1975 Television Ad for Love's Baby Soft + Donald Trump
Here's Robert Jeffress, talking to the hundreds of thousands of people watching conservative cable news on a typical Friday evening, and he'due south defending President Donald Trump against the latest array of accusations in the news this week. And he isn't simply defending Trump—he'southward defending him with one carefully crafted Bible-wrapped barb after some other, and with more passion, more preparation, more than devotion than anyone else on television.
As Lou Dobbs finishes his opening remarks, Jeffress laughs and nods. Information technology's early January, well-nigh two weeks into what volition evidence to be the longest regime shutdown in U.S. history. Across the land, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are missing paychecks, worrying about mortgages, car payments, utility bills. Some have started going to food banks. But Dobbs waves his hand upwardly and down and tells Jeffress that he hasn't heard anyone—"literally no one!"—say they miss the regime. The jowly host revels in Trump'southward threats that the shutdown could continue "for months, if not years," if that's what it takes to get more wall built on America's border with Mexico.
Jeffress, speaking from a remote studio in downtown Dallas, agrees completely. "Well, he's doing exactly the right matter in keeping this authorities shut downward until he gets that wall," he says.
Jeffress is the senior pastor at Outset Baptist Dallas, a thirteen,000-member megachurch that'south i of the most influential in the state, merely he'southward known best for appearances similar this 1: he'due south oft on Play tricks & Friends or Hannity or any number of sound-bitey segments on Pull a fast one on News or Fox Business. His own religious show airs half dozen days a calendar week on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. He has a daily radio program besides, circulate on more than than nine hundred Christian stations beyond the country, though it's TV he loves best. Dobbs invites Jeffress onto his show nearly every calendar week.
Jeffress continues. He cites the Old Attestation tale of Nehemiah, who was inspired past God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. "The Bible says even sky itself is gonna have a wall effectually it," Jeffress adds. "Not everyone is gonna be allowed in."
It's not articulate whether Dobbs buys this theological reasoning, simply he's at least tickled by it. "What would be the signal of those pearly gates if in that location weren't a wall, right?" the host says with a Cheshire grin.
The pastor keeps going. "What is immoral," he says, "is for Democrats to continue to endeavor to block this president from performing his God-given job of protecting this nation."
The 63-year-old Jeffress is trim and winsome, with a natural smile and a syrupy demeanor. This evening he's wearing a charcoal accommodate and a gleaming magenta tie with matching pocket square. Equally he speaks, the screen backside him shows generic patriotic imagery. He has the syntax and enunciation of a champion debater and the certitude of someone who believes he gets his instructions directly from God.
He is known for leaning into controversy, whether it'south declaring that Mormonism is "a heresy from the pit of hell" (which resulted in an extended public beef with Mitt Romney) or preaching a sermon titled "Why Gay Is Not Okay" (which resulted in a protest outside his church building) or having 2 hundred or then members of his choir and orchestra perform a rendition of a hymn called "Brand America Cracking Once again" at a concert in Washington, D.C. (which resulted in not 1 just 2 approving tweets from President Trump).
He is also known, of course, equally i of the president'southward most avid and outspoken advocates. While other evangelical leaders were slow to become backside Trump—James Dobson, for example, wondered almost Trump'southward religiosity—Jeffress campaigned with him before the 2016 primaries fifty-fifty started, before Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio flamed out. If some evangelicals who now back Trump fret that they've entered into a Faustian bargain, for Jeffress it'southward a wholehearted embrace. Information technology's become one of the nigh fascinating symbiotic relationships in modern politics: the pastor gets a national platform for his bulletin and a leader who appoints conservative judges who will in turn restrict admission to ballgame; the president gets the back up of evangelical voters he needs to win reelection, along with an energetic and effective promoter who can explain or excuse all manner of polarizing behavior.
When the Access Hollywood tape leaked earlier the election and America heard Trump brag about grabbing women, Jeffress went on Fox News to say that the candidate's words were "rough, offensive, and indefensible, but they're not enough to make me vote for Hillary Clinton."
After the president said there were "some very fine people on both sides" of the mortiferous clash between white nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, Jeffress appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network to say that Democrats were falsely painting Trump as a racist. "Racism comes in all shapes, all sizes, and, yes, all colors," explained the pastor. "And if we're going to denounce some racism, nosotros ought to denounce all racism."
When the adult-film extra Stormy Daniels announced that she'd had a sexual encounter with Trump and was paid to keep quiet before the election, Jeffress explained in a Fox News debate with Juan Williams that evangelicals "knew they weren't voting for an altar male child."
Jeffress defended Trump when the president referred to a kneeling NFL histrion as a "son of a bitch." He justified the administration's separating children from their parents at the border. When Trump questioned why America would take immigrants from "shithole countries," Jeffress responded this style: "Apart from the vocabulary attributed to him, President Trump is right on target in his sentiment."
