The September issue of the American Family Association magazine, AFA Journal, warns that “conservative Christians must mobilize to preserve our liberties” in the 2018 midterm elections.

“If the Senate and House flip to a Democratic majority,” said AFA Action Vice President Rob Chambers in the issue’s cover article, “our deeply held, biblical values will be subject to a drastically different worldview in Congress than we have recently witnessed.”

“Consider what liberals would do if they gain power in Congress,” he warned. “There’s no question they would fight for abortion rights and Planned Parenthood funding, insist on open borders and amnesty, and demand liberal judges.”

The issue also features a commentary from Walker Wildmon, assistant to, and son of, AFA President Tim Wildmon, and grandson of founder Don Wildmon. (AFA functions like a family business, but it’s not the only Religious Right nonprofit that works that way.)

Walker’s commentary is an example of a flourishing Religious Right genre in the age of Trump: explaining that Christians should not expect perfection in their political candidates.

Some things matter more than a candidate’s integrity, wrote Walker, listing abortion as one deal-breaker, along with “a candidate who advocates for sexual deviancy, including the transgender and homosexual ‘rights’ agenda.”

Sure, Trump “spoke in a vulgar manner about women” in that “Access Hollywood” tape, said Walker, but if he has apologized and “become a new person,” why hold his past against him?

Can you imagine if all Christians had stayed home from the polls in 2016? We’d have a president who would appoint judges who completely disregard the Constitution. We’d have a president who would likely still be suing her private foundation to funnel money from foreign governments in exchange for diplomatic favors. This sounds like a nightmare, right? Yet that would be the presidency we’d have if it weren’t for Christians voting in 2016.

There’s a whiff of defensiveness in the article. “To assume that 86% of evangelical voters are somehow morally bankrupt because we voted for the Republican nominee in 2016 is completely false,” he says, referring to “a fair amount of friendly fire going on within the Christian community regarding this issue.”

Wildmon appeals for “unity” among Christians with different politics, but it’s not clear what he means other than refraining from criticism: “We might hold fundamentally different worldviews when it comes to voting and politics, but the last thing we need to do is shoot at each other while Satan, the true enemy, advances on our position.”