rev jeffress

oops see other node

reliably in rww every week?

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/robert-jeffress-america-is-a-christian-nation-whose-constitution-has-been-perverted-by-secularists-and-infidels/

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AN 10 26

While evangelical megachurch pastor and longtime President Donald Trump ally Robert Jeffress has been diehard about MAGA since the movement’s earliest days, in an interview published by the New York Times on Sunday, his comments revealed a surprisingly shrugging stance regarding the upcoming midterms in his home state of Texas. Should a member of his congregation decide to vote for Democratic Senate challenger James Talarico, it’s “fine.”

“I talked to Pastor Robert Jeffress about the Paxton/Talarico race,” wrote Times columnist David French, referring to the Senate race between Talarico and Texas Attorney Ken Paxton, who won the nomination under Trump’s endorsement but is polling behind the Democratic opponent in the general election due to a string of scandals. “He had tough words for Talarico, but he also emphasized individual conscience. So I asked the natural follow-up: What if a church member says, ‘My conscience is telling me Talarico’? His answer was a welcome departure from the ‘my way or hell's way’ rhetoric you see from all too many right-wing Christians on this site.”

“Follow what you feel like God’s leading you to do,” Jeffress responded. “Period. I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them why I’m not voting that way and made sure they were aware of some of the statements he had made about Jesus and the Bible, but if they say, you know, ‘I just can’t overlook the other. This is the way I’m going’? I’d say, ‘Fine, I’ll see you in church next Sunday.’”

This is a decided tone shift for Jeffress, who has previously declared of his ideal candidate, "I don't want some meek and mild leader or somebody who's going to turn the other cheek... I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can find." In the past, while discussing Trump’s scandals, the pastor has handwaved allegations of sexual assault and fraud, saying that evangelicals didn’t need to approve of his “lifestyle” to support his politics. Evangelicals, said Jeffress, were just being “pragmatic.” Trump took 80 percent of the evangelical vote in all three of his elections, but that support has waned over the course of his second term. By January 2026, his approval was down to 69 percent due largely to the overreaches of his mass deportation effort and failure to bring down prices. Then his beef with the Pope dragged his approval down further, which slid further still over the course of the war with Iran as the economy has suffered. As of June 2026, evangelical support for Trump stood around 50 percent.

Now, with the midterms just around the corner, many Texas Republicans are struggling with the idea of voting for Paxton, who brings the corruption and philandering of Trump with none of the charisma. Polls show Talarico firmly ahead, with even Fox News admitting his lead. If he wins, he’ll be the first Democrat Texas elected to the Senate since 1988. Jeffress's words may suggest which way the state is headed. As one commenter put it, “Y’all realize how bad of a Republican candidate you have to be for Robert Jeffress to say this?”

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Christian Nationalism

MAGA Pastor Robert Jeffress Calls Democrats ‘Advocates for Evil’

MAGA pastor Robert Jeffress praises the corrupt authoritarian Trump while demeaning the faith of outspoken Christian Senate candidate James TalarICO

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rww

08/24/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Robert Jeffress accuses James Talarico of attempting to "prostitute the name of Jesus Christ, to turn the Jesus of the Bible into some woke Messiah that is contrary to what the Bible teaches."

William Wolfe was very offended by the latest Toy Story film: "It was feminist slop with Jesse as the 'girl boss' and Buzz Lightyear totally emasculated."

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jefress:

end of world is nothing to fear

horse on sword to execute--- judge of the world

trinity brdcast network

Why evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP1 | Witness Documentary

phil king tx had tkt: called to arrenge interv, sec threw out this is tex we do not want anti anything anti israel 24 min i will report you to fbi; for what? --> 0

Phil King (Texas politician) - Wikipedia

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an 11 22

evangelicals who supported former President Donald Trump's campaign and presidency are expressing apprehension about him as he embarks on his third presidential run.

According to HuffPost, many public evangelical figures have weighed in with their reactions to the former president's announcement — and it doesn't appear that many are buying into him making America great again.

Mike Evans, a religious figure who was among those who visited the White House to meet with Trump, recently shared his opinion during an interview with The Washington Post.

Evans made it clear that he is done with the former president.

“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”

Speaking to Newsweek, Robert Jeffress, who advised Trump during his 2016 presidential run, also admitted that he's distancing from the former president. “The Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Jeffress said.

However, Jeffress also insists that he still sees Trump as “a great friend and our greatest president since Reagan.”

On Wednesday, November 16, James Robison, the president of the Christian group Life Outreach International, attended a meeting for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) where he expressed similar concerns.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Robison said.

He also said he told the former president, “Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!”

Washington Times columnist Everett Piper also offered a critical assessment of the Republican Party's latest entanglement with Trump. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” Piper wrote. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

===

In October, megachurch pastorRobert Jeffress called for “Christian nationalists” to “impose their values” on nonbelievers whether they liked it or not. In 2021, Michael Flynn, former national security adviser in the Trump Administration, called for the U.S. to “embrace one religion” and has made it clear that he believes religions other than Christianity should be illegal. And far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, in June 2022, declared, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it…. I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.”

