Trump to Meet Privately With 700 Evangelical Leaders in Florida This Week
The Republican presidential nominee will meet with members of the American Renewal Project's Pastors and Pews series, courting a key voting bloc.
August 9, 2016 — 9:01 AM CDT
Donald Trump is going to his first Pastors and Pews meeting to face a gantlet of questions from evangelical Christians about how he’d bring about a more Christian nation.
It will be a friendly room for the GOP presidential nominee, but there will be high expectations from the 700 conservative pastors and spouses at the private meeting sponsored by the American Renewal Project Thursday in Florida, organizers told Bloomberg Politics.
Trump’s central appeal on the campaign trail to religious conservatives is his promise to repeal the Johnson Amendment, an IRS rule that prohibits churches from using their tax-exempt resources to promote political candidates.
“That’s a good first step,” said David Lane, the American Renewal Project’s founder. “But what about the religious liberty of Christian photographers, Christian bakers, Christian retreat centers, and pastors who believe same-sex intercourse and marriage is sin? These Christians were simply living out their deeply held convictions of their Christian faith when they politely refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding. Doesn’t the First Amendment give us all a right to our beliefs?”
Lane added: “Homosexual totalitarianism is out of the closet, the militants are trying herd Christians there.”
The series of Pastors and Pews meetings became influential in the presidential race during the 2012 election cycle as a way to mobilize pastors and their congregations to push to re-establish a Biblically-based culture and to encourage them to dive into conservative politics via voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote efforts and by running for elected office themselves. The Christian Broadcasting Network also broke the news about Trump’s appearance at Thursday’s meeting.
All of the 2016 presidential hopefuls were invited to events during the primaries and caucuses, but only Texas Senator Ted Cruz, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, then-Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Texas Governor Rick Perry and Florida Senator Marco Rubio agreed to come to the closed-door sessions.
Democrat Hillary Clinton was invited to this week’s Pastors and Pews, which will take place in Orlando Thursday and Friday, Lane said. She is not scheduled to attend.
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