Pastor Robert Jeffress, a former member of the Trump administration’s White House Faith Initiative, said President Joe Biden’s executive orders to code Roe v. Wade and LGBTQ protections are the first shots in a future “persecution” of American Christians.
The senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas told Fox Business presenter Lou Dobbs on Friday that “there will be no unity” in America under a president who promotes an “extreme left agenda”. An evangelical adviser to former President Donald Trump, Jeffress agreed with statements by some evangelical leaders and Catholic bishops who said Biden could not ask for unity if he was allowing more access to abortion procedures and defending gay and transgender lifestyles – issues that they see it under religious rules, but above political debate.
Biden is only the second Roman Catholic president to be elected after John F. Kennedy Jr. But Biden’s alignment with women’s rights groups and others that support access to contraceptives has elicited terrible reactions from some anti-abortion conservatives like Jeffress. The White House issued a series of executive orders on Wednesday, including one that codified the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and another that aims to “prevent and combat discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation”.
“Look, we can sit in a circle and sing ‘kumbaya’ and talk about unity as much as we want. But as long as the Biden government continues to push this far left agenda down the throats of Americans, there will be no unity,” said Jeffress, a Fox contributor Business on Friday. “We saw it this week. Biden signed an executive order that would force schools to allow a 16-year-old boy – he thinks he’s a girl – to share the locker room, the bathroom, the shower with his 13-year-old daughter. That’s crazy. . But this is what the Biden government is up to. “
“People forget that before Donald Trump took office, Joe Biden and Barack Obama were suing these poor Catholic nuns. Trump put a stop to it, but now that he’s gone, wait for that kind of persecution to resume and intensify.”
Speaking recently to his huge Texas congregation, Jeffress warned them “it is not a very long trip for church persecution” as the country allows the government to regulate freedom of expression. “We need to prepare for this, it is coming,” he said. This feeling of fear and imminent loss of religious freedom was echoed by several other Christian leaders in the United States.
Pastor Chad Harvey of the Pentecostal Assembly Church of the Cross in Raleigh, North Carolina, told ABC News on Friday that he is admittedly cynical about Biden’s calls for “unity”. Harvey said that Democratic-led efforts to “reverse some of the pro-life executive orders Trump put in place” will make the union very difficult, if not impossible.
“I hear [calls for] unity in the evangelical church. … I hear a call for unity, ostensibly from the Biden administration, although I am not hearing that call as strongly as I would like, “said Harvey.” I am totally for unity. I am not in favor of unity in [expense] really. Individuals should not have to establish convictions rooted in issues such as the sanctity of life and human sexuality. We shouldn’t have to abandon them for the sake of unity. “
Likewise, the president of the US bishops’ pro-life faction responded to the executive actions of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Friday. Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said it was “deeply disturbing and tragic for any president to praise and commit to codifying a Supreme Court decision that denies unborn children their most basic human and civil right, the right to life, according to the euphemistic disguise of a health service. “
“I take this opportunity to remind all Catholics that the Catechism declares: ‘Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every abortion obtained. This teaching has not changed and remains unchanged, ”said Naumann. “We strongly urge the president to reject abortion and promote life-affirming aid for women and communities in need.”
Newsweek he reached out to Naumann and Jeffress’ First Baptist Dallas Church for further comment on Saturday afternoon.
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