Forty-two years after Sawyer’s article was published, the Christian Right is not a marginal part of the Republican Party. It is a sizable GOP voting block — especially in red states — that many Republicans are afraid to criticize. And the movement, feeling empowered by the MAGA movement and the Dobbs decision, is showing no signs of backing down.

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// pence on theocracy?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/christian-nationalists-impose-their-values/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/what-trump-will-do-if-he-loses-is-the-wrong-question-what-matters-is-what-his-supporters-will-do/

hnn

It looks like Biden will beat Trump badly and the Republicans will suffer disastrous losses across the country in November.Although the polls have just been inching toward the Democrats, suddenly articles about what Trump might do if he loses are multiplying, here, here, and here.

Trump might declare the elections fake, go on FOX News to say he had really won, call out the National Guard, barricade himself in the Oval Office, order the Secret Service to shoot Biden on sight.

But what he will do is the wrong question. What matters is what his supporters will do when they lose.

Three groups of supporters are crucial to observe. The media will focus at first on Republican politicians.Will Senate losers in Montana, Arizona, Colorado, and other states jump on the fake news bandwagon? Would Mitch McConnell go quietly if Amy McGrath beats him in a very close race? Maybe Susan Collins will accept defeat in Maine, but what about QAnon promoter Jo Rae Perkins in Oregon? How about Lauren Boebert, QAnon enthusiast and House candidate in Colorado, and the other 7 Republican congressional candidates on the ballot who have expressed support for QAnon?

The whole Republican Senate delegation has already cast doubt on the results by allowing their leader to proclaim unchallenged that the election will be fraudulent. On June 22, Trump said the 2020 election “will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history”. In 2018, the National Republican Senatorial Committee followed up a Trump tweet about “electoral corruption” in the Arizona Senate race by charging that the election they lost there was rigged. Stripped of power, perhaps for years, it’s not hard to imagine Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, among others, casting doubt on the results.

Thus far the bravest Republicans in Washington, aside from Mitt Romney, are Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who called Trump’s pardon of Roger Stone a “mistake”, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said she won’t campaign against Joe Biden. The majority of Senate Republicans cowers in silence.

Will Trump’s toadies now running our intelligence services and justice system speak up and what will they say? Across the country, Republican state legislators who lose their gerrymandered majorities could join the chorus.

A second set of Trump supporters use their control of media to send waves of influence into every corner of America. Will FOX News report the official results or attack them? How about the other people to whom Republicans listen, even more partisan and less connected to reality, like Limbaugh, Breitbart, InfoWars, Drudge? Will powerful evangelical pastors Franklin Graham andRobert Jeffress proclaim that their God-given leader was cheated?

The third group is the most important and hardest to gauge – the MAGA-hat-wearing, Confederate-flag-waving white supremacists and conspiracy partisans who make up his legendary “base”. Will they see the end times coming as their messiah is defeated? Will the dozens of armed militia groups adopt 2^nd Amendment remedies to the impending takeover of America by radical socialist pedophiles? What will Ammon Bundy, the boogaloo boys, the Oath Keepers, and the more than 500 other anti-government groups loosely allied in the so-called “patriot movement” identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center do? Will the NRA call out its members to fight the commies?

Trump could scream himself hoarse with no effect unless his supporters sing along. As full election results trickle in the days after November 3 and as the implications sink in with the approach of Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, a coalition of supporters in Washington, state governments, media, and on the ground might throw our country into an existential, not merely Constitutional crisis.

It’s certain that Trump will do nothing brave himself, will commit himself to no action that he can’t back out of. But the radicals who drive their cars into Black Lives Matter protesters, who bring their assault rifles to the pizza palace, and who believe anything “Q” says are much more volatile, unhinged, and violent.

Whatever answers such questions might elicit now will change over the next few months, as Trump stokes more fear among his supporters, pushes them further away from the American center, and forces his Republican allies to come along.

Watch Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Florida) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California), Gov. Ron DeSantis (Florida), and Mark Meadows, White House Chief of Staff. Watch wily Mitch McConnell, who shares with Trump a powerful belief in the importance of his own survival.

And watch out for America.

omfg

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superspreaders who beleive in small gov't take covis bailout $?!

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trumps-religious-right-backers-get-millions-in-covid%e2%80%8b-19-relief/

Conservative evangelical churches and advocacy groups led by vocal boosters of President Donald Trump have received millions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds, marking a new milestone in the religious right’s long campaign to take a wrecking ball to the wall separating church and state.

The Paycheck Protection Program included in coronavirus relief legislation was designed to help small businesses and other organizations stay afloat and keep people working during the pandemic. Religious-right leaders worked with their allies in Congress and the Trump administration to make sure that churches would be able to receive direct government funding to support clergy salaries and other operational expenses. The program is administered by the Small Business Administration, which waived normal requirements that participants in its loan program abide by nondiscrimination standards.

On June 22, the SBA hosted a “Recovery & Resilience for Faith Based Communities tele-townhall” for leaders of churches and religious nonprofits to urge them to participate in the program by applying before the June 30 deadline—and to lavish praise on Trump for supporting the program. The call was promoted by the White House and religious-right figures like Gary Bauer.

