Pence gives campaign-style speech to Southern Baptists

DALLAS — Vice President Mike Pence delivered a hybrid of a campaign speech and a sermon Wednesday before thousands of representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention, boasting about the Trump administration’s actions on everything from North Korea negotiations to tax cuts in his speech to the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Pence, who is an evangelical Christian himself and generally popular in this conservative evangelical denomination, spoke in the language of the campaign trail but also in the language of a sermon.

“Today on behalf of the president, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the Southern Baptist Convention for the essential and irreplaceable role you play in America,” he said. “I’ll make you a promise: This president, this vice president and our administration will always stand with you.”

Some attendees at the Baptists’ annual meeting had protested in advance that Pence should not have been invited; several delegates made motions that were denied or delayed Tuesday that Pence’s time slot should be filled instead with prayer or that all politicians should be barred from addressing the annual meeting.

While many applauded as Pence spoke, others sat silently. Key leaders in the denomination complained afterward that he had focused too much on partisan politics.

Pence drew the most sustained ovations when he mentioned the Trump administration’s action of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and when he called Trump “the most pro-life president in American history.”