Trump White House Met With 100 Christian Evangelical Leaders Last Week. Again.

White House Appears to Be Consulting on Legislative and Judicial Policy Issues With Far Right Wing Christian Activists

Trump administration officials met with about 100 Christian evangelical leaders in a series of three meetings at the White House last week, as part of the president’s Faith Leadership Initiative. These meetings follow a prayer meeting with President Trump and Vice President Pence in the Oval Office just a few weeks ago, which included a laying on of hands by Christian pastors. That day, July 10, included some of America’s most anti-gay Christian activists, like Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and former GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. They spent a good portion of that day in the White House.

But last week’s meetings, according to a report in the Christian Post Tuesday, did not include the same anti-LGBT activists, but others.

The “White House Office of Public Liaison expanded its evangelical outreach by inviting faith leaders who have not yet been involved in previous meetings with the administration to voice their concerns and thoughts,” the report states.

Jordan Easley, the senior pastor of the Englewood Baptist Church in Tennessee who attended at least one meeting, posted these photos to Twitter, including one of Jared Kushner meeting some of the attendees.

“The White House has continued to have listening sessions with evangelical leaders and they had three more this week. Almost 100 evangelicals [participated],” Johnnie Moore, a public relations executive who serves many in the evangelical community, and informally advises President Trump and the White House on matters of the Christian faith, told the Christian Post.

“Each listening session was about two hours and involved briefings from administration officials and an opportunity for folks to express their thoughts on various issues.”

Apparently, the Trump White House is consulting with Christian faith leaders on matters of legislative and judicial policy.

According to Moore, the listening sessions included quick briefings on various issues from officials in White House’s legislative and judicial affairs departments. Most of the meetings, Moore added, consisted of open-table discussions between the leaders with White House officials in the room taking notes.

Moore says he expects more of these sessions.

“They want this to be people’s house and they want to make sure there is no problem getting in touch with them and expressing points of view and those points of view are taken into account,” he told the CP. 

NCRM could find no reports of the Trump White House hosting meetings between senior administration officials and, say, liberal Christian pastors, people of the Islamic faith, LGBT activists, or Black Lives Matter, for example.

Among the participants in last week’s meetings were “California evangelist Greg Laurie, social conservative radio host and apologist Michael Brown and former Southern Baptist Convention presidents Jack Graham and Ronnie Floyd,” CP reports. “Moore told CP that Anne Graham Lotz, an evangelist and daughter of Billy Graham, was present for at least one of the meetings. Florida televangelist Paula White, one of Trump’s most trusted faith advisers, also participated.”

Brown is an anti-LGBT activist who in 2011 claimed LGBT people want to put Christians “in jail.” And Floyd, the former president of the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention, in 2015 said, on marriage, “the Supreme Court of the United States is not the final authority.”

RELATED: President Trump Just Held a Prayer Meeting in the Oval Office With Some of the Most Anti-Gay Members of the Religious Right

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