Paula White, who oversees the Trump administration’s faith-based outreach from her perch at the White House, began the call by praying for the president. “Put a hedge and wall of fire around him that no weapon formed against him would be able to prosper,” White prayed.

White praised Trump and his administration’s extensively, saying, “it has always been his heart to make sure that houses of worship and people of faith have been protected.” She continued:

You heard that from way back, he was saying, ‘We’re going to put Merry back in Christmas,’ or talking about the Johnson Amendment. But he’s done so much to accomplish that. Things with religious freedom, like removing restrictions on grants. The PPP is one way that we begin to see this. There are so many others, but there are departments everywhere that have grants, and for years and decades, they’ve had restrictions that people of faith have had very, very difficult time. Well, our president made sure to remove those restrictions on grants, ensuring faith-based has equal access to capital, equal access to grant money.

White’s own City of Destiny church got between $150,000 and $350,000 in PPP funds, according to SBA records.

To overcome the skepticism some conservative Christian leaders might have about getting directly involved with the federal government, officials invited several prominent religious-right leaders to praise the program. While PPP funds could be a lifeline to smaller congregations and nonprofits, it turns out that staying afloat has not been a problem for some megachurches that had online worship and fundraising abilities. Instead, some of those megachurches have used money freed up by paycheck protection to expand their influence in their local communities.

Jentezen Franklin, a member of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, is pastor of the multi-campus Free Chapel megachurch, based in Gainesville, Georgia. Franklin was effusive on the SBA call, marveling that his church received a “tremendous amount of money” within three weeks of applying for it. Data released by the SBA Monday make it clearer how “tremendous” that amount was—in the $1 million to $2 million range. With payroll covered by government funds and the ability to “catch up online,” Franklin said his church distributed $340,000 to small churches in his community.

Franklin has urged evangelicals to help reelect Trump or be prepared to face tragic consequences. Trump publicly announced that he was watching Franklin’s worship service on March 15, which Trump had declared a national day of prayer.

Samuel Rodriguez, a pastor who prayed at Trump’s inauguration and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said PPP money was “like manna in the desert of this pandemic.” Rodiguez said the church was “made for this hour,” adding that “for this administration to recognize the church and the faith community as essential is a game changer.”

Rodriguez’s New Season Church in Sacramento, California, received between $150,000 and $350,000. He said the money has helped his own church not just survive but help other churches and expand community outreach. Rodriguez, who recently denounced the Democratic Party as “hostile to our Christian worldview,” called the program a “powerful resource” and a “blessing.”

“This is Uncle Sam helping us do the will of our heavenly father,” Rodriguez said. “So the PPP enabled us to cover payroll for our staff that is right now praying for interceding for the needs of our community, not just physical, spiritual, but in mental and emotional needs, literally saving lives.”

Also on the SBA call was another member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and longtime opponent of reproductive choice and LGBTQ equality. Dobson said that his organization, the James Dobson Family Institute, “has literally been kept solvent this spring and summer by the Paycheck Protection Plan.” Dobson said that thanks to the money his organization had received, adding, “We have not asked for a cent from anybody in six months.”

Other Trump-supporting leaders and organizations have done quite well. Here’s a sampling, drawn from our own research and other reporting on the SBA records:

First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, led by Trump cheerleaderRobert Jeffress, was among the megachurches listed as having received between $2 million and $5 million. Another was Guillermo Maldonado’s King Jesus International Ministry, which hosted an Evangelicals for Trump campaign launch last year.
The American Center for Law and Justice, part of the lucrative legal empire of Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow and his family, got between $1 million and $2 million.
The anti-LGBTQ advocates at Liberty Counsel received between $350,000 and $1 million.
End Times pastor Jim Bakker’s Morningside Church got between $350,000 and $1 million.
Televangelist Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Church got between $350,000 and $1 million.

Initially, the idea of tax dollars directly supporting clergy and church operations was defended as an extraordinary response to the unique situation caused by the pandemic. But on a phone call organized by Paula White’s One Voice Prayer Movement in May,former Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia, founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, celebrated that “precedents for religious freedom” that are being set during the pandemic—specifically the unprecedented use of federal tax dollars to directly fund clergy and churches—“are going to endure long after this coronavirus has gone.”

Marcus Harris, director of faith and community initiatives in the office of Entrepreneurial Development at the SBA, told people in the call, “One thing I’m able to say in my role as the faith-based leader here at SBA is that I know for many of you this is your first interaction with SBA, but we do not want this to be your last,” a sentiment that was repeated by SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza.

Tags: Donald Trump James Dobson Jentezen Franklin Jim Bakker Paula White Rick Joyner Robert Jeffress Samuel Rodriguez Church-State Coronavirus Election 2020 Trump Administration American Center for Law and Justice First Baptist Church Dallas Liberty Counsel Trump Administration

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/far-right-evangelical-robert-jeffress-slammed-for-hold-large-gathering-on-march-15-despite-widespread-calls-for-social-distancing/

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/13/politics/hagee-jeffress-us-embassy-jerusalem/index.html

cnn

Monday's ceremony marking the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem broke with tradition in more ways than one.

