President Trump Promotes Book by 'Wonderful' Pastor Who Says Satan Founded the Catholic Church

[DonViejo]

Source: The Daily Beast




The president called him ‘wonderful.’ But among Catholics, Mormons, gays, Tim Tebow, and people who don’t think that abortion caused 9/11, Robert Jeffress isn’t so beloved.


SCOTT BIXBY
10.21.17 12:00 PM ET

Despite past claims that he has “very little time” for watching television, President Donald Trump’s well-documented cable-news crapulence is a frequent catalyst for spur-of-the-moment tweetstorms—typically heavy in self-praise and heavier in schoolyard taunts.

On Friday evening, however, the president took a break from backdoor bragging to promote the important work being done by another American: a virulently anti-Catholic pastor who said something nice about him on television.

In a tweet, Trump lauded A Place Called Heaven: 10 Surprising Truths About Your Eternal Home, the newest book by evangelical megapastor Dr. Robert Jeffress, roughly one hour after Jeffress appeared on Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Tonight to defend the president’s feud with Rep. Frederica Wilson. “What President Trump said to this widow was absolutely appropriate,” said Jeffress, who serves as pastor of the 12,000-parishioner First Baptist Church in Dallas.

Link to tweet

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-trump-promotes-book-by-wonderful-pastor-who-says-satan-founded-the-catholic-church

[sandensea]

1. I certainly hope the nation's 70 million Catholics remember this.

Besides which, Pope Francis can't stand the rotten orange.

[Glorfindel]

9. Of course they won't. The only thing that matters to them is controlling a woman's right to choose

The. Only. Thing. Once they have outlawed abortion, they'll go after birth control. Nobody cares what some yahoo Southern Baptist "preacher" says about Catholics and Satan.

[sandensea]

14. True.

"Good works" seem to have become irrelevant to some Catholics - and practically all right-wing Catholics. The clergy certainly have a hand in that (among other things).

[Vinnie From Indy]

29. I always laugh when people paint with such a large brush

It is funny to me. Is it difficult to know the minds of 70,000 million people?

[Drahthaardogs]

30. That's bullshit.

Catholics voted Gore, Obama, and Obama so they voted Democratic in 3 of the last 4 elections.

Initial results said Trump narrowly won Catholics, but new data says no, Hillary won it by 3 %. With all the shenanigans that took place last election, I would not hold any data from it as absolute.

Regardless, the nation's 70 million Catholics are a powerful voting block and OBVIOUSLY care about more than abortion and birth control as evidenced by previous election results.

Facts do not support your statement.

[LanternWaste]

39. A most creative and emphatic allegation.

"The. Only. Thing."

A most creative and emphatic allegation (well... more accurately, five unsupported allegations). Like bumper stickers.

I get it-- too often, an unsupported premise is the best our biases have to offer us.

Keep on truckin'...

[Ilsa]

28. We need to keep reminding them.

Let it seep into their unconsciousness.

[Sneederbunk]

2. Heaven help us, Dotard is controlled by Lou Dobbs.

[sandensea]

3. You reminded me of an '80s comedy by the same name.

I bet doughboy Dobbs can relate.

[WinkyDink]

4. Well, had Satan not, where would all the PROTESTants have come from? Hahaha!

[Doreen]

5. Oh, you learn something new every day.

I had no clue trump had founded the Catholic church

[Girard442]

6. Jeffress and the First Baptist Church are Southern Baptist.

This is the branch of the Baptist Church that broke off during the Civil War to suport the Confederacy and slavery. Few Southern Baptists have fallen far from that particular tree.

[Zorro]

8. Southern Baptists have always known the Pope to be a tool of Satan

That's what I recall growing up Southern Baptist.

[TomSlick]

15. Please. Watch the broad strokes.

There are many attending Southern Baptist Churches that do not deserve that comment. There is a wide spectrum of Southern Baptist Churches and the people who attend them.

[Lars39]

19. But they still go by the name, adhere to what the SB Convention decides?

Sorry, they need to disaffiliate themselves from that organization.
The SB Convention politicized their church, starting back in the ‘80s.

[TomSlick]

20. It is true the name remains but it doesn't mean much.

The Convention voted a resolution in 1995 to renouncing its racist roots and apologizing for its antebellum defense of slavery. While the majority of Southern Baptist Churches are still in the south, there are Southern Baptist Churches throughout the country. At this point, there really is not much in the name.

