Wednesday, August 29, 2018

President Hosts Dinner For 100 Evangelicals

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF

Officially, Mrs. Trump hosted the dinner.

About 100 evangelicals who have been meeting, consulting and praying with the president were invited. Pastors Jack Graham, Robert Jeffress, and others reported they sensed "the Spirit of the Lord in the place" describing it as a church camp meeting atmosphere.

However, the religious Left are much less moved by it all.

Be informed. Be encouraged.


Evangelicals are rejoicing.


The dinner was attended by those who have been unofficially and informally advising the administration including Franklin Graham, James Dobson, Greg Laurie, Pastor Jack Graham, Pastor Robert Jeffress and others.

Vice President Mike Pence, Ben Carson, and several other cabinet members also attended.

The president opened with a few comments saying, "We are here today to celebrate America's heritage of faith, family, and freedom."



He reviewed what he has been able to accomplish on behalf of faith, family, and freedom and further committed himself to continuing to work on behalf of those values.

He specifically noted that the administration has taken several steps to protect religious liberty for conservatives who object to things like abortion or gay "marriage."

Trump also took a moment to recognize James and Shirley Dobson who were celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary.

Pastor Jack Graham, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of the 40,000-member Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas said what enthused him was that the president opened the mic and ask pastors and leaders to say anything they wanted to say to him.

Graham said the upshot of it was that most of the pastors thanked him for what he has already done in the past 18 months.

The pastor also said this: "While Christians are often called to speak 'truth in power', the leaders in the room felt called to speak love to power."

He said they were getting up and "saying what we appreciate and care about, expressing our faith and our love. It was very similar to a meeting that you would have at a church," he said---"like a testimony meeting."

"With that many preachers and Christian leaders in the room, we believe the spirit of God was very present. Scripture was shared and verses were given to the president," Graham said.

Dobson said he had served 5 presidents over the past 38 years and has never seen anything like this before.

Jack Graham said that many prayers were offered for the president throughout the evening, but he says, "We need to maintain our vigilance in the upcoming days. The concern is that this is a spiritual warfare, this is a battle and ultimately battle is won on our knees. It is very clear, we voiced to the president that we need to pray, pray for him, pray for our country."

Pastor Robert Jeffress agreed it was all of that. And he added: "It had a campaign rally feel as well, as pastor after pastor stood and told how grateful they are for the president's leadership in religious liberty," but some who spoke cautioned the others that evangelicals must remain vigilant, because a negative outcome in the 2018 midterm elections would essentially dismantle what Trump has been able to do in his first 18 months.

The Religious Left is not rejoicing.


In fact, they are very cynical about the meeting and have created a new phrase to define how they really feel.

Court Evangelical

They say:
Court Evangelicals are Trump’s inner circle of Christian evangelicals who think it is a good idea for ministers to endorse candidates from the pulpit, have bowed a knee to the political power of the presidency, think Trump is a “baby Christian,” believe evangelicals have found their “dream president” in Trump, and regularly show up at the White House whenever Trump wants to say something about religion. The court evangelicals sacrifice their prophetic voice to political influence. The court evangelicals have put their faith in a political strongman who promises to alleviate their fears and protect them from the forces of secularization.
They are evangelical leaders who will defend Donald Trump no matter what he does.
This from the folks who stood with President Obama---led by Rev. Jim Wallace, Tony Campolo, and others--- while he morphed in his beliefs about marriage---calling Scriptures that condemn homosexual behavior "obscure verses", was a banner carrier for the abortion industry, apologized for America in every foreign country he visited, reminded us all that America is not---has never been a "Christian" nation--- celebrated Islam and all its contributions to humanity, scoffed at the notion that America is "exceptional" and carried out a sustained assault against religious liberty for evangelical Christians in America.

The religious Left described the White House dinner as a "Court evangelical extravaganza."

Evangelicals are calling it a continuing answer to prayer.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.