Besides the political concerns over the move itself, a pair of Christian evangelical leaders were on hand whose words have caused their own share of controversy.

Pastor John Hagee,the founder of Christians United for Israel, delivered the benediction at the ceremony.

"We thank you, O Lord, for President Donald Trump's courage in acknowledging to the world a truth that was established 3,000 years ago -- that Jerusalem is and always shall be the eternal capital of the Jewish people," Hagee said.

"And because of that courage of our President, we gather here today to consecrate the ground upon which the United States Embassy will stand reminding the dictators of the world that America and Israel are forever united," he added.

A major proponent of the embassy move, Hagee said in a recent interview with conservative news site Breitbart that he told Trump he would win "political immortality" for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv.

"I told him that the moment that you do that, I believe that you will step into political immortality," the news site quoted Hagee as saying. "Because you are having the courage to do what other presidents did not have the courage to do."

Meanwhile, another controversial evangelical pastor, Robert Jeffress, said a prayer at the embassy opening.

"We come before you, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, thanking you for bringing us to this momentous occasion in the life of your people and in the history of our world," Jeffress said on Monday.

Jeffress went on to praise the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Trump.

"We want to thank you for the tremendous leadership of our great president, Donald J. Trump. Without President Trump's determination, resolve and courage we would not be here today," he said.

"And I believe I speak for everyone of us when I say I thank you every day that you have given us 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," Jeffress added.

Jeffress, a Southern Baptist, vigorously supported Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign and was a member of his evangelical advisory board. He even preached at a private servicefor the President-elect and his family on Inauguration Day in 2017, shortly before Trump took the oath of office.

Despite Jeffress' history of making contentious comments about various faith groups, the White House defended the decision to have him speak at the embassy opening, saying he has long-standing ties to US political figures.

"I think Pastor Jeffress has had a strong relationship with many people in the faith community," deputy press secretary Raj Shah said during Monday's White House briefing.

"He has a long-standing involvement with public officials," he said.

Shah also said he was not sure who had selected Jeffress to speak.

The embassy's relocation formally breaks from decades of established American policy and international practice in a move US officials say will create greater regional stability. Critics, however, say the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital could make a region already struggling with four ongoing conflicts all the more combustible. And they argue it marks the end of the US role as an "honest broker" in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The move of the embassy to the city is contentious for Palestinians, who hope to claim part of the city as their future capital, and for many in the Arab world, as it is home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, as well as those of Judaism and Christianity.

Hagee's comments resurface during 2008 presidential campaign

Hagee's positive comments about Trump's decision echo those of other evangelical Christians, who hailed his announcementin December that the United States would now recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It was a promise Trump repeatedly made to his conservative Christian base. About 80% of white evangelicals (usually among the strongest American supporters of Israel), voted for Trump in 2016, according to exit polls.

Hagee, whose group is dedicated to organizing pro-Israel Christians in the United States into a unified voice, has had relationships with Israeli prime ministers dating back years. But he came under the national political spotlight in 2008 for comments that prompted then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reject his endorsement.

During the campaign, audio from one of Hagee's sermons in the 1990s was leaked that seemed to suggest that Adolf Hitler had been fulfilling God's will by aiding the desire of Jews to return to Israel in accordance with biblical prophecy.

"God says in Jeremiah 16: 'Behold, I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave to their fathers. ... Behold, I will send for many fishers, and after will I send for many hunters,'" Hagee said, according to a transcript of his sermon. "'And they the hunters shall hunt them.' That would be the Jews. ... Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter."

In a statement at the time, McCain said, "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

Shortly after McCain's announcement, Hagee withdrew his endorsement, citing critics who had been "grossly misrepresenting" his positions.

"I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues," he said in a statement. "I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Sen. McCain for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign."

Hagee also has said that "to assert that I in any way condone the Holocaust or that monster Adolf Hitler is the biggest and ugliest of lies. I have always condemned the horrors of the Holocaust in the strongest of terms."

A spokesman for Hagee's group, Ari Morgenstern, told CNN that the pastor gave the sermon based on the writings of a Jewish theologian, Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal. Teichtal, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, wrote that the afflictions that were befalling the Jewish population of Europe during World War II were meant to spur a return by Jews to the Holy Land.

Jeffress' comments on Mormonism and Islam

Some might remember Jeffress for his frequent condemnations of Mormonism as a "cult" during the 2012 presidential campaign and his urging of Christians not to vote for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, during the Republican primary.

But Jeffress has also called Islam and Mormonism heresies "from the pit of hell," suggested that the Catholic Church was led astray by Satan, accused then-President Barack Obama of "paving the way" for the Antichrist and spread false statistics about the prevalence of HIV among gays, who he said live a "miserable" and "filthy" lifestyle.

In recent years, Jeffress has frequently denounced Islam, calling it an "evil religion" that "promotes pedophilia" because the Prophet Mohammed married a 9-year-old girl. (Many modern Muslim scholars disagree about her age.) The pastor has also said that Mormons, Muslims and Hindus "worship a false god."

Late Sunday evening, Romney tweeted that Jeffress is "a bigot" and shouldn't "be giving the prayer that opens up" the embassy.