Ten days before tonight'south appearance with Dobbs, Jeffress was on a different Fox show, scoffing at a Christmas tweet from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, suggesting that Jesus was a refugee. "At that place's nil in the Biblical text to suggest that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus came to Arab republic of egypt to flee Herod illegally," Jeffress said, laughing and shaking his caput. "And they certainly didn't come up in a caravan of five thousand, threatening Egyptian sovereignty."
No doubtfulness Jeffress knows that a lot of the people waiting at the border are there precisely considering they desire to enter legally, as asylum seekers, but that didn't come up on air. These goggle box exchanges, unremarkably over in five minutes, don't allow for such distinctions.
During this evening's three-minute give-and-take with Dobbs, Jeffress sounds more than like a fiery Sometime Testament prophet than a plow-the-other-cheek Christian: he decries Democrats for supporting sanctuary cities laws he believes led to the death of a police officer in California. He says Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib is "despicable" for using "gutter language to curse our president." He declares, "The Democrats are the party of immorality." He calls Romney a "self-righteous snake."
His animated ranting earns a belly express joy from Dobbs. Finally, the host tells him, "Pastor, good to have you lot with us!"
With that, the photographic camera's off. After wiping abroad his TV makeup, Jeffress volition walk out of the studio, drive to his home in North Dallas, and spend the rest of the evening watching TV with his wife, Amy. He may even sentry a replay of this evening's testify.
Television receiver reaches people, and reaching people is important to Jeffress. And to reach people, he knows, you must understand who they are and how they will hear yous. You must be, every bit the Apostle Paul one time put it, all things to all people.
Here's Robert Jeffress as a boy in the sixties, well-mannered and bright, so infatuated with the power of idiot box that he dreams of one day becoming—of all things—an executive producer on a TV show. He's so defended to this dream, so enthralled by show business, that he wakes upward early on some days to play his squeeze box before school on a children'south morn show in Dallas called Mr. Peppermint.
His family lives in Richardson, but they spend plenty of time at First Baptist, downtown. It'due south a turbulent fourth dimension for Dallas, where the president has just been assassinated, and for the church, which is reckoning with desegregation. Showtime Baptist has always been enmeshed in politics: George Truett, who became pastor in 1897, gave his most famous sermon, near the separation of church and state, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C. His successor, W. A. Criswell, is not shy either: He has decried the Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools equally "idiocy" and suggested that Catholics exercise not brand practiced presidents. In 1968 Criswell reverses his position on desegregation and is presently thereafter voted in as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. The move puts N Texas at the center of a massive conservative motion.
His ninth-grade spoken communication teacher tells him, "Jeffress, yous're going to be a preacher i 24-hour interval, and it scares the bejeebers out of me because y'all can sell anybody anything!"
Young Robert absorbs all this. His parents entrada for Barry Goldwater in 1964. When he is fourteen, Roe v. Wade goes to courtroom, simply a short walk from First Baptist; he's seventeen when the Supreme Court legalizes access to abortion. In 1976 Criswell endorses Gerald Ford from the pulpit, simply Jeffress casts his election—his starting time—for a Democrat, a born-again Christian from Georgia named Jimmy Carter.
Although Jeffress is just a male child, people around him are already taking observe of his power to influence others. His ninth course speech instructor tells him, "Jeffress, you lot're going to exist a preacher one day, and information technology scares the bejeebers out of me because you tin sell anybody anything!" Criswell becomes his mentor, and in fact, when he's a freshman in high school, Jeffress hears God tell him to carelessness his executive producer dreams.
For the first fifteen years of his career as a pastor, at a small church in Eastland and so a larger First Baptist in Wichita Falls, Jeffress doesn't get political. He rarely mentions ballgame or homosexuality. Merely he learns the power of controversy in 1998, when a member of his church shows him two children'southward books from the local library: Heather Has 2 Mommies and Daddy's Roommate. Jeffress announces that he will not allow the books to exist returned. The city council takes his side, the American Ceremonious Liberties Matrimony sues the metropolis, and the story makes national headlines. Eventually a court decides the library tin keep the titles in the children's section, but by so Jeffress has received letters and donations from all over the country. Church building attendance goes up, and soon comes an expensive new sanctuary.
Jeffress volition remember these lessons when he is invited, in 2007, to return to First Baptist Dallas every bit senior pastor. In his offset few years back, he gives sermons with attention-grabbing titles on the marquee and makes controversial statements nigh, in no item gild, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, gays, lesbians, and Oprah Winfrey. Nearly a decade later, he embraces one of the most controversial presidential candidates of all time, and in 2018 the church reports the highest giving levels in its 150-year history. Now, like Criswell and Billy Graham, who was himself a longtime member of Commencement Baptist Dallas, Jeffress has the ear of the president.
