If you saw President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast last week, you know he expressed his difficulty in forgiving those who do evil to him and our nation. He said he has a hard time believing that these people pray for him as they say, when at the same time they are doing what they know is wrong.

Predictably, in response many religious leaders condemned his statements. They say he should have made nice with Pelosi, who was sitting only a few seats away, and called for unity.

I think he could have chosen softer words, but there is a problem when people continually try to reign in Trump. He can be hard to take sometimes, but he’s real, which is more than I can say for many. More importantly, the enemy has been able to thrive for decades in this country because we have run from confronting him, or we have confronted him on his terms. We play nice to the media, because we don’t want them to dislike us, and we certainly don’t want them to print anything negative about us. But where did that get us? To the precipice of national perdition.

Trump won the election precisely because of – not in spite of — his willingness to call a spade a spade. Evangelical pharisees are still trying at this point to place a halter on him, which is what they’ve been trying to do all along. Devin Nunes said last week that one of the most important things Trump has taught us is not to be afraid of the media, but to confront them. And, I will add, that goes for pharisaical religionists as well.

I’m looking at the fruit. Trump has the most amazing administration I’ve seen or heard of in terms of accomplishments – particularly, the kind of accomplishments Evangelicals have been praying for for decades.

Yes, I hope Trump does forgive his enemies in his own heart, for his own sake. But on the national stage, he needs to continue to bring the fire to them. Because they and their evil works thrive when we maintain a false peace. And we have done that for far too long.

I hope Christians are not led astray by calls for a counterfeit spirituality based on false peace. When we pray for Trump, among other things we need to pray that his courage to confront evil does not fail.