Robert Jeffress is totally cool with Donald Trump’s pro-abortion rhetoric
Donald Trump, who touts himself as the “most pro-life president ever,” played politics recently on the issue of abortion when called the six-week abortion ban recently signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake.” And while many called the ex-president out for his failure to defend the unborn, Dr. Robert Jeffress has been defending Donald Trump’s pro-abortion rhetoric.
Of course, as one of the founding members of The Fellowship of the Pharisees willing to trade the gospel for political power in 2024, what else would you expect from Jeffress? (via Religion News)
Prominent evangelical leaders close to Trump have not expressed disappointment with his criticism of the Florida abortion legislation. Rev. Robert Jeffress, longtime Trump faith adviser, said he had spoken to the former president about the topic, and framed his comments … as a matter of tactics more than conscience.
Trump, Jeffress insisted, remains “very pro-life” but is “pointing out a political reality” — namely, the unpopularity of abortion bans among many voters and the challenge of passing a federal ban, as several Republican lawmakers and GOP presidential candidates have proposed.
“If there’s going to be a national ban on abortion,” Jeffress said, “there’s going to be some sort of compromise or consensus for legislation to be enacted.”
Asked how that applies to Trump’s criticism of Florida’s abortion ban as a “terrible thing,” Jeffress argued the remarks should be viewed through the “prism of how we’re going to get a consensus.” (Emphasis mine)
According to Jeffress, the political reality of how difficult it is to end the slaughter of unborn babies deserves more consideration than actually trying to end that slaughter.
Robert Jeffress has a long history of sacrificing morality and Godliness on the altar of Trumpism for a seat at Donald Trump’s table.
For example, when news first hit that Donald Trump had paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair he had with the porn star, Jeffress defended Trump, saying evangelicals “knew they weren’t voting for an altar boy” when they cast their ballots in 2016.
In 2019, Jeffress called “Never Trump” evangelicals “spineless morons” for not supporting him, and he predicted that Trump’s impeachment would plunge America into a “civil war.” In an appearance on Fox Business during the impeachment hearings, Jeffress defended Trump for “the values [he] embraces.”
Jeffress also claimed that “99 percent of evangelicals oppose[d] impeachment” because “never in the history of America have we had a president who was a stronger warrior for the Judeo-Christian principles upon which this nation was founded than in President Donald J. Trump.” The Southern Baptist Pharisee also said that “the effort to impeach President Trump [was] really an effort to impeach our own deeply held faith values.”
Recently, Jeffress endorsed Trump in 2024 over Ron DeSantis (via US News):
Pastor Robert Jeffress, an influential evangelical who heads a 14,000-member church in Dallas, earlier this year said he was uncommitted in the 2024 Republican primary. But Jeffress told Reuters this week that he is now solidly behind Trump, saying that he has found DeSantis … to be “lackluster.” (Emphasis mine)
Ironically, but not surprisingly, Robert Jeffress, after seven years of supporting a politician who routinely breaks most of the Ten Commandments, now wants America to know that returning to them is the only hope we have to solve today’s challenges.
You just can’t make this stuff up (via Baptist News Global):
Robert Jeffress, after seven years of supporting a politician who routinely breaks most of the Ten Commandments, now wants to speak a word in favor of the commandments.
In a Fox News opinion piece, “God’s Cure for the World’s Chaos Starts with a Few Simple Rules,” the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas says the answer to all that ails us is to follow the Ten Commandments.
This is a man who has spent the last seven years promoting and defending Donald Trump’s “fundamental nihilism,” “destructive spirit of anarchy and chaos,” and what rhetorical scholar Robert Ivie dubs a kind of “salvation by demolition.”
Further, Jeffress has interpreted biblical passages that mysteriously link the Bible with Trump’s “America First” political policies.
How a Baptist preacher can offer a cure for chaos after his political involvement has been chaos bordering on anarchy in partnership with Trump boggles the imagination. Donald Trump took the freak show of American politics and made it the main event as Jeffress trailed behind singing, “God bless Donald Trump.”
Jeffress, in his pre-inaugural sermon for Trump, read from the book of Nehemiah and told Trump God is in favor of walls. He has called Trump the most moral president in our history, while others have condemned Trump as a serial liar, demagogue and criminal.
Now, Jeffress wants us all to follow the Ten Commandments. (Emphasis mine)
When I consider how Robert Jeffress has defended Donald Trump’s pro-abortion rhetoric and how the rest of the Fellowship of the Pharisees continue to defend Trump and condone his behavior, I’m reminded of the words spoken many years ago by a man many considered a modern-day prophet, A.W. Tozer:
“Religion today is not transforming people: rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society’s own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.”
Though Tozer passed away 60 years ago, his words still ring true, and they provide an accurate description of the cheap grace lukewarm gospel being preached by Robert Jeffress.
Ever since 2016, Robert Jeffress and the rest of the Fellowship of the Pharisees have been sacrificing the gospel on the altar of Trumpism in exchange for a seat at Trump’s table and based on Jeffress’ defense of Trump’s pro-abortion rhetoric it looks like this sad reality is likely to continue heading into the 2024 election.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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