Through all this, he retains his affinity for television. In 2018 his unabridged family is featured on a TLC reality bear witness centered on his oldest daughter's newborn triplets. At First Baptist, the chief sanctuary gets outfitted with half dozen or seven high-definition screens that tin exist made into a long LED scroll that ribbons across the back of the proscenium. Lord's day services are broadcast live on the church building website, an performance that includes seven cameras, a team of grips and technicians, and a command room that rivals studios at CNN and Fox. The church posts his cable news clips on YouTube. Jeffress says TV accounts for a small percentage of his work just that Trick News—where he becomes a paid contributor nether contract—is a "gateway to bring people into our ministry."
And boob tube, it turns out, is how he connects to the president, a man with his own affinity for reality shows. In mid-2015, after seeing Jeffress compliment him on Flim-flam News, Trump tweets out the clip and has someone from his office—Jeffress doesn't remember who—achieve out then he tin thank the pastor for the kind words.
When Jeffress recounts the story, he lowers his phonation an octave to repeat the mode he'south heard Trump describe it: " 'You know, I was watching TV one night, and I'll never forget, I saw Pastor Jeffress saying, 'Trump'due south a lousy Christian, but he's a good leader. ' "
The pastor interrupts himself to clarify. "Of course, I didn't quite say it that manner," he explains, lest anyone call back he chosen the president lousy. "I said, 'He's non a perfect person, but he'south a tremendous leader.' "
Jeffress has also heard Trump tell information technology this way: "I was watching goggle box with Melania, and I saw Pastor Jeffress, and I said, 'Await at his mouth move! Look at how speedily that mouth moves. It'due south similar a machine gun! I would never want to encounter that used against me someday!' "
Trump's campaign asks Jeffress to pray at a rally in Dallas that fall, and soon the two forge what they depict as a friendship. The candidate sends nice notes or has his assistant e-mail, and in early 2016, Trump invites Jeffress to bring together him on the campaign trail. The pastor spends a weekend with Trump in Iowa, where, both men sympathize, evangelical support tin make or suspension a Republican presidential run. Jeffress says things similar "I don't want some meek and mild leader or somebody who's going to plough the other cheek. I've said I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can discover to protect this nation."
Then Jeffress is at Trump Tower on the day of the election. The mood is not optimistic. Jeffress tells Trump he hopes they'll stay friends, no matter the upshot. Trump asks him if he thinks evangelical voters will show upwards for him. The pastor says he does. Later that night, Jeffress and his wife get to the Hilton to watch the results come up in. For a while, it'due south ho-hum and repose, and the couple debate leaving early on.
But as the evening wears on, the feeling in the room starts to change.
"I will never forget when the spotlight was thrown on the balustrade of the ballroom," he recalls after, his vocalism slowing for dramatic outcome. "The president and the beginning lady and their family entered to the soundtrack of the movie Air Force Ane. It was a chill-bumps moment."
Later a speech, Trump comes down from the stage to shake a few easily. Spotting Jeffress, he walks over and puts his arm around the pastor. The male child who used to play his accordion on Mr. Peppermint is at present standing side by side to the hereafter president. "Did yous see it?" Trump says. "Largest evangelical turnout in history!"
"Yes, sir, I saw it," Jeffress tells him. "I just wanted to be sure you lot saw it."
Here'due south Robert Jeffress in his office, a year or so into Trump'south beginning term, speaking to a reporter: me. Nosotros have a bit of history. In late 2011, effectually the time Jeffress was first upsetting conservatives by criticizing Republican presidential front end-runner Mitt Romney, I wrote a profile of Jeffress for D Magazine. In the story, I explained that despite the fact that I disagreed with him on well-nigh every issue—at the time, he was supporting a presidential run past Texas governor Rick Perry—I plant Jeffress charming and personable. Yes, he insists that the vast bulk of humanity will spend eternity in a pit of fire. Merely he's also self-deprecating and disarming. I was curious about his political advocacy and how he squares it with the teachings of Jesus.
Afterwards the story ran, nosotros continued to have lunch every couple of months, ordinarily in his office. It's on the sixth floor of 1 of the church'southward eight buildings, with towering shelves of scholarly journals, framed covers of his books (he has written more than twenty), and flooring-to-ceiling windows that expect out over the Nasher Sculpture Center. We ask each other about family unit and work. We talk over news and politics and any's happening in the world that week.
He'southward completely engaged, attentive. With or without the Boob tube makeup, he's the aforementioned man. Aforementioned rapid-fire delivery. Same polite, saccharine way. Same unapologetic built-in-again Baptist view of the world. He says he genuinely wants me to dedicate myself to Jesus Christ, and he prays for me and my wife. His goal is to save every bit many souls every bit possible before the end times. He knows journalism is important to me, and he reminds me that some of the greatest writers in history were Christians. I joke that I know he'd love to brag that he helped shape some sort of present-mean solar day C. S. Lewis.
Jeffress frequently tells his flock that God sends united states tests and trials. I want to ask Jeffress if he thinks there'south any chance Donald Trump is a test from God—and if maybe he's declining.
