Texas-based pastor, Robert Jeffress, made headlines around the world last week when he said God had given President Donald Trump “authority to take out Kim Jong-Un”. BOBBY ROSS, Jr, of Religion News Service, meets the controversial preacher…
Anyone who knows the Bible shouldn’t take issue with the idea that God has given US President Donald Trump authority to take out North Korea’s dictator, said Pastor Robert Jeffress, the Dallas megachurch leader who drew sharp rebukes for stating just that.
Rev Jeffress sat down for an interview with RNS after his sermon Sunday, just days after his words made headlines around the world. Christians and non-Christians accused him of exacerbating an already alarming war of words between Mr Trump and the temperamental, young leader of nuclear-armed North Korea.
Pastor Robert Jeffress preaches at First Baptist Dallas. PICTURE: First Baptist Dallas
“What I said was that the Bible has given government the authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination or war, to topple an evil dictator like Kim Jong Un.”
– Rev Robert Jeffress
The critics have overreacted, said Jeffress, lead pastor of First Baptist Dallas, whose public observances on current events have not for the first time made him a target. A public pastor with the President’s ear, Rev Jeffress, 61, does not shy away from sharing his belief that Scripture should undergird politics and diplomacy.
“What I said was that the Bible has given government the authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination or war, to topple an evil dictator like Kim Jong Un,” said Rev Jeffress, elaborating on statement he gave on 8th August in which he said that God has giving Mr Trump “authority to take out Kim Jong-Un”.
“That authority comes from Romans 13. Paul said that government has been established by God to be an avenger of those who practice evil,” Rev Jeffress told RNS. “I made it very clear that Romans 12 says we are to forgive one another when people offend us — don’t repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.
“But in Romans 13, Paul isn’t talking about individual Christians. He’s talking about government. Government is an organisation God uses to bring vengeance against those who practice evil.”
Rev Jeffress said his statement wasn’t the same as saying that “God ordained President Trump to nuke North Korea.”
But many thought it came too close.
Dallas Morning News columnist Robert Wilonsky questioned “how a man whose calling is supposed to be that of peace could so fervently proselytise in favor of war.”
In a National Review piece, Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, criticized Rev Jeffress’ “bellicosity.”
And Christianity Today editor in chief Mark Galli penned an editorial titled ‘The Use of Nuclear Weapons is Inherently Evil’. After naming Rev Jeffress, Mr Galli wrote: “One would hope that Christian supporters of the President’s views would at least qualify and nuance their statements.”
North Korea did not come up in Rev Jeffress’ public comments Sunday at First Baptist, a Southern Baptist megachurch that claims 13,000 members and occupies six city blocks on a $US135 million campus at the heart of downtown Dallas.
The pastor – whose sermon focused on Jesus’ last supper with his disciples in Luke 22 – said he felt compelled to address the fatal violent clashes between white supremacist groups and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.
“Whether it’s immorality, or racism that we’ve seen on display in Charlottesville this week, the ultimate answer is the transformed heart that comes from knowing Jesus Christ,” the pastor told the congregation.
At home in Rev Jeffress’ high-tech megachurch, congregants don’t see their pastor as inappropriately political. They are at ease with their leader, whose sermon on Sunday was captured by a half-dozen television cameras – including a moving one atop a crane – following Rev Jeffress’ every gesture and facial expression. The congregation can watch him on a screen that stretches 142 feet across the front of the 3,000-seat sanctuary.
With coffee kiosks, themed areas for children and giant escalators rising amid wide, glass-lined corridors, First Baptist Dallas’ worship centre – completed in 2013 – resembles a modern shopping mall. Multiple assemblies each Sunday feature a robed choir of about 125 voices, accompanied by a full orchestra and a line of singers leading worship songs with hand-held microphones.
Rev Jeffress grew up in the historic Dallas congregation, which formed in 1868 and will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year. As a boy, he gained spiritual insight from the late Rev WA Criswell, First Baptist’s preacher for half a century.
“When I was five, I started to become interested in becoming a Christian,” said Rev Jeffress, who has served as senior pastor for 10 years. “My dad brought me down to Dr Criswell’s office, and he presented the gospel, and I accepted Christ as my savior here.”
While a popular figure at his home congregation, Rev Jeffress is no stranger to controversy outside First Baptist’s walls.
In 2011, he suggested at the Values Voter Summit that Republican Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was part of a “theological cult.”
In 2014, he wrote a book, Perfect Ending, that claimed then-President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage was clearing the way for the Antichrist.
Rev Jeffress’ North Korea statement came after Trump warned that North Korea would “be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if its leader kept threatening the US. In July, North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach California.
Pastor Robert Jeffress preaches to a large congregation in the 3,000-seat sanctuary at First Baptist Dallas. PICTURE: Luke Edmonson, courtesy of First Baptist Dallas
“[The Bible] tells us how we are to live in the world as well. So whether the issue is the use of force and dealing with an evil dictator, or dealing with racism in this country, I think the job of a pastor is to share what God’s word says.”
– Rev Robert Jeffress
“I believe that the job of a pastor, a preacher of God’s word, is to share what God is saying about issues that are confronting people today,” Rev Jeffress said in Sunday’s interview. “The Bible teaches us how to be saved, and to go to heaven, but it tells us more than that.
“It tells us how we are to live in the world as well,” he added. “So whether the issue is the use of force and dealing with an evil dictator, or dealing with racism in this country, I think the job of a pastor is to share what God’s word says.”
Patsy Cato, a Dallas real estate agent who has attended First Baptist for seven years, said she, like her pastor, voted for Trump.
“We prayed morning, noon and night, and God put him there,” she said. “It could have very well gone the other way, but we prayed, and now he’s there.”
Mr Trump, who identifies as Presbyterian, has embraced white evangelicals and won their support despite concerns about his personal character. He has embraced issues important to them, such as opposition to abortion. More than 80 per cent of white evangelicals voted for Mr Trump, according to exit polls.
But Ms Cato said politics – and her pastor’s relationship with Mr Trump – has nothing to do with why she likes Rev Jeffress.
“He doesn’t teach a message that’s about things other than the word of God,” she said. “That’s my favorite part. If you sit in his message, he takes it right from the Bible, and that’s it. That’s why I come here.”
Rev Jeffress says those who doubt his message fall into two camps: “either people who are ignorant of what the Bible says or people who don’t believe what the Bible says.
“But if you had listened to some of the Christian pacifists we’re hearing today in World War II, when Hitler was marching toward world domination, we would all be speaking German and saying ‘Heil Hitler,’” he continued.
“I know President Trump wants a diplomatic solution,” the pastor added. “But if diplomacy fails, he has the God-given authority to use force to remove an evil dictator.”
