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Robert Jeffress, who's connected homosexuality to pedophilia and Obama to the Antichrist, doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
You may have spent the day worrying that nuclear war will break out between the U.S. and North Korea, but anti-LGBT Texas minister Robert Jeffress says it's all OK -- God has ordained Donald Trump to eliminate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"When it comes to how we should deal with evil doers, the Bible, in the book of Romans, is very clear: God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary -- including war -- to stop evil," said a statement released today by Jeffress, The Washington Post reports. "In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un."
With concern growing in recent days about the dictatorial North Korean regime's nuclear capabilities, Trump has promised to respond to any strike with "fire and fury like the world has never seen." That comment led Jeffress to show his support, the Baptist megachurch pastor said in a follow-up interview with the Post.
Chapter 13 of the book of Romans, in the New Testament, "gives the government to the authority to do whatever, whether it's assassination, capital punishment or evil punishment to quell the actions of evildoers like Kim Jong Un," Jeffress told the Post.
Some fellow Christians, he acknowledged, will disagree, citing more pacifistic Bible passages. "A Christian writer asked me, 'Don't you want the president to embody the Sermon on the Mount?'" he said, referring to a sermon in which Jesus emphasized peace and love. "I said absolutely not."
Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, has made many outrageous statements over the course of his career. He has connected homosexuality with pedophilia and said being gay is "filthy" and "miserable," and that 70 percent of gay people have AIDS. He has also said President Obama was "paving the way" for the Antichrist, that Islam and Mormonism are "heresies," and that the Catholic Church was led astray by the devil.
That all didn't keep Trump from meeting with him during the presidential campaign or attending a special pre-inauguration service led by Jeffress in Washington, D.C. "God has raised you and Vice-President-elect Pence up for a great, eternal purpose," he said during the service. He called Trump "the only candidate who possessed the leadership skills necessary to reverse the downward trajectory of our nation" and Mike Pence "a great and godly man."