I'1000 also forthright: about my curiosity, almost my dismay at the many things he says and does that have the potential to hurt so many people. He knows what I'm talking almost, and he laughs and nods. We discuss my writing something about him and his friendship with the president. He likes the idea. Then he jokes, "Now, don't pull a Michael Cohen on me!"
Then for months, I attend Sunday services, hang out at church events, spend hours talking politics with religious conservatives, and meet over and over with Jeffress himself. The unlikelihood of the Trump presidency has occasioned much ink and barm about the many purported reasons that white evangelicals supported him: economical and racial fears, Supreme Court picks, abortion, the fact that he wasn't Hillary Clinton, and so on. It's also provoked condemnation of Jeffress and his fellow Trump-supporting religious leaders for seemingly abandoning Christian principles in substitution for ability—for becoming "court evangelicals," as historian John Fea, the author of Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, puts information technology. Fresh-faced 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, a gay military veteran and a Christian, likes to say that support for Trump is in tension with much of the New Testament, including, for example, the way Jesus condemns those who truckle to the stiff while neglecting the poor. Closer to home, Eric Folkerth, the senior pastor at the much more liberal Woods United Methodist Church, in One thousand Prairie, writes an open letter to Jeffress in May, calling him "a Pharisee of our time."
So I press Jeffress to explain the choices he makes, to explain the things he says in front of the cameras. Jeffress has told me he was drawn to Trump'south leadership and intellect. "He's a very smart person," he's said. "You don't go a billionaire and president of the Us past existence an idiot." Only none of that quite explains why a pastor goes out of his way to publicly defend the president'southward every indiscretion. He could hands vote co-ordinate to his views on the Supreme Courtroom or according to his conscience on abortion without likewise going on Goggle box, over and over, in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers, to explicate away things like Trump'south adultery and linguistic communication that inflames foreign policy. He could exist in favor of immigration reform, for instance, and not feel compelled to rationalize the separation of families. He could believe that God has put someone in power and still concord that person to a loftier moral standard.
Jeffress often tells his flock that God sends u.s. tests and trials. I desire to inquire Jeffress if he thinks there'south any chance Donald Trump is a exam from God—and if possibly he's failing.
Here'due south Robert Jeffress on a Dominicus morning, surrounded by lights and cameras and apartment screens the size of school buses, taking the phase with the confident stride of a talk bear witness host. He's looking out on an audience of roughly one,600, with thousands more watching and listening in, delivering a sermon that's at turns funny and thoughtful and ripe with references to pop civilization and celebrated events and scholarly interpretations of biblical passages. Jeffress is wearing a night suit with faint pinstripes, a ruddy tie that glimmers under the lights, and a nearly imperceptible wireless microphone over his right cheek, and he's nailing the timing of every joke and pausing for laughs and modulating his vox in just the correct mode to create connectedness.
Today's sermon is about "the antidote to worry," and information technology unfolds like a xl-infinitesimal brimstone-scented TED talk. In the first few minutes solitary, he mixes in quotes from obscure authors, anecdotes from World State of war II, and the etymology of the word "worry." Sprinkled throughout are also copious references to supporting Scripture; in that location are more than than 10, from the Quondam Testament and New, in the beginning twenty minutes. Later on each citation, he pauses to let his words linger. His reasoning is based on the fact that every discussion of the Bible is literally true.
Jeffress agrees with the popular comparison evangelicals depict betwixt President Trump and Cyrus the Great, the ancient Persian rex who, co-ordinate to Jewish tradition, immune the exiled Hebrews to return to Jerusalem. Cyrus is idea of as a secular amanuensis of God's divine plan, and this oft-cited parallel is useful to Trump'due south most enthusiastic backers every bit a manner of explaining their back up: they tin can champion him, they say, considering at that place is a divergence between the earthly realm and the heavenly ane, between government and church. In an interview with the Washington Postal service, Jerry Falwell Jr. put it this way: "In the heavenly kingdom, the responsibility is to treat others equally you lot'd like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to cull leaders who will do what's best for your land."
But keeping your realms split is not so articulate-cutting when you're both a pundit and a pastor. Jeffress, unlike his peers, is the full-fourth dimension shepherd of a flock. In the lustrous sanctuary of First Baptist—the church has multiple vi-story garages and crowded escalators and feels a piddling like i of the theaters or music halls a few blocks away in the Arts District—Jeffress preaches ii sermons nearly every Sun. He attends luncheons and prayer meetings and Bible studies. He visits people in the hospital and performs weddings and funerals. He helped enhance more than $135 million for a renovation that included a new children's building, sky bridges, and a dancing, LED-loaded fountain. At special events, visitors are given non a Bible simply a copy of one of his books. "He is so right," i of his members, a blackness mother in her thirties, tells me. "Information technology is time to stop beingness wimpy about Christianity. I wish more Christians had the heart for the Lord that he does."
