She’ll be joined by a variety of prominent figures from the religious right movement – the panel has 25 members in all – including James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, Richard Land, and Ralph Reed. They missed the point.
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Trump said America was hurting due to what he described as Christianity’s slide to become “weaker, weaker, weaker”. “I mean, you go to Macy’s, you go to these department stores today, you don’t see any Christmas signs”.
“And we can’t be, again, politically correct and say we pray for all of our leaders, because all of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling evangelicals down the tubes”, Trump said, “and it’s a very, very bad thing that’s happening”.
Although the meeting was closed to the press, outspoken Bishop E.W. Jackson of Virginia, the founder of the conservative nonprofit group S.T.A.N.D., was present at the meeting and hosted a phone conference after the meeting to give fellow Christians a rundown of what was being said by Trump and other evangelical leaders.
Much of this silly – presidents don’t have the authority to intervene in any of these areas – and I suspect the religious right leaders know better. And now? He’s God’s man of the hour!
Topics to be discussed in the event will be coming from more than 50,000 questions that were sent by members and followers of the organizations.
Remarkable. The reason that even committed religious ultras talk about appointing “constitutional conservatives” to the Supreme Court is that they understand you aren’t supposed to have specific issue litmus tests for judges who are, in theory, making decisions based exclusively on the law.
Just got back from Trump’s “conversation” with Evangelicals.
“The word “evangelical” has become nearly meaningless this year, and in many ways the word itself is at the moment subverting the gospel of Jesus Christ”, he wrote.
Mark Gonzales, a Texas pastor and founder of the Hispanic Action Network, a San Antonio-based group that mobilizes conservative Hispanic voters, said Trump still had to improve his standing among Latino voters who are angered by his description of Mexicans as “rapists” and “criminals”.
The event was planned to allow faith leaders to “better understand [Trump] as a person”, while helping Trump to “better appreciate” the views of Christian conservatives, according to an invitation sent out by My Faith Votes, a socially conservative group aligned with former GOP candidate Ben Carson, who is now advising Trump. “I ended up getting massive majorities in the evangelical vote, and then people were saying, ‘What’s going on?'”
Danenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, which works to oppose abortion.said she couldn’t recall a candidate explicitly stating they would pursue “pro-life” justices. “He made no missteps”.
Trump announced his religious advisory board, which has, among other people, failed presidential and congressional candidate Michele Bachmann.
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King said that, while she cannot speak for everyone in attendance, she was “very encouraged” by what took place at the meeting: “I can’t say they’ve all jumped on the Trump train, but he did address their concerns”. “You’re off the hook on the deep theological questions”. It’s going to be an extension of Obama because with Obama you had your guard up. He plainly hasn’t thought about religion for more than a few seconds in his entire adult life.
