Robert Jeffress has a history of controversial comments before he was selected to participate in the Jerusalem event.
An evangelical pastor derided for saying Muslims, Mormons, Jews and others are going to hell has been picked to give a prayer at the opening of the U. S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist preacher based in Texas, traveled to Israel for the official diplomatic change on Monday to participate in the ceremony.
Jeffress has been in support of the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump’s choice to move the embassy, though observers have criticized many conservative Evangelical Christians for being interested in the change for its connections to the Book of Revelation and the end of the world rather than the practical matter of recognizing where most of the Israel government is.
The preacher’s part in a ceremony already fraught with tension over the Israeli-Palestnian conflict was also slammed for his history of incendiary comments, including declaring that many groups, including Jews, will go to hell.
“Robert Jeffress says ‘you can’t be saved by being a Jew,’ and ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.’ He’s said the same about Islam,” Republican Mitt Romney, who is Mormon and currently running for the U. S. Senate in Utah, said Sunday.
“Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.”
Jeffress made his remarks about Jews, Muslims and Mormons at the Values Voter Summit in 2011 while saying that his church should not try to grow by catering to tolerance, and defended them in a statement Monday.
“Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone. The fact that I, along with tens of millions of evangelical Christians around the world, continue to espouse that belief, is neither bigoted nor newsworthy,” he said.
People in other Christian denominations, Catholics for example, do not say they know who goes to heaven or not, with Pope Francis telling a young boy earlier this year that his atheist father may be there.
Jeffress’s presence at the embassy opening comes after speculation that Trump made the move, taken just before the special election in Alabama, to pump up support in his evangelical base.
The pastor has stood by Trump despite the President?s behavior clashing with his stated morals, and said in March that the commander-in-chief’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels is “irrelevant” and claiming last year that God gave Trump the authority to “take out” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Jeffress is not the only controversial man of faith surrounding the embassy opening on Monday.
Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, both White House advisers, received a blessing from Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, according to Jewish Insider.
Yosef, who has also made controversial comments about women’s dress, was criticized in March for using the term “kushi” a derogatory Hebrew word for black people, and comparing them to monkeys.
His office said that he was quoting from the Talmud, though the Anti-Defamation League in the U. S. called the remarks “unacceptable.”