Jeffress studiously insists that his politics and his pastorate are separate. "We don't cheque green cards or passports at First Baptist Dallas," he's fond of maxim. When he'southward at the podium in church building, he seldom utters a give-and-take about the president. And while some of the older men in the pews are wearing American flag and Israeli flag pins on their suits—and in that location's at least i bumper sticker in the parking garage for QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory alleging a "deep state" plot confronting Trump—information technology's not like members are debating legislative policy in the halls. It's more that at that place's a full general celebration and commingling of patriotism and piety. I recently attended services on and off for five months and never heard Jeffress mention politics explicitly in a sermon. I heard him talk virtually how heaven is a real place and what people do at that place: relish the relief of a job well done, share fellowship with loved ones, get to amend know their Lord.
Though First Baptist doesn't keep records on its racial demographics, the congregation seems equally diverse as that of any megachurch in Northward Texas. Affluent older white people dressed in potent suits and flowery dresses with matching hats. Young couples, the men in jeans and tucked-in push button-downs, the women in cotton wool dresses. A blackness family spanning four generations. Immigrants from Latin America and Africa and Eastern Europe and Eastward Asia. At the other end of the building, in a divide sanctuary, hundreds more people—mostly younger—watch Jeffress on a live broadcast.
About twenty minutes into his sermon about worry, Jeffress says something that makes me perk up a bit. He's hoisting an open Bible in his left hand when his tone changes for only a moment, and he stares into the photographic camera, his right manus gesturing to the breast of his pinstriped suit. "I can tell you from personal feel: God's subject field is never pleasant," he says. "There are times in my life—don't ask for details, I'm non gonna requite 'em to you—but I can tell y'all, there are times that I have non been doing the right thing, and God put his heavy hand upon me. And I can tell you for certain, I never want to experience that again."
He explains that we don't have to feel God's subject field if nosotros live our lives the correct manner. He makes another emphatic gesture with his right manus, this time with his thumb out in a way that evokes Pecker Clinton.
"Today," he says, nosotros tin can "beginning walking in a new direction."
As he always does, Jeffress invites anyone who wants to be saved to come forward and dedicate their life to Jesus Christ. His voice is soft. Even in a crowd of some 1,600 people, for a divide 2nd it can feel every bit if he's talking to y'all personally.
"It's no coincidence that you're hearing my voice today," he says.
When he's done this forenoon, there are at to the lowest degree a dozen people walking down the aisles, ready to be born again.
Here'due south Robert Jeffress in his office once again, on a weekday afternoon in early fall. He'south sitting apartment-footed in a bluish leather chair, wearing one of his usual nighttime suits and satiny ties, like he's fix to appear on camera at a moment's notice, should the need arise. I'm sitting at the end of a large leather couch, a few feet away, with my recorder between us.
We're talking well-nigh the stardom he makes between what he considers spiritual and political. I want to know if it'southward really tenable, if it'due south actually honest. On Twitter, he promotes his sermons and events at the church building right side by side to his appearances on Fox News. When his choir performed "Brand America Groovy Again" in D.C., information technology was a de facto Trump rally—and now the vocal is in the church hymn database. He doesn't only invite Fox personalities like Sean Hannity and politicians like Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott into his sanctuary; the church oft uses their appearances as bring-a-friend promotions.
Our conversations over the months ofttimes return to this topic, and he agrees it'southward an important ane.
"If someone asks me to talk on a bailiwick," he says, "I ask myself the first question: Does the Bible accept a particular point of view on this?"
The Bible has a point of view on many things, he explains. Some things, like capital penalty or whether a country'south leader has a right to defend its borders, he thinks, are clear. Other issues, like marginal taxation rates and public health-intendance policy, are less articulate. And besides, when Hannity was there to promote a Christian movie, they didn't say much about politics at all.
What about when yous call Democrats the "party of immorality"? I ask. Isn't that crossing the line into politics?
"I think, in a lot of ways, the Republican party is merely every bit spiritually bankrupt as the Democratic party, merely at least at this bespeak in time they are championing some moral principles like the right to life and the right of religious liberty."
It's an interesting equivocation, and I'k reminded how, in our exchanges, he has emphatically insisted that he's not a Republican or a Democrat. He has also told me his congregation has plenty of Democrats, though I haven't met one. When I ask him if he'd e'er invite a Democrat or someone from CNN to speak at his church, he laughs.
"Y'all know, I would have to retrieve about it," he says. Then he adds, "Just if we haven't, it's not because they are Democrats. It's because of the betoken of view they would articulate on these basic core spiritual problems. I mean, try to find me a pro-life Democrat leader. You lot can't notice one."
