A group of more than a dozen evangelical leaders, who form an advisory council for President Trump, prayed over him in the Oval Office this week.
Many of the names are familiar to AFN readers, including Dallas pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress and Dr. Sammy Rodriguez, a church pastor and national Hispanic leader.
Jeffress is rather famous among Evangelicals for backing then-candidate Trump in 2016 very early in the Republican primary. Rodriguez, who leads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is known for sharing his views on the hot-button issue of immigration, legal and illegal, with President Trump.
Another member of the faith council is Gary Bauer, the former Reagan administration official, who tells AFN he sat on a similar council during Trump’s first term.
“This time this faith office reports directly to the president,” he shares, “and it has more authority and a broader mandate than any previous faith office that I've seen.”
During the first term, Bauer explains, the faith council didn’t have the close access to President Trump and the Oval Office that it is being given now. That access goes two ways, too, since Trump has shared with the council what matters most to him.
“The mandate that he gave the faith office: strengthening marriage and family; lifting up individuals to work in self-sufficiency; defending religious liberty; combating antisemitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias; promoting the sanctity of life,” Bauer shares.
Meanwhile, theology professor Robert Gagnon is bluntly warning about spiritual warfare that is happening right now in the U.S. among its two major political parties.
“We have two main parties,” Gagnon told American Family Radio this week. “They're both non-Christian, although one of them is certainly more responsive to Christian concerns. But only one is demonic.”
That comment will likely generate howls of protest from Democrats, especially since President Trump's own spiritual life is questionable. Looking at the bigger picture, however, Gagnon told the “Today’s Issues” program it’s a fair observation about the current state of a political party that is openly opposed to God’s plans and priorities for us.
“There's only one party that makes, as its reason for existence, it's raison-d'etre, ‘LGBTQ’ immorality and abortion,” he said. “And it's defining those two things as idols of this party that define this party as demonic.”
Gagnon says Jesus himself addressed those two issues, the sanctity of life and human sexuality, as the central issues of God’s most special creation, mankind. Only one political party, he said, is making policy that opposes both.
“Clamping down on free speech; mandatory transgender pronouns; clamping down on free exercise of religion; forcible indoctrination into LGBTQ immorality of young people [and] minors; lawfare against Christians who disagree with them on these two great idols,” he summarized.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, Bauer predicts the Church will be pleased with what it happening at the White House.
“In the next 12 to 18 months,” he advises, “we are going to see announcements made that I think will cheer the heart and soul of virtually every Christian in America.”
