not a Republican or a Democrat. He has
also told me his congregation has plen-
ty of Democrats, though I haven’t met
one. When I ask him if he’d ever invite
a Democrat or someone from CNN to
speak at his church, he laughs.
“You know, I would have to think
about it,” he says. Then he adds, “But
if we haven’t, it’s not because they are
Democrats. It’s because of the point of
view they would articulate on these ba-
sic core spiritual issues. I mean, try to
find me a pro-life Democrat leader. You
can’t find one.”
“Basic core spiritual issues” is usually
his answer when I press him on why he
goes out of his way, again and again, to
defend Trump. He cares about religious
liberty—which for him essentially boils
down to whether churches and busi-
nesses should be required to provide
birth control for employees and wheth-
er businesses can deny service to gay or
trans people. And nearly every policy
discussion eventually comes back to
what he sees as the national battle that
started in Dallas when he was a teenag-
er. He believes Roe v. Wade, not the is-
sue of sexual assault or of judicial tem-
perament, was at the heart of the fight
over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh
to the Supreme Court. The Democrats
were worried that Kavanaugh’s rulings
would “somehow lessen the number of
babies being murdered every year in the
womb through abortion.”
This is why Trump is the sort of war-
rior evangelicals have long craved, a
warrior who will fight for their beliefs
regardless of whether he holds those be-
liefs himself. This is why Jeffress doesn’t
worry about Trump’s personal behavior.
“When you’re in a war, you don’t wor-
ry about style,” he explains. “Nobody
would have criticized General Patton
because of his language. We’re in a war
here between good and evil. And to me,
the president’s tone, his demeanor, just
aren’t issues I choose to get involved
with.” (When I look this up later, I learn
that some top commanders and many
members of Congress did criticize—and
discipline—General Patton for verbally
abusing and slapping two soldiers. He
was suspended from his command and
made to apologize.)
I ask Jeffress why, since he believes
all sin is equal, abortion is more import-
ant than every other issue. Criswell, his
mentor, and other past religious lead-
ers didn’t feel nearly as strongly about
the topic. Criswell stated publicly that
life begins at birth and didn’t change his
stance until after the widespread use of
ultrasound technology. “Criswell and
other evangelicals were just ignorant of
the science,” he says. “We didn’t have the
ability to view a life inside the womb as
we do today and understand that that’s
a real, live human being.”
What about children at the border
and the administration’s policy of sep-
arating families? Doesn’t he think we
should protect babies at our borders
too?
“Look,” he tells me, “if you have a
woman who is convicted of a bank rob-
bery and she has an infant child and she’s
sent to prison, I mean, her baby is going
to be ripped from her.”
But of course, we have gradations of
crimes in this country, and crossing a
border—even if it’s illegal—is a far dif-
ferent thing than robbing a bank. This
policy was instituted as a deterrent. I
remind him that many people, includ-
ing some Baptists, believe it’s a callous
way to treat children.
“If we don’t secure our borders, we’re
enticing the needy people, the persecut-
ed people, to make a dangerous jour-
ney to come to this country or try to en-
ter illegally, and I think, in part, we are
morally responsible for doing that,” he
tells me. He compares it to laws that
hold homeowners responsible when a
child strays into an unfenced pool and
drowns. “We’ve got to figure out a way
to secure our borders and at the same
time deal equitably and justly with peo-
ple who want to enter this country for
legitimate reasons.”
I bring up some other children: the
survivors of mass shootings. After the
shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High, in Parkland, Florida, when stu-
dents organized marches across the
country to protest U.S. gun laws, Jef-
fress told Fox News viewers that chang-
ing the laws would not help because laws
couldn’t change the evil in someone’s
heart—though maybe displaying the
Ten Commandments in schools could.
Talking with me, though, he admits that
mass shootings weigh on him heavily. He
points out that, in Genesis, the primary
reason God floods the earth is violence.
“God hates those who harm others,” he
says. “I don’t believe that the Bible or
even the Constitution gives a unilater-al, unconditional, unrestrained right for
guns. The government has a right and
responsibility to control that.”
Gun rights, in fact, is one of the two
main issues on which he disagrees
with the Republican party. The other
is health care. He has been a vocal critic
of Obamacare, but Jeffress does tell me,
“The GOP is on the wrong side of this.”
He says, “There ought to be a safety net”
and “Americans want coverage for pre-
existing conditions” and that “before we
dismantle something, we ought to have
something better ready in its place.”
I ask Jeffress if he’d be critical of, say,
someone like Democratic senator Cory
Booker, if the public learned he’d had an
affair with a porn star.
“I have to be consistent,” he tells me.
“And consistent would say that my ob-
jection to Cory Booker would not be his
personal life but his public policies.”Here’s Robert Jeffress in January
2016, sitting on Trump’s plane between
campaign stops in Iowa, and the pastor
and the presidential candidate are fin-
ishing their lunch of Wendy’s cheese-
burgers when Jeffress says, “Mr. Trump,
I believe you’re going to be the next pres-
ident of the United States. And if that
happens, it’s because God has a great
purpose for you and for our nation.”
Jeffress quotes from the book of Dan-
iel, chapter two, and explains, “God is
the one who establishes kings and re-
moves kings.”
Trump looks at the pastor and says,
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Jeffress says.
Trump asks, “Do you believe God or-
dained Obama to be president?”
“I do,” Jeffress tells Trump. “God has
a purpose for every leader.”
This is certainly not the way Jeffress
talked about Barack Obama when he was
president. Jeffress wasn’t a fan. Short-
ly before Mitt Romney secured the Re-
publican nomination in 2012, Jeffress
said he’d “hold [his] nose” and vote for
him instead of Obama, despite believing
that Mormonism is a cult and Romney
is going to hell. (He’s also said that Jews,
Hindus, Muslims, and nonbelievers are
destined for hell.) He criticized both
Obamacare and National Security Agen-
cy surveillance as violations of Ameri-
cans’ freedom. In 2014, citing Obama’s
support for same-sex marriage, Jeffress
declared that the president was “pavingTEXAS MONTHLY 111