:{:{[twt]}::{}:

j

effress spoke with Fox News Radio about his participation in the embassy opening.}:

"In that prayer, I'm going to be recounting God's history of faithfulness to his people, the Israelites," he said. "I'm going to be thanking God for the strong leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is absolutely determined to protect Israel. And I'm also going to be thanking God for our President Donald Trump, who had the courage to do what no other US President has done, and that is to officially recognize Jerusalem and to move the embassy. This is another example of promise made, promise kept."

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/trump-hosts-pastor-who-says-jews-are-going-to-hell-at-white-house-even-about-anti-semitism-and-hanukkah/

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Bream was out on Friday, but guest anchor Mike Emanuel still played host to more far-out, right-wing conspiracy theories. In a discussion about Attorney General Bill Barr’s ongoing attempts to discredit the previous investigations of the Trump campaign and Russian involvement in the 2016 election, criminal defense attorney David Bruno raised an allegation about Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor suspected of being a connection between the Russian government and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. (Mifsud’s current whereabouts are unknown.)

“Mifsud is the one that fed George Papadopoulos the original information that Russians had dirt,” Bruno stated. “Now, can you imagine if that came from the United States government internally? I don't know that speculation, but that is the most interesting part about the Italy connection is Joseph Mifsud.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 25, 2019, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream

There was no pushback from Emanuel against Bruno’s reference to a baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that the then-presidential candidate was somehow the victim of an elaborate frame-up by the U.S. government.

And as a special bonus to the “1 week challenge,” this past Monday night’s episode featured among other things a discussion with Trump-supporting Fox News contributor Robert Jeffress, an extremist religious right figure who has been criticized for religious bigotry, and estranged Democratic pollster Doug Schoen — both of whom agreed that Trump is not a racist.

“Look, I've known President Trump for four years, there's not one scintilla of evidence that he's a racist,” Jeffress said. “In fact, anybody who knows the president knows that if you support him, he embraces you, regardless of your race. And if you oppose him, he attacks you, regardless of your race. That's the essence of what it means to be colorblind."

Video file

CitationFrom the October 28, 2019, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream

Jeffresscontinued: “But Shannon, I'm not sure the Democrats want to be the ones talking about racism, when in their history, they're the ones who supported the Ku Klux Klan, they opposed the abolition of slavery, and they continue to worship at the shrine of Planned Parenthood.”

In response, neither Bream not Schoen mentioned Trump’s documented history of racial discrimination in housing and hiring, as well as the fact that he built his political following by spreading the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. There are plenty more examples.

As Media Matters previously documented, Bream has also been a reliable mouthpiece for anti-abortion talking points, such as repeating misinformation from the anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress, which engaged in a 2015 smear campaign against Planned Parenthood by releasing deceptive videos. In addition, she has frequently misgendered trans people or referred to them as a gender with which they do not identify. It is a stigmatizing form of harassment that goes against journalistic best practices.

Bottom line: You’re not going to find unfiltered news coverage on Fox News — not even from the “news” side, because there really isn’t a news side at all.

an 1019

Trump’s top religion advisor: Democrats do not worship Jesus they worship demon god ‘Moloch’

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement October 2, 2019

President Donald Trump’s top religion advisor Dr. Robert Jeffress has some news for the millions of Democratic voters who happen to be Christians: You are not.

Dr. Jeffress, who sits on President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board and even led a private pre-inauguration sermon for the Trump and Pence families hours before the president was sworn in, was not shy about his feelings on Christian Democrats.

On Monday, as Right Wing Watch reports, Jeffress declared that the god Democrats actually “worship is the pagan god of the Old Testament, Moloch.”

Jeffress, who came under fire over the weekend after President Trump quoted him saying if Democrats impeach the president there will be “Civil War,” spoke with fellow right wing Christian extremist Todd Starnes of Fox News.

Calling President Trump “the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-Israel, pro-conservative judiciary president we have ever had,” Jeffress warned, “if the left ever regains control of this country again, our nation is finished.”

“Look, I believe that,” Starnes responded. “Based on some of the legislation they’re trying to shove down the throats of the good people of California. And then with this Equality Act,” Starnes, a vehemently anti-LGBTQ activist, added, “that Nancy Pelosi and her cronies are after, I have no doubt that they want to go after and target Christians.”

“I believe that if the left ever gets in control again,” Jeffress told Starnes, “they are going to come after conservatives with a vengeance.”

Jeffress is the senior pastor of a 13,000 member Dallas megachurch and a Fox News contributor.

He then mockingly attacked “sanctimonious Nancy Pelosi” for encouraging Americans to pray for President Trump, as she repeatedly has said she does.

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Jeffress continued his attacks, saying the Speaker of the House “reminds me of an arsonist, a pyromaniac with a match in his hand about to set a building on fire, saying, ‘Now pray with me that the destruction I’m about to cause isn’t too severe.’”

“If Nancy Pelosi is sincere about bringing this nation together, she will drop this impeachment effort,” he said, ignoring polls that find a strong majority of Americans favor impeaching President Trump.