"Basic core spiritual bug" is ordinarily his reply when I press him on why he goes out of his way, once more and again, to defend Trump. He cares about religious liberty—which for him substantially boils downward to whether churches and businesses should be required to provide birth control for employees and whether businesses can deny service to gay or trans people. And well-nigh every policy word eventually comes back to what he sees equally the national battle that started in Dallas when he was a teenager. He believes Roe v. Wade, non the effect of sexual assault or of judicial temperament, was at the heart of the fight over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The Democrats were worried that Kavanaugh'due south rulings would "somehow lessen the number of babies being murdered every year in the womb through abortion."
Gun rights is one of the two main issues on which he disagrees with the Republican party. The other is health care. He has been a vocal critic of Obamacare, but Jeffress does tell me, "The GOP is on the wrong side of this."
This is why Trump is the sort of warrior evangelicals take long craved, a warrior who will fight for their beliefs regardless of whether he holds those beliefs himself. This is why Jeffress doesn't worry most Trump'southward personal behavior. "When you're in a war, you don't worry about manner," he explains. "Nobody would accept criticized General Patton considering of his language. Nosotros're in a war here between skilful and evil. And to me, the president's tone, his demeanor, just aren't issues I choose to go involved with." (When I look this upward subsequently, I acquire that some top commanders and many members of Congress did criticize—and field of study—General Patton for verbally abusing and slapping two soldiers. He was suspended from his command and fabricated to apologize.)
I ask Jeffress why, since he believes all sin is equal, abortion is more important than every other outcome. Criswell, his mentor, and other past religious leaders didn't feel nearly every bit strongly about the topic. Criswell stated publicly that life begins at birth and didn't change his stance until after the widespread utilize of ultrasound engineering science. "Criswell and other evangelicals were just ignorant of the scientific discipline," he says. "Nosotros didn't have the power to view a life within the womb as we practise today and sympathize that that's a real, live human being."
What nearly children at the border and the assistants's policy of separating families? Doesn't he think we should protect babies at our borders besides?
"Look," he tells me, "if you have a woman who is convicted of a bank robbery and she has an babe child and she'south sent to prison, I mean, her babe is going to be ripped from her."
But of form, nosotros have gradations of crimes in this state, and crossing a border—fifty-fifty if it's illegal—is a far unlike thing than robbing a depository financial institution. This policy was instituted as a deterrent. I remind him that many people, including some Baptists, believe it's a draconian way to care for children.
"If we don't secure our borders, we're enticing the needy people, the persecuted people, to brand a dangerous journey to come up to this country or try to enter illegally, and I recollect, in part, nosotros are morally responsible for doing that," he tells me. He compares it to laws that concord homeowners responsible when a child strays into an unfenced pool and drowns. "We've got to figure out a way to secure our borders and at the same time bargain equitably and justly with people who want to enter this land for legitimate reasons."
I bring up some other children: the survivors of mass shootings. Later the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, in Parkland, Florida, when students organized marches beyond the country to protest U.South. gun laws, Jeffress told Fob News viewers that changing the laws would not help considering laws couldn't modify the evil in someone's heart—though perchance displaying the Ten Commandments in schools could. Talking with me, though, he admits that mass shootings counterbalance on him heavily. He points out that, in Genesis, the primary reason God floods the earth is violence. "God hates those who harm others," he says. "I don't believe that the Bible or fifty-fifty the Constitution gives a unilateral, unconditional, unrestrained right for guns. The government has a right and responsibleness to control that."
Gun rights, in fact, is 1 of the two main bug on which he disagrees with the Republican party. The other is wellness intendance. He has been a vocal critic of Obamacare, merely Jeffress does tell me, "The GOP is on the wrong side of this." He says, "There ought to exist a safe net" and "Americans want coverage for preexisting conditions" and that "earlier we dismantle something, we ought to have something better ready in its place."
I inquire Jeffress if he'd be critical of, say, someone similar Democratic senator Cory Booker, if the public learned he'd had an affair with a porn star.
"I have to exist consistent," he tells me. "And consistent would say that my objection to Cory Booker would not be his personal life but his public policies."
Hither's Robert Jeffress in Jan 2016, sitting on Trump'due south plane betwixt campaign stops in Iowa, and the pastor and the presidential candidate are finishing their lunch of Wendy'due south cheeseburgers when Jeffress says, "Mr. Trump, I believe yous're going to exist the next president of the United states of america. And if that happens, it's because God has a great purpose for y'all and for our nation." Jeffress quotes from the book of Daniel, chapter ii, and explains, "God is the one who establishes kings and removes kings."
Trump looks at the pastor and says, "Exercise you actually believe that?"
"Yeah, sir, I do," Jeffress says.
Trump asks, "Exercise y'all believe God ordained Obama to be president?"
"I do," Jeffress tells Trump. "God has a purpose for every leader."
This is certainly not the way Jeffress talked about Barack Obama when he was president. Jeffress wasn't a fan. Soon before Paw Romney secured the Republican nomination in 2012, Jeffress said he'd "hold [his] olfactory organ" and vote for him instead of Obama, despite believing that Mormonism is a cult and Romney is going to hell. (He's also said that Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and nonbelievers are destined for hell.) He criticized both Obamacare and National Security Bureau surveillance as violations of Americans' liberty. In 2014, citing Obama's support for aforementioned-sex marriage, Jeffress declared that the president was "paving the manner for the Antichrist."
