by Mary Margaret Olohan
The Trump campaign announced Friday that it will be launching “Evangelicals for Trump” at a Hispanic megachurch Jan. 3.
The Florida event, which serves as an outreach to a significant part of President Donald Trump’s evangelical base, will take place at El Rey Jesus, or King Jesus International Ministry. El Rey Jesus ministers to up to 15,000 parishioners a week, the majority of whom are Hispanic, according to The Washington Times.
Trump campaign officials had said they were planning the outreach in November, but did not announce the date of the event until the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today called for Trump to be removed from office in a Dec. 19 editorial.
Editor-in-chief Mark Galli argued Trump should be removed from office for attempting “to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents.” Galli said evangelical Christians who still support Trump despite his “blackened moral record” to “remember who you are and whom you serve.”
Other Christian leaders lashed out at Galli for his editorial, saying Galli did not represent the views of Christians as a whole. These leaders included Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Faith and Freedom Coalition president Ralph Reed, and Trump’s longtime spiritual advisor Paula White Cain.
Franklin Graham, the son of the late founder of Christianity Today Billy Graham, also rebuked Galli and said Billy Graham himself voted for Trump.
.@CTMagazine released an editorial saying @POTUS Trump should be removed from office & they invoked my father’s name, so I felt I should respond. Yes, @BillyGraham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree w/ their piece. He’d be disappointed. https://t.co/XO5Fj0hxnc
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 20, 2019
“Yes, [Billy Graham] founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree w/ their piece,” Franklin Graham tweeted. “He’d be disappointed.”
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