“Apparently,” Jeffress continued, “the god they worship is the pagan god of the Old Testament, Moloch, who allowed for child sacrifice.”

“The God of the Bible doesn’t sanction the killing of millions and millions of children in the womb. I think the god they are worshiping is the god of their own imagination.”

Jeffress has condemned Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, and various forms of Christianity including Mormonism as not “true” religions.

Watch:

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/gop-congressman-blasts-trump-for-quoting-evangelical-pastors-civil-war-threat-this-is-beyond-repugnant/

kinzinger jeffress

on Fox News on Sunday, Robert Jeffress — one of President Donald Trump’s far-right white evangelical sycophants — asserted that Trump’s impeachment could cause “a Civil War-like fracture” in the United States. Trump repeated Jeffress’ assertion on Twitter — and got an angry response from a fellow Republican: Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

Jeffress, pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, is a prominent figure on the Christian Right. And during his Sunday appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Jeffress insisted to co-hosts Pete Hegseth and Jedediah Bila that Trump has done nothing to deserve impeachment and attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for supporting an impeachment inquiry — stressing, “I do want to make this prediction this morning: if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m afraid it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which this country will never heal.”

On Twitter, Trump quoted Jeffress and zeroed right in on the Civil War

...

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Robert Jeffress: Climate Change Is an 'Imaginary Crisis' That God Won’t Let Happen

Christian pastors praise Trump for speech on ‘religious persecution’ — and ditching UN Summit on ‘imaginary’ climate crisis

Two well-known Christian pastors appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning to praise President Donald Trump’s decision to deliver a speech Monday at the United Nations on “religious persecution” – while snubbing a climate change summit to do so.

Hate ground head Tony Perkins was joined by Dr. Robert Jeffress, a Fox News contributor who had plenty of praise for the President. Both men are among America’s top anti-LGBTQ activists and both are closely tied to Trump and his administration.

Dr. Jeffress called climate change an “imaginary problem”while heralding Trump’s “guts” for ignoring today’s UN summit on the crisis.

“This is the first time any leader of a nation has addressed the UN on religious persecution,” Jeffress said excitedly. “A third of the world is living under religious persecution. 80 percent of it is against Christians,” Jeffress claimed. “It is a remarkable thing that this president would skip a UN climate change summit on an imaginary problem to address the very real problem of global persecution of believers.”

“I mean, think about it: what president in history would have the guts to do what President Trump is doing?” Jeffress asked, laughing because, he said, “it’s absolutely infuriating” Trump’s “enemies” while “energizing his base.”

https://www.alternet.org/internet-schools-megachurch-pastor-lesson-jesus-after-he-rips-pope-opposing-death-penalty

Megachurch Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Fox News contributor, got a Bible lesson from the Internet over the weekend after he lashed out at Pope Francis for opposing the death penalty.

In a declaration last week, the Vatican said that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

On Sunday, Jeffress complained about the Catholic Church’s stance.

“Pope Francis is dead wrong about capital punishment,” he wrote on Twitter. “God has commanded government to use the death penalty to demonstrate the seriousness of murder.”

Jeffress went on to quote the book of Genesis: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.”

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https://www.alternet.org/how-religious-right-indoctrinates-its-followers-false-version-history

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week ago Sunday, June 24, 2018, First Baptist Church of Dallas held its annual “Freedom Sunday.” The church website described the special service this way: “Celebrate our freedom as Americans and our freedom in Christ with patriotic worship and a special message from Dr. Robert Jeffress, “America is a Christian Nation.”

Not everyone in Dallas was happy about it. Robert Wilonsky, an opinion writer at the Dallas Morning News, wrote that Jeffress and the First Baptist Church were “divisive” for claiming that America was a Christian nation. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings agreed. Atheists protested. Eventually, the billboard company contracting with the church removed signs advertising Freedom Sunday.

This, of course, did not stop the service from going forward. The people of First Baptist Church spent the morning of the 24th waving American flags, wearing red, white, and blue shirts, singing the Star-Spangled Banner, and celebrating the United States military. Vice-president Mike Pence sent a letter of encouragement.

Was this a religious service or a celebration of nationalism? What was the object of the congregation’s worship?

Jeffress has been preaching his “America is a Christian Nation” sermon for a long time. On Sunday he stuck with his usual script. He indicted the “secularists, atheists, and infidels” for “perverting” the Constitution. He chided the federal government’s failure to acknowledge God in the public square. He told his congregation that academics, historians, and teachers have been lying to them about the religious roots of the United States.

Jeffress made one problematic historical reference after another. He made the wildly exaggerated claim that fifty-two of the original fifty-five signers of the Constitution were “orthodox conservative Christians.” He peddled the false notion that the disestablishment clause in the First Amendment was meant to apply solely to Protestant denominations. Robert Jeffress is best known as a Fox News religion commentator and one of the first evangelical leaders to support Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. He has called Trump “the most faith-friendly president in history.”

Within two weeks following the announcement of his candidacy, several polls had Trump leading among white evangelical GOP voters. In November 2016, 81% of these evangelicals cast their vote for Donald Trump for President of the United States. The reasons for this are complex, and we probably need to wait a generation or two before historians can begin to make sense of them, but three young sociologists have published a scholarly essay that suggests the most plausible explanation.