Jeffress very much believes that an Antichrist will rise to ability one twenty-four hours—perhaps before long—before Jesus returns to world. This isn't entirely surprising. After graduating from Baylor, he attended Dallas Theological Seminary, a hub of twentieth-century dispensational theology, where he was taught, and embraced, the idea that God reveals himself progressively through different dispensations, or ages, and that these would culminate in an epic showdown between Christ and a fearsome enemy. Fundamental events of this apocalypse would occur in Israel, went the thinking, and it was common for dispensationalists to publicly identify people they idea might be the Antichrist. Henry Kissinger was a popular selection; and so was Mikhail Gorbachev, whose prominent birthmark looked suspiciously, to some, like the mark of the beast. Eventually about religious figures stopped trying to identify the Antichrist and the verbal engagement of Christ's return, but they didn't cease assertive that the supernatural confrontation was imminent.
At one bespeak, not long after Trump meets with Kim Jong-united nations and it feels like we might exist closer to nuclear anything than we have been in half a century, I ask Jeffress, generally equally a joke, whether evangelicals support this president considering they secretly recall he's hastening the end times and the render of Jesus.
Jeffress lets out a quick chirp of a laugh. Actually, he explains, a lot of evangelicals view Trump as a cursory reprieve from a down moral spiral: everything from the removal of Ten Commandments monuments to restrictions on prayer in schools to the means our culture flaunts sex activity and corrupts minds. He's under no illusion that the Democrats won't return to ability again i twenty-four hour period. Trump, he says, is a style to push in the other management, if but temporarily.
He anticipates my follow-upward.
"Why would Christians want to put off the render of Christ?" he asks. "To give us more time to save people."
The truth for him personally, though, is that he also merely likes Trump. Jeffress insists that theirs isn't simply a quid-pro-quo sort of friendship, a calculated, cynical partnership. He says he genuinely enjoys Trump'southward company. He'd like to think they'd be friends regardless of the presidency.
Jeffress says Trump isn't as impulsive as he might seem. He says the president has told him how he workshops insulting nicknames he plans to phone call opponents on Twitter. He says he watched every bit Trump agonized at the White House over what to do most DACA recipients. He's seen the president demonstrate diligence and control, different the raging character often depicted in the press.
Several times in our conversation, Jeffress plays it a piffling safer and parses his words, saying that he and the president "aren't bosom buddies." Is he protecting himself in case one twenty-four hours his association with Trump becomes toxic?
"Non at all," he says. "I just want to exist as accurate equally possible."
A few months after his inauguration, Trump boasts about issuing an executive guild instructing the Department of the Treasury not to pursue religious organizations when they violate the Johnson Subpoena, which prohibits nonprofits from making partisan political statements, a restriction Jeffress has spoken out confronting for more than than a decade. Then, in May 2018, the Trump administration does something even more important for evangelicals: information technology officially relocates the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, much of which is regarded nether international law as occupied territory.
Jeffress, the lifelong dispensationalist, is invited to give the opening prayer at the new embassy's dedication. He's there, in Jerusalem, standing at the lectern with his eyes airtight. He'south just feet from Prime Government minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner—all Jewish, all going to hell in Jeffress's view, all sitting together in the front row.
Subsequently thanking God for the blessing and protection of Israel, and for the work of both Netanyahu and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jeffress thanks God for the "tremendous leadership" of Donald Trump. "Without President Trump'southward determination, resolve, and courage, we would not be here today," Jeffress says. "We thank you every mean solar day that y'all have given usa a president who boldly stands on the right side of history but, more importantly, stands on the right side of you, O God, when it comes to Israel."
A few months after that, in August, the White House hosts an elaborate dinner for a hundred or so evangelical leaders from across the land. Franklin Graham is there. Then are James Dobson and Paula White, a TV host and pastor of a Florida megachurch. Jeffress is one of the preachers Trump thanks past name.
Reading prepared remarks, the president lists his evangelical-friendly accomplishments: issuing orders limiting regime funding for groups that provide abortions, helping to gratis an American pastor being held in Turkey, moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Of course, there's no record of him mentioning whatever of these issues before campaigning for president and meeting people similar Jeffress.
At the end of his short spoken language, Trump cheers the religious leaders. He calls them "special people." Then he looks up from his script.
"The support you've given me has been incredible," the president says. "But I actually don't feel guilty, because I accept given you a lot back."
