Trump Tells Thousands Gathered at Church, 'We Have God on Our Side'
President Donald Trump has taken his 2020 campaign outreach to evangelical Christians up a notch in the weeks after Christianity Today penned an editorial criticizing the president.
Speaking to thousands of supporters at El Rey Jesus Ministry in Miami, Trump said that “God is on our side,” The Washington Times reported.
“With your help, your prayers and your tireless effort to mobilize Christian communities across our land, we’re going to win another monumental victory for faith and family, God and country, prayer and freedom,” he said. “I really do believe we have God on our side.”
The president also promised those in attendance that his administration “will never stop fighting for Americans of faith.”
In particular, Trump said that his administration is fighting to restore school prayer.
“Very soon, I’ll be taking action to safeguard students’ and teachers’ First Amendment right to pray in our schools,” he said. “We’re doing a big action [with] Attorney General Bill Barr. [Democrats] want to take that right.”
“We will not allow faithful Americans to be bullied by the hard left,” he added.
He criticized his Democratic opponents for trying to “shut out God from the public square” and touting their pro-abortion policies.
“We will never shy away from the battle to protect innocent life,” Trump said. “We believe in right to life.”
According to the Pew Research Center, about 77 percent of white evangelical Protestant voters said they would vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. While his first term victories have in some circles been overshadowed by the phony Trump-Russia dossier and impeachment investigations, it is crucial for Trump to retain these votes in 2020.
However, the editorial from Christianity Today calling for Trump’s “removal” threatened to throw a monkey wrench into Trump’s 2020 efforts.
The article took the side of the president’s critics and strongly condemned him over the Ukraine controversy and for his past sins and current behavior, even going so far as to attempt to shame evangelicals who continue to support him.
In response, Trump tweeted, “A far left magazine, or very ‘progressive,’ as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather … have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.
“No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close,” he added.
….have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2019
Pastor Doug Pagitt — who is also the executive director of Vote Common Good, an organization trying to turn Christian support away from Trump — called Trump’s Florida event “desperate.”
“It is Trump’s desperate response to the realization that he’s losing his primary voting bloc, faith voters,” Pagitt told The Guardian. “He realizes he needs every last vote if he wants a shot at re-election [and] losing five percent ends his chances.”
But many Trump supporters are unconcerned with the effects of the editorial, saying that his loss of support appears to be centered on young evangelicals who are less likely to vote anyway, according to The Washington Times.
Evangelist Angel Belcher came up on stage during the event and said she would pray for the establishment media to tell the truth.
“Make sure you say that which is right,” Belcher said to the reporters in the audience. “I want him [Trump] to stand strong.”
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