First Baptist Dallas Senior Pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress, has testified before The Religious Liberty Commission at a hearing in downtown Dallas. This is the Commission’s fourth hearing and included discussion on religious liberty issues in the military as well as state and local religious liberty issues.
At issue in the hearing was Jeffress’ opposition to what he considers the weaponization of the Johnson Amendment against evangelical churches. The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
Why it matters
The stakes are high. A repeal of the Johnson Amendment would give MAGA a two-headed monster: On the one hand it would turn evangelical churches into super-sized PAC’s. On the other side, it would join forces with the Supreme Court declaring corporations persons and removing almost all the restraints on campaign contributions. People and money – the power behind politics – would give MAGA a huge electoral advantage.
It is insufficient to state the obvious of the Rev. Robert Jeffress: that he is a hypocrite of the lowest order. He loves the glare of the Fox News studio lights where he supports and defends President Trump as if he were a high-priced defense attorney. He is the paradigm of the successful blesser of a successful president, but judgment is coming.
Historian John Fea identifies Jeffress as a leading “court evangelical” in the Trump entourage. Michael J. Mooney labels him “Trump’s apostle.”
He has previously attacked Islam as “an evil and false religion.” Jeffress’ record of supporting Trump has been well documented. He backed Trump’s “grab’em by the genitals,” his “hush money” payments to a porn star, his “shit-hole countries” remark, his smearing of Democrats as traitors and perpetuators of violence, the separation of children from parents at the border, his threat to bomb North Korea, building a wall at the border (Jeffress inaugural breakfast sermon claims heavens has walls and God loves walls), and calling NFL players ‘sons of bitches,” for kneeling during the National Anthem. Jeffress told Mooney, “I am [Trump’s] friend. I will never leave him.”
Jeffress has a template response to all Trump’s opponents`: “What we do support is this president’s wonderful policies.”
Jeffress is a modern Amaziah
Never has a Baptist preacher so covered himself with the high, unholy priestly garments of the Old Testament priest, Amaziah.
In the 7th chapter of Amos, we meet one of the most willing of the royal shills, Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. He is the spokesman of King Jeroboam, one of the worst of Judah’s kings. And he deliberately opposes the truth spoken by God’s prophet, Amos.
Amaziah attacks the character and truth-telling of Amos. He tells the king,“ Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.” Amaziah accuses Amos of sedition/treason.
Jeffress has attacked the Democrats as the “atheist party.” He has claimed Democrats worship the Old Testament pagan god, Moloch. He has accused the professors at Union Seminary as being so liberal they “couldn’t find God if their life depended on it.”
To hear Jeffress tell it, “The Democratic Party is a ‘godless’ organization that promotes policies that are ‘completely antithetical to the Christian faith.’”
“These liberal Democrats are talking about an imaginary God they have created in their own minds: a god who loves abortion and hates Israel.”
Amaziah deported Amos. “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom” (Amos 7:12 -13).
But he spoke a truth forever emblazoned on his own epitaph: “This is the king’s sanctuary and a temple of the kingdom.” Jeffress is writing now the same judgment.
Jeffress is the Benedict Arnold of Baptists
Like Benedict Arnold who was Washington’s most trusted and capable general, Jeffress is a trusted spokesman for the evangelical understanding of the gospel. Like Arnold, he has now deserted his post and fled to the safety of Fox world.
When you have a leading Southern Baptist pastor testifying against the Johnson Amendment in the name of religious liberty, you know you have a problem. Not only does Jeffress “cross sea and land to make a single [Christian Nationalist] convert, but he also attempts to cover a multitude of Trump’s sins. He’s not just a hypocrite; he is a traitor of Baptist principles.
He’s a Southern Baptist raised on the sacred doctrine of separation of church and state. Now, he wants to tear down the wall of separation. In the sermon arousing the suspicion of the IRS, Jeffress says, “America was not founded as a Muslim nation …. was not founded as a nation that is neutral to Christianity. America was founded as a Christian nation.”
Jeffress struggles to square his notions of religious liberty with his historic demeaning of Roman Catholics, his distaste for Mit Romney’s Mormon faith, and his attack of a Muslim imam in Dallas.
Jeffress is a traitor to a greater preacher than he who was also pastor of the FBC of Dallas. Dr. George Truett delivered his most famous sermon in 1920 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, addressing the topic of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
Truett said, “Our fundamental essential principles have made our Baptist people, of all ages and countries, to be the unyielding protagonists of religious liberty, not only for themselves, but for everybody else as well . . . . thank God, mighty statesmen were won to their contention. Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Patrick Henry, and many others, until at last it was written into our country’s Constitution that church and state must in this land be forever separate and free, that neither must ever trespass upon the distinctive functions of the other. It was pre-eminently a Baptist achievement.”
The separation of church and state has been the singular contribution of Baptists to American Christianity. It is our crowning joy. To see it under such vicious attack wounds the spirit and makes it difficult not to be impatient at the disquisitions of Jeffress. His noxious pathology of nationalism is hard to ignore.
Jeffress Not Guilty
As blatantly nationalistic as the FBC Dallas celebration of the Fourth of July was, as repulsive as the flag-waving in a place of the cross, as disgusting as the spectacle of fireworks, Jeffress was not guilty of violating the Johnson Amendment. He did violate every known principle of holy worship dedicated to God, but that is not unique to Jeffress.
For all his political fealty to Trump, finding Jeffress guilty of promoting political candidates from his pulpit turned out to be a dead end. The IRS was foolish to investigate FBC Dallas for violating the Johnson Amendment. Jeffress does his political work for Trump away from his pulpit.
I have watched sermons by Jeffress online. I have never heard him utter a word about the president. He almost never mentions politics. He talks about the rapture, the tribulation, about heaven as a real place, about the joy of success (Ted Talk sermons), the joys of fellowship in the church, and inviting people to trust Jesus as Savior.
The political Jeffress
In his testimony before the committee, Jeffress called the Johnson Amendment “unconstitutional.” He said polls show many pastors do not want to endorse candidates and congregations do not want to see their pastors endorse candidates.
“That’s very clear,” he said. “But that’s not the issue here. The issue is not whether they should, but whether they can.” Why then does he bother?
Jeffress plays the victim
Jeffress engages in what Kenneth Burke calls the “victimage ritual.” Jeffress claims he is being persecuted. Somehow, the senior pastor of a historic downtown church with 13,000 members, a vast television audience, and a $130 million dollar sanctuary fails to equate to victim.
In his testimony, Jeffress spoke an unexpected truth: “Although our church could afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending ourselves, most churches could not do that, and no church should have to do that.” Persecuted? Victim?
Jeffress, like most hypocrites, is too smart to be ensnared by an IRS investigation. The IRS could find President Trump guilty of tax evasion quicker than they can nail Jeffress for promoting a politician in his pulpit.
He is a hypocrite of the highest order because he neutralizes his passion for “saving the lost” with his Trump agenda. But worst of all, he is a traitor to Baptist principles.