Andrew Whitehead of Clemson University, Sam Perry of the University of Oklahoma, and Joseph O. Baker of East Tennessee State University argue that “the more someone believed the United States is—and should be—a Christian nation, the more likely they were to vote for Trump.” They conclude that “no other religious factor influenced support for or against Trump.”

These sociologists found that the average Trump voter believes the federal government should: declare the United States a Christian nation, advocate for Christian values, oppose the “strict separation of church and state,” allow the “display of religious symbols in public spaces,” and return prayer to public schools. Likewise, Trump voters believe that whatever success the United States has had over the years is “part of God’s plan.” This essay is revealing, and it confirms much of what I have written about since the 2011 release of my Was American Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction. But it does not address why and how Americans have come to believe these things. The answer to that question invites us to think historically.

Ever since the founding of the republic, a significant number of Americans have supposed that the United States is exceptional because it has a special place in God’s unfolding plan for the world. Since the early 17th century founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony by Puritans, evangelicals have relished in their perceived status as God’s new Israel—His chosen people. America, they argued, is in a covenant relationship with God. The defenders of this idea like to apply Chronicles 7:14 to the United States: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Though dissenters have always been present, the Christian culture of the United States remained intact well into the 20th century. But since World War II, the moorings of this culture have loosened, and evangelicals have responded with fear that their Christian nation is about to collapse. Robert Jeffress is correct about this.

During the 1960s, the Supreme Court removed prayer and Bible reading from public schools, the federal government cut federal funding to Christian academies and colleges that practiced segregation, the country grew more diverse through immigration, and the sexual revolution threatened evangelical patriarchy and gave women the right to choose to have an abortion.

The fear that America’s Christian civilization was falling apart translated into political action. In the late 1970s, conservative evangelicals such as Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye (the author of the popular Left Behind novels), and a group of politicians who had been closely affiliated with the 1964 Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, developed a political playbook to win back the culture from the forces of secularization. Most of the 81% of American evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 understood, and continue to understand, the relationship between their faith and their politics through this playbook.

This playbook, which would eventual become the culture-war battle plan of the “Religious Right,” was tweaked occasionally over the years to address whatever moral issues seemed most important at the time, but it never lost its focus on “restoring,” “renewing,” and “reclaiming” America for Christ through the pursuit of political power.

When executed properly, the playbook teaches evangelicals to elect the right President and members of Congress who will pass laws privileging evangelical Christian views of the world. These elected officials will then appoint and confirm conservative Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade, defend life in the womb, and uphold religious liberty for those who believe in traditional views of marriage.

The playbook rests firmly on the Religious Right’s understanding of American identity as rooted in its view of the American past. If America was not founded as a Christian nation, the Religious Right’s political agenda collapses or, at the very least, is weakened severely.

To indoctrinate its followers in the dubious claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, the Religious Right has turned to political activists, many of whom claim to be historians, to propagate the idea that the founding fathers of the United States were in the business of building a Christian nation.

The most prominent of these Christian nationalist purveyors of the past is David Barton, the founder of Wallbuilders, an organization in Aledo, Texas that claims to be “dedicated to presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built—a foundation which, in recent years, has been seriously attacked and undermined.” Barton and Wallbuilders were the source of most of the historical information Jeffress presented in his Freedom Sunday sermon on June 24th.

For the past thirty years, Barton has provided pastors and conservative politicians with inaccurate or misinterpreted facts used to fuel the Religious Right’s nostalgic longings for an American Christian golden age. American historians, including those who teach at the most conservative Christian colleges, have debunked Barton’s use of the past, but he continues to maintain a large following in the evangelical community.

David Barton peddles fake news about the American past. Yet, if Andrew Whitehead, Sam Perry, and Joseph Baker are correct, his work is essential to the success of the Trump presidency in a way that I imagine even Donald Trump and his staff do not fully understand or appreciate.

Trump does not talk very much about America’s supposedly Christian origins. His grasp of history is not very strong. But his evangelical supporters see him as a gift of God—a divinely appointed figure who has emerged on the scene for such a time as this. He is in the White House to preserve God’s covenant with America, to make America Christian again.

The support for the President is a sign of intellectual laziness in the evangelical community. Rather than thinking creatively about how to move forward in hope, Trump evangelicals prefer to respond to cultural change by trying to reclaim a Christian world that is rapidly disappearing, has little chance of ever coming back, and may never have existed in the first place.

The American founding fathers lived in a world that was very different from our own. In the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, America was a nation of Christians—mostly Protestants—who put their stamp on the culture.

Yet, amid this Christian culture, the founders differed about the relationship between Christianity and their new nation. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison defended the separation of church and state. John Adams and George Washington also opposed mixing church and state, while at the same time suggesting that Christians, because Christianity taught an ethic of selflessness, could be useful in the creation of a virtuous republic in which citizens sacrificed self-interest for the common good.

The founding fathers believed in God, but most of them did not believe that God inspired the Old and New Testaments or sent His son to die and rise from the dead as the ultimate payment for human sin. The God of the Declaration of Independence is a providential deity who created the world and the people in it, but there is nothing in this important American document that defines this God in terms of the Incarnation or the Trinity.

