President’s remarks deepen differences among evangelicals
new york — Donald Trump’s vulgar remarks questioning why the US should admit immigrants from Haiti and Africa have spotlighted the bitter divide among American evangelicals about his presidency.
While some of his evangelical backers expressed support for his leadership, other conservative Christians are calling the president racist and say church leaders had a moral imperative to condemn him.
“Your pro-life argument rings hollow if you don’t have an issue with this xenophobic bigotry,” tweeted pastor Earon James of Relevant Life Church in Pace, Florida. Still, conservative Christians remain as polarised as ever over his leadership.
Many evangelical leaders who defended him in the past would not comment on Trump’s remarks to a group of senators. A few offered some criticism. Pastor Ronnie Floyd, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said it was “not good” to devalue any person. Johnnie Moore, a public relations executive and a leader among Trump’s evangelical advisers, said the reports of what Trump said were “absolutely suspect and politicised.”
Pastor Mark Burns from South Carolina remained skeptical, but said if the remarks were true, Trump was only reacting to poor conditions in Haiti and Africa that were the fault of “lazy governments” there.
The Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and a frequent guest at the White House, said that apart from the president’s choice of words, “Trump is right on target in his policy,” putting the needs of the US above those of other countries.
Yet anger spread among other conservative Christians.
They posted family photos on social media and proudly noted immigrant relatives. Bishop Talbert Swan of the Church of God in Christ, or COGIC, the country’s largest black Pentecostal denomination, tweeted a photo of one of his grandchildren born to what Swan said was his “educated, hard-working” Haitian-American daughter-in-law. —