Here's Robert Jeffress at a Maggiano's in Northward Dallas, standing in front end of 2 hundred or and so people at an event chosen Dinner With the Pastor. Every few months, prospective church members are invited to have a meal and conversation in a private room, all on First Baptist's tab. The massive serving plates on each table are full of ravioli slathered in cream, balsamic-glazed chicken, and compact lasagna. At that place are Frisbee-size crème brûlées and gallons of iced tea. The highlight of the evening, though, is when attendees are invited to ask the pastor anything they want.
One adult female says she campaigned for Trump and wants to know if Jeffress actually told him he knew he would be president. Jeffress recounts the conversation they had over Wendy'south cheeseburgers. But he adds that he doesn't consider himself a Republican. First Baptist, he says, has "plenty of people who love President Trump and people who don't love President Trump."
To watch him find new ways to justify his back up is every bit impressive as information technology is exasperating.
Someone wants to know when Jeffress finds time to read the Bible. Someone has a specific question about a verse in the volume of Isaiah. Then a adult female with an Australian accent asks Jeffress if Trump is saved. The room gets quiet.
Jeffress explains that early on in his human relationship with Trump, he asked, "Mr. Trump, what do I say when people ask me about your faith?" He says Trump responded, "Tell people that my faith is very important to me but that it'southward likewise very personal."
And then someone asks if he agrees with the president virtually the news media. Jeffress looks right at me and smiles. He tells the audience that his female parent was a loftier school journalism teacher. Her former students went on to piece of work for some of the best newspapers in the country. "I honestly believe that most of the media tries their hardest to go it right," he says, adding that the freedom of religion and freedom of the printing are inextricably linked by the Commencement Subpoena.
Over the following weeks, Jeffress and I discuss Russian federation and the forthcoming Mueller report, the joys of raising children (he has two daughters), the #MeToo movement and the church building's relationship with women. Every time we talk—no thing the headlines, no matter the president'southward latest inflammatory remarks—Jeffress is steadfast in his defense force of Trump. When the Mueller study is released in Apr and shows ample evidence of obstacle of justice, Jeffress says he however believes the entire investigation has been a political ploy to damage the president.
To watch him notice new ways to justify his support is as impressive every bit it is exasperating. I enquire him if he's bothered when the president tells hands disprovable lies—similar when he claims, reverse to the prove, that special prosecutor Robert Mueller is a Democrat.
"I operate under the supposition that the president knows more than we practice," he says. "I recall he probably has insight into that investigation that I don't accept."
Not once, in all the months we've met, has Jeffress criticized Trump. I want to know if he is at all concerned by the cost of this allegiance. I ask if he worries about turning off seekers with what they might perceive as his hypocrisy. Fifty-fifty Baton Graham ultimately regretted his involvement with Richard Nixon.
He tells me he isn't concerned. He endorses the president'southward policies and not necessarily his behavior, he says, and most people are smart plenty to know the difference. I enquire if he worries that Trump is driving deeper the wedges in our society or stoking dangerous ideologies and emboldening nefarious actors. He tells me he believes the president has merely exposed the division in our country and that a public figure isn't responsible when someone misinterprets a bulletin as a phone call for violence. "At that place have been screwballs and zealots throughout history who have taken the truth and twisted it," he says.
I inquire if he at to the lowest degree holds Trump answerable. Does he ever criticize the president in their private meetings? "If it had happened, I wouldn't tell you virtually it," he replies, "because I but feel like friends don't do that to one another."
I ask him whether Trump might exist a test from God, a test of whether Jeffress's devotion is to the Bible's teachings and requirements or whether information technology'due south to a powerful leader whose policies he finds agreeable.
"Y'all have to operate on the best data that y'all have, and what we had in 2016 was the choice between two diametrically opposed candidates," he says. "One was pro-life, pro–religious freedom, pro–bourgeois judiciary. His name was Donald Trump. One was a pro-choice candidate who would not stop an abortion or limit an abortion for any reason at all. It could not accept been a more articulate choice at that indicate."
Did he consider any of the sixteen other Republican candidates, almost of whom would have appointed pro-life judges?
"I don't think any of them could take won," Jeffress says.
Jeffress is oft asked what information technology would take for evangelicals to walk away from the president. If the economy collapses, he tells me, people will probably desire a change. And if the president were defenseless being unfaithful to his wife while in role, he could see people having a problem with that. Simply more than anything, information technology would take a change in policies.
"If he said, 'You know, I think we've got enough conservatives on the Supreme Court. It'south time for us to have some more moderate views and rest things out.' Or if he suddenly decided, 'You know what, I used to be pro-option, and then I turned pro-life. I'm gonna go dorsum to pro-choice again.' I mean, those would certainly be deal-breakers, I think."
Then he clarifies. He knows his audience. What he meant was that these changes would be deal-breakers for evangelicals politically, not for his own relationship with Trump.
"I'k his friend," he says. "I'll never walk abroad."
This article originally appeared in the August 2019 upshot ofTexas Monthlywith the headline "The Pastor and the President." Subscribe today .
Source: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/donald-trump-defender-dallas-pastor-robert-jeffress/
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