Donald Trump’s favorite pastor, the one whose services he watched remotely on Easter Sunday, is a bigoted ant-Catholic who believes the Catholic Church was created by Satan.
Robert James Jeffress Jr. is an American Southern Baptist Evangelical pastor, author, and radio and television host. He is the Senior Minister of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas and is a Fox News contributor.
Here are Jeffress' comments about Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church from a 2010 segment on his radio show “Pathway to Victory”.
"This [Catholicism] is the Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult throughout the entire world. The high priests of that fake religion, that false religion, the high priests of that religion would wear crowns that resemble the heads of fish, that was in order to worship the fish-god Dagon, and on those crowns were written the words, ‘Keeper of the Bridge,’ the bridge between Satan and man.
"That phrase, Keeper of the Bridge — the Roman equivalent of it is Pontifex Maximus. It was a title that was first carried by the Caesars and then the emperors and finally by the Bishop of Rome, Pontifex Maximus, the Keeper of the Bridge.
"You can see where we’re going with this. It is that Babylonian mystery religion that infected the early church. One of the churches it infected was the church of Pergamos, which is one of the recipients of the Book of Revelation. And the early church was corrupted by this Babylonian mystery religion, and today the Roman Catholic Church is the result of that corruption.
"Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word; it comes from that cult-like, pagan religion. Now you say, ‘Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all, the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the blood of Christ and salvation.’
"Isn’t that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don’t do it with purple paper and red ink. You’re not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.
"And that’s what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life."
Jeffress has previously claimed that the gay rights movement "will pave the way for that future world dictator, the Antichrist, to persecute and martyr Christians without any repercussions whatsoever," and has declared that September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks represented God's judgment for legal abortion, reports RightWingWatch.org.
Jeffress insisted his Trump appearances during the election don’t amount to an official endorsement, which would threaten the church’s status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
He said: “Although as a pastor I cannot officially endorse a candidate, I want you to know I would not be here this morning if I were not absolutely convinced that Donald Trump would make a great President of the United States. … Most Americans know we are in a mess, and as they look at Donald Trump they believe he is the one leader who can reverse the downward death spiral of this nation we love so dearly.”
He said, ‘He’s going to be the best leader, he’s going to be the best for the economy ‘He may not be as pure as we think, but he’s really good and a great Christian,’ and that’s what I wanted to hear.”
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