Over the weekend, President Trump posted a bizarre, blunt and profane warning on Truth Social. The post demanded Iran open the Strait of Hormuz, using an obscenity that can’t be quoted here. He also threatened to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges, and did so with a mocking tone, and ended the post with the phrase “Praise be to Allah.”
AFN sought comment from Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas. The well-known Southern Baptist leader, who has supported Trump since he launched his White House campaign in 2016, said he won’t criticize the president.
“If President Trump were a third-grade Sunday School teacher in my church, I might be concerned,” Jeffress said. “But he's not. He is our commander in chief.”
Jeffress likened the profane post to George Patton, the famous World War 2 general, who used pretty salty language but won battles.
Jeffress says that's what most Americans care about: winning political battles.
That is much the same message Jeffress previously told AFN, during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when he backed the brash and unpolished Trump over other candidates. Jeffress had concluded only Trump, despite his moral flaws, could defeat Hillary Clinton on Election Day.
Donald Trump, now 79, has famously spent most of his life chasing fortune, fame, and women. He has also enjoyed record support on Election Day from evangelical voters who chose his “America First” policies over the globalist, anti-Christian Democrats.
Another spiritual leader, who chose to hold President Trump to a higher standard, is Tony Perkins. On his “Washington Watch” program, Perkins insisted he is not “attacking” the president for his comments but said the foul language points to a more troubling problem with a lack of civility and good manners in modern society.
“We've seen this pattern, a growing trend over the last decade, but it's intensifying where we're seeing leaders use [foul] language,” Perkins told his audience. “And the civility, and the decorum in our culture, is slipping.”
On his program, Perkins went back to the 1800s, to British politician and abolitionist William Wilberforce.
Perkins pointed out the famous British statesman, known for his campaign to end the Atlantic slave trade, was also known for his “reformation of manners” that tied a polite and moral society, which recognized human dignity, to ending the slave trade.
Perkins teed up that brief history lesson for Dr. Michael McMullen, a British-born author and theologian at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Picking up on the topic, McMullen said Wilberforce spent decades trying to end the slave trade in parliament but also understood his role as a Christian to improve society itself.
“Wilberforce would do everything that he could to affect society,” McMullen recalled. “He called himself an agent of usefulness, and he tried to make goodness fashionable.”
Turning to today, and to Trump in the White House, McMullen said the U.S. president has surrounded himself with Christian leaders.
“And the hope is that they can increasingly have an impact, and an influence in government, for good on whoever that might be,” McMullen said.
AFR show host Jenna Ellis, who previously served as a personal attorney to Trump, told AFN her former boss is a difficult person to counsel and to reason with. Anyone who tries to help him, she said, eventually learns the same lesson: He won’t listen.
Most recently, when speaking at the non-partisan National Prayer Breakfast, Trump delivered a crude, sarcastic message. During the 77-minute speech, he bragged his administration “saved” religion and he mocked his political enemies as "morons."
Trump also joked he should go to Heaven when he dies because he’s done a “hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”