You misunderstand Baptist church organization. The Convention cannot decide anything to which individual Baptists are expected to adhere. One of the primary tenants of Baptist church polity is the idea of "soul competence." Every church member is expected to reach his or her own conclusions about matters of theology. Every Church is governed only by its members in majority votes, the Convention can dictate nothing. The Convention is nothing more than a voluntary association of Churches for the purpose of doing things together, like funding colleges/universities, seminaries, supporting missionaries, etc.

Like Jimmy Carter, I am one of the "they" that you suggest should disaffiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention. Like President Carter, I attend a Southern Baptist Church but disagree with much that spews from the Convention leadership. Like President Carter, my local Church does not reflect the venom that comes from the Convention. Like President Carter, my commitment is to my local Church not the foolishness that comes from the Convention.

The Convention leadership like to go on television and act like they speak for Southern Baptists. The Convention leadership can no more speak for any Southern Baptist Church or individual Church member than Trump can speak for you.

[Lars39]

21. Jimmy Carter renounced SBC.

And SB lost quite a few missionaries over having to agree to new theology ie losing their soul competency. If they didn’t sign they couldn’t continue as missionaries.

[TomSlick]

22. Yet, he remains a Sunday School teacher at a Southern Baptist Church.

I "renounce" the Southern Baptist Convention but will be sitting in a Baptist Church on Sunday.

I have lived through the fundamentalist takeover of the Convention. I have watched missionaries who stayed true to Baptist tradition be fired. I have also seen Baptists organize the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that has put some of those same missionaries back in the field.

The Southern Baptist Convention is a complicated organization. It is a large and well financed organization that has little authority other than how money is spent. The Convention cannot dictate theology but it can dictate who it pays. It cannot dictate what Southern Baptists believe - or who we pay.

Remember how this discussion began. All I am asking is that you not assume that all, or even most, Southern Baptists are racist.

[Lars39]

23. Sorry, my experience has been much different.

Most let you know right off, the others are more subtle. I’ve probably only known a handful that weren’t racist.

[TomSlick]

24. Sigh.

So, is Trump right in his ideas about all Muslims based on his understanding of a few? Is there a difference between his stereotyping and yours?

I've had this discussion before on DU and never convinced anyone. There are many on DU who believe themselves morally or intellectually superior to members of some Christian group, all Christians or all believers of any faith. It is such comments that make it difficult for people like me to convince co-religionists that the Democratic party is not anti-religion.

If the Democratic party is to be successful in the parts of the country between the coasts, it must be at least tolerant of religion.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

26. Thanks for that update, TomSlick.

I was also raised in the SB church in TN, during the Al Gore, Sr. era. Although I've pulled away from the church in my later years, I'm still fond of those days and the old-fashion country fellowship.

All the churches I recall from back then were fairly consistent in teachings and attitudes, and I never recall politics mentions once in my years there. From what I hear from folks back there, things have changed a lot, but maybe not in all the churches. After the Southern strategy of the Nixon years, the entire political climate began to shift, and now it's almost all red.

Honestly, I was never aware of the autonomy from the SBC you mentioned, but it wasn't discussed much back then. My single foray back to church here in KY was back in the early 90's, and unfortunately I had a bad experience with that one. Perhaps I should have shopped around more.

As a side note, I have the highest respect for Jimmy Carter and the work he and Rosalynn are still doing. What an inspiration!

[Drahthaardogs]

34. Evangelical Churches have no succession to Peter

No central doxology and no centralized Catechism.

Basically anyone can get a theology degree (or not) and start a church.

Some of these church services are just concerts and resemble nothing of an actual mass or traditional service

They are all over the place. It's hard to generalize anything about an evangelical church.

[Angry Dragon]

7. Doobs brings the guy on, promotes his book, and they never mention the book

talk about partisan politics

[NickB79]

10. Could it be.......

[handmade34]

11. Jeffress

also said that NFL players taking a knee would "be shot in the head" in North Korea... Trump appreciates that

[keithbvadu2]

12. from the article: Trump predicts winning the presidency will get him into heaven

Trump predicts winning the presidency will get him into heaven

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-heaven-president-pastors-226923

[keithbvadu2]

13. Franklin (and Billy) Graham say Mormons are not Christians... Catholics are not Christians either.

Franklin (and Billy) Graham say Mormons are not Christians

According to them, Catholics are not Christians either.

https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/october-2012/can-an-evangelical-christian-vote-for-a-mormon/

"We need something like what Jerry Falwell did in the 1980s. We need a “moral majority”-made up of Christians, Jews, Mormons, Catholics and many others of faith-to come together to take a stand for our religious freedoms and rights."

[Drahthaardogs]

35. Mormons are not.

Mormons believe the God of Abraham is flesh and blood and lives on another planet.

