posturing" that he believes has been embraced by the church. "They must reject the very foundations of the political agenda that has provided the evangelical church with so much power, even as its absolute numbers in society have continued to decline," Manderson wrote.

Manderson added that "liberal mockery" of the former president will not break the spell he says Trump has over evangelical believers in across the U.S. Referring to the likes of Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher, both of whom have taken aim at the Republican in the past, Manderson said that evangelical Americans do not need to be told that they shouldn't believe in Trump, rather that the answer comes from "within the evangelical movement itself."

Manderson said evangelical Christianity's bond with Trump is like an unhealthy relationship that can be ended only if the affected party comes to that conclusion on their own.

Manderson added that Christians should put the teachings of God before their beliefs regarding how America should be managed by a government. "As Christians, we believe that one day we must all face judgment before our creator. What will we tell him about the decisions we made during this dark time in America? 'We loved you, Lord, and we loved our neighbors — but we forgot about that part for a while because inflation made us uncomfortable and we thought that foreigners were taking over our country.'"

Sympathising with Christians whom he claims have been mocked by the liberal media, Manderson wrote that he can feel the temptation to enjoy Trump when he attacks U.S. media. However, he added that a "spiteful approach may be the way of the world, but if the Christian faith is to persevere it can only do so by rejecting the current American culture of spite, vengefulness and selfishness."

Manderson also criticized the evangelical movement as a whole, with the left and right sides failing to come to an agreement, in his mind. "Most of the Christian left has no backbone or force when it comes to speaking out against their evangelical brethren," he wrote.

"There is an understandable reluctance to condemn people they feel connected to by faith, and who they hope to redeem," Manderson added. "But in fact, by watering down their attacks on evangelical philosophy they lose the respect of the evangelical fellowship they wish to win back."