In a recent New York Times column, conservative writer Peter Wehner called out Robert Jeffress, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor, for his vocal support of Donald Trump.
Yesterday, conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher invited Jeffress and Wehner to debate Trump’s candidacy on his program, where Jeffress defended his support for the presumptive GOP nominee by saying that it’s “biblical” to support a “strongman” in government.
Jeffress said that he supported Trump in the primary “because I believed that he was the only one who was electable and could beat Hillary Clinton,” adding that “our country has moved so far to the left” that “I just didn’t think that Ted Cruz was electable.”
“But as far as his worldview, Trump’s worldview,” he continued, “you know, I was debating an evangelical professor on NPR and this professor said, ‘Pastor, don’t you want a candidate who embodies the teaching of Jesus and would govern this country according to the principles found in the Sermon on the Mount?’ I said, ‘Heck no.’ I would run from that candidate as far as possible, because the Sermon on the Mount was not given as a governing principle for this nation.
“Nowhere is government told to forgive those who wrong it, nowhere is government told to turn the other cheek. Government is to be a strongman to protect its citizens against evildoers. When I’m looking for somebody who’s going to deal with ISIS and exterminate ISIS, I don’t care about that candidate’s tone or vocabulary, I want the meanest, toughest, son of a you-know-what I can find, and I believe that’s biblical.”
