THE PASTOR AND
THE PRESIDENT
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 73
Christian Broadcasting Network to say
that Democrats were falsely painting
Trump as a racist. “Racism comes in all
shapes, all sizes, and, yes, all colors,” ex-
plained the pastor. “And if we’re going
to denounce some racism, we ought to
denounce all racism.”
When the adult-film actress Stormy
Daniels announced that she’d had a sex-
ual encounter with Trump and was paid
to keep quiet before the election, Jeffress
explained in a Fox News debate with
Juan Williams that evangelicals “knew
they weren’t voting for an altar boy.”
Jeffress defended Trump when the
president referred to a kneeling NFL
player as a “son of a bitch.” He justified
the administration’s separating chil-
dren from their parents at the border.
When Trump questioned why America
would accept immigrants from “shithole
countries,” Jeffress responded this way:
“Apart from the vocabulary attributed
to him, President Trump is right on tar-
get in his sentiment.”
Ten days before tonight’s appear-
ance with Dobbs, Jeffress was on a dif-
ferent Fox show, scoffing at a Christmas
tweet from Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat,
suggesting that Jesus was a refugee.
“There’s nothing in the Biblical text to
suggest that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus
came to Egypt to flee Herod illegally,”
Jeffress said, laughing and shaking his
head. “And they certainly didn’t come
in a caravan of five thousand, threaten-
ing Egyptian sovereignty.”
No doubt Jeffress knows that a lot
of the people waiting at the border are
there precisely because they want to en-
ter legally, as asylum seekers, but that
didn’t come up on air. These television
exchanges, usually over in five minutes,
don’t allow for such distinctions.
During this evening ’s three-minute
discussion with Dobbs, Jeffress sounds
more like a fiery Old Testament prophet
than a turn-the-other-cheek Christian:
he decries Democrats for supporting
sanctuary cities laws he believes led to
the death of a police officer in Califor-
nia. He says Michigan representative
Rashida Tlaib is “despicable” for using
“gutter language to curse our president.”
He declares, “The Democrats are the
party of immorality.” He calls Romneya “self-righteous snake.”
His animated ranting earns a belly
laugh from Dobbs. Finally, the host tells
him, “Pastor, good to have you with us!”
With that, the camera’s off. After wip-
ing away his TV makeup, Jeffress will
walk out of the studio, drive to his home
in North Dallas, and spend the rest of
the evening watching TV with his wife,
Amy. He may even watch a replay of to-
night’s show.
TV reaches people, and reaching peo-
ple is important to Jeffress. And to reach
people, he knows, you must understand
who they are and how they will hear you.
You must be, as the Apostle Paul once
put it, all things to all people.Here’s Robert Jeffress as a boy in the
sixties, well-mannered and bright, so
infatuated with the power of television
that he dreams of one day becoming—
of all things—an executive producer
on a TV show. He’s so dedicated to this
dream, so enthralled by show business,
that he wakes up early some days to play
his accordion before school on a chil-
dren’s morning show in Dallas called
Mr. Peppermint.
His family lives in Richardson, but
they spend plenty of time at First Bap-
tist, downtown. It’s a turbulent time
for Dallas, where the president has just
been assassinated, and for the church,
which is reckoning with desegregation.
First Baptist has always been enmeshed
in politics: George Truett, who became
pastor in 1897, gave his most famous
sermon, about the separation of church
and state, on the steps of the U.S. Capi-
tol, in Washington, D.C. His successor,
W.A. Criswell, is not shy either: He has
decried the Supreme Court decision to
desegregate schools as “idiocy” and sug-
gested that Catholics do not make good
presidents. In 1968 Criswell reverses his
position on desegregation and is soon
thereafter voted in as president of the
Southern Baptist Convention. The move
puts North Texas at the center of a mas-
sive conservative movement.
Young Robert absorbs all this. His
parents campaign for Barry Goldwa-
ter in 1964. When he is fourteen, Roe
v. Wade goes to court, just a short walk
from First Baptist; he’s seventeen when
the Supreme Court legalizes access to
abortion. In 1976 Criswell endorses Ger-
ald Ford from the pulpit, but Jeffress
casts his ballot—his first—for a Demo-106 TEXAS MONTHLYJOIN US.
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