The United States Constitution never mentions God or Christianity but does forbid religious tests for office. The First Amendment rejects a state-sponsored church and celebrates the free-exercise of religion. This is hardly the kind of stuff by which Christian nations are made. Yet Barton and Jeffress invoke these founders and these documents to defend the idea that the United States was founded as a distinctly Christian nation.

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If the Christian Right, and by extension the 81% of evangelical voters who use its political playbook, are operating on such a weak historical foundation, why doesn’t someone correct their faulty views and dubious claims?

We do.

We have.

But countering bad history with good history is not as easy as it sounds. David Barton and his fellow Christian nationalist purveyors of the past are well-funded by Christian conservatives who know that the views of the past they are peddling serve their political agenda. Barton has demonized Christian intellectuals and historians as sheep in wolves’ clothing. They may call themselves Christians on Sunday morning, but, according to Barton, their “world view” has been shaped by the secular universities where they earned their Ph.Ds. Thanks to Barton, many conservative evangelicals do not trust academic and professional historians—even academic and professional historians with whom they share a pew on Sunday mornings.

I know this first-hand from some of the negative emails and course evaluation forms I received after teaching a Sunday School course on the history of religion and politics at the Evangelical Free Church congregation where my family worship every Sunday. Because I was a college history professor—even a college history professor at a Christian college with strong evangelical roots—I could not be trusted.

What David Barton does not understand is that there are hundreds of evangelical historians who see their work as part of their Christian identity and vocation. These historians are women and men who pursue truth about the past wherever it leads. This pursuit of truth is a deeply Christian pursuit, as is the case with all efforts to distinguish truth from error.

When people like David Barton cherry-pick from the past to promote political agendas, they do a disservice to the past, fail to treat it with integrity, and ultimately harm their Christian witness in the world. They make evangelicals look foolish. This is not what Paul described in 1 Corinthians 1:18 as the “foolishness of the cross,” it is just good old-fashioned foolishness. It is a product of what evangelical historian Mark Noll has described as the “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.”

Many of us engaged in trying to bring good history to the evangelical church need the support of Christians who are concerned about the direction Donald Trump, the Christian Right, and the pseudo-historians who prop-up their political agenda are trying to take the country and the church. Good history is complex. It is nuanced. And it is an essential part of truly worshipping God with our minds (Luke 10:27). Unfortunately, complexity, nuance, and intellectual discipleship are not the kinds of subjects that inspire Christians to dig into their pocketbooks.

What would it take to fund evangelical historians to travel to receptive churches around the country and spend some concentrated time teaching American religious history, and American history more broadly, to lay men and women? Perhaps such visits could also include times of worship and prayer?

It is unlikely that such an effort would reach the Robert Jeffress’ of the world. but there are many evangelicals who are open and willing to listen and learn. This was another lesson I took away from my Sunday School class. In fact, the criticism I received paled in comparison with the positive comments I got from those who had never heard a fellow evangelical offer a different, more accurate, view of American history.

American evangelical political engagement is built on a very weak historical foundation. It is time that Christian philanthropists, motivated by an entrepreneurial spirit informed by the pursuit of truth and a concern for the testimony of the Gospel in the world, take the long view and invest in responsible Christian thinking about the American past. The American republic, and more importantly, the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, depends on it.

John Fea teaches American history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He is the author of the new book, Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans Publishing, June 2018).

https://www.alternet.org/ex-evangelist-slams-moron-christians-believing-trumps-jerusalem-embassy-will-hasten-jesus-second

on AM Joy on Sunday morning, a former evangelist-turned-filmmaker swatted down Christians who were gleeful that President Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, believing it will hasten the return of Jesus.

Speaking with MSNBC host Joy Reid, religious reform activist Frank Schaeffer was asked about Pastor Robert Jeffress who was invited to speak at the embassy opening despite the fact that he has previously said Jews are condemned to Hell if they don't convert.

Noting Jeffress, also said God let six million Jews perish in the Holocaust to get them to "come back to the land of Israel," Reid asked, "Why would these two groups be in the same space? Israelis and people who believe that they are going to Hell?""

The reason they are in the same space -- while Palestinians are being shot by snipers over a wall in a 60 to nothing confrontation where 60 Palestinians were killed and no Israeli soldiers are killed at that moment that that is going on -- there are white evangelical Trump supporters talking about the embassy coming into Jerusalem as a sort of act of god," Schaeffer began.

"But actually it is not by chance," he elaborated. "The Israeli government and the present prime minister have made it clear that lobbying for the Jerusalem embassy and also support of Israel has focused on pandering to the extremists, the lunatic fringe. Forgive me, the moron fringe of the evangelical white movement in America that believes that Israel had to return to the original borders described in the Bible in order for Jesus to come back."

"And by the way," he noted. "When he does come back it is to burn most of the Jews who have not believed in him while he's setting up the new Earth and the new heaven. So we are now looking at exactly what happens with so much evil in the world that comes down to tribalized religious thinking."

You can watch the video below via MSNBC