They have a whole book that supercedes the New Testament.

Calling. Mormon a Christian is like calling a Catholic Jewish. There are comon roots, but the diversion has morphed into something else

[donotpissoffacow]

16. About time they went after Catholics...

cause back in the good ol' days, the KKK hated Catholics almost as much as they did Jews. African Americans came in third as easy prey: no challenge, no trial, no death penalty, nobody cares. Those damn white Jews and Catholics yelled like all get out and people listened.
Southerners suckled on the 'truth' that Catholics kept guns in their basements, waiting for Pope's order. To do what was never explained. Must have been too terrible to speak.
Somebody should ask that no-sperm-count specimen messing with Florida why he's not ranting about those awful papists like they used to. Could he be afraid? Surely not. Aren't most Hispanics Catholic? Why would he be afraid of them?

[Turbineguy]

17. Gadzooks!

You gotta hope that trump thinks you're an asshole.

Then you'll be OK.

[Mc Mike]

18. I have this vague memory of the Al Smith dinner, when the dRumpfenfuhrer accused Sec. Clinton

of 'hating Catholics'.

So this turn of events is super surprising.

[SergeStorms]

25. This is NOT......

the country I grew up in. This country has absolutely NO resemblance to the country in which I cast my first vote, some 50 years ago. It's gotten so much worse, and it's NOT because of the Democratic party. The GOP is turning our country into a fascist dictatorship at an ever escalating rate. Only the wealthy and wingnuts can expect government that works for them. Everyone else might as well bend over and kiss your asses goodbye. EvanHELLical christians are telling our government what to do, and nary a word is said about it. It's accepted. White Supremacists are telling our government what to do. Not a word. It's accepted. The Russians are telling our "president" what to do. Lots of words about it, but it's accepted.

The border to the north is looking better every day. If I didn't love my daughter, son-in-law, and grand-children so much I'd already be gone. I have a life altering decision to make, because I cannot live in this country, with these idiotic "leaders", anymore. Either I assimilate with the rest of the mindless morons, or I move and become the loneliest man on earth.

No one ever told me there would be days like THESE!

[KY_EnviroGuy]

27. Trump does not give a shit what that preacher believes, writes or teaches.

He does not read and will not listen to anyone.

He just wants the evangelical and prosperity gospel vote, and their cash. That's all.

[paleotn]

32. And likewise, Jeffress doesn't give a shit about Trump.

They'd make a deal with the devil himself if they felt it would give them more legitimacy, power and influence in American society. That's all Jeffress and his ilk are about. Saving souls from hell through Jebus is just a dodge. The real play is enriching themselves. So Trump is in reality a natural ally. Grifters tend to flock together.

[paleotn]

31. Now why did i chuck the SBC?

After growing up in the church and spending the first 30 years off my life there? Oh, yea. Now I remember.

In some ways, I should thank the crazy ass bastards like Jeffress. Had their theology been more subtle, I might not have felt the need to really dig into the veracity of their claims, and thus discover that the emperor was as naked as a jay bird, no matter if you believe in nice god or asshole god. If they had concentrated more on the sermon on the mount and less on fire, brimstone and Paulian "we're better than you" bullshit, I might still be occupying a pew every Sunday. Nah! I still would have called bullshit on them eventually.

[Vogon_Glory]

33. Will Bill Donahue of the Catholic League come out to remonstrate

with the Donald as he did so often when liberals and Democrats made fun of Catholic institutions disagreed with his definitions of Catholic doctrine, or can we expect more silence and the sounds of distant crickets chirping in the background? I don't understand the guy; I'd think that an attack on the very foundations of his church would be a graver matter than drag queens in nun costumes. We're waiting for the mighty culture warrior to come out and fight in five, four, three, two...

[Mc Mike]

36. Yeah, Bill'll attack Jeffress as viciously as he did dRUmp, when dRump attacked the Pope...

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

[dflprincess]

38. I'm sure Pope Francis is too liberal for Donahue

but this might be too much for him.

I'll have to force myself to listen to "Relevant Radio" (the Catholic station) on my drive home tomorrow to see if the more-Catholic-than-the-Pope host of the afternoon show mentions this. (I listen to him sometimes when I start thinking I should go to Mass - he talks me right out of it by reminding me why I stopped in the first place.)

[packman]

37. Dobbs and Jeffress - Twiddle Dee Dee, Twiddle Dee Dum

?v=1461798008

Sorry to waste some of my precious few minutes left on them

[niyad]

40. no, you freaking moron, the catholic church invented satan.