Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church Dallas, rebuked California Gov. Gavin Newsom for erecting pro-abortion billboards that included a Bible verse.
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“Need an abortion? California is here to help,” the billboards read, quoting Mark 12:31, “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”
Jeffress, who was a guest on the Todd Starnes Radio Show, suggested Newsom might spend the afterlife in the Lake of Fire.
“There are people burning in hell for a lot less than what Gavin Newsom has done and blaspheming the words of Jesus Christ,” Jeffress said on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line.
“If he’s going to quote Jesus and what He had to say about abortion, the verse He should have put up on the billboard is what Jesus said. “It is better for somebody to have a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea than to harm a little child.”
The following is a partial rush transcript of Todd’s interview with Pastor Jeffress. And click here to subscribe to Todd’s free podcast.
TODD: [01:39:13] You talk a lot about straight talk, and especially when it comes to issues of spirituality. Why is that so important today in today’s society?
JEFFRESS: [01:39:24] Well, I think it’s because the church has really dropped the ball when it comes in teaching what I call radical righteousness. That’s what you find throughout the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a radical way of living and unfortunately tired. And you battled this every day on your program at the church has become more like the world. Instead of influencing the world to become more like Jesus Christ. And Jesus had a very clear word in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, You’re to be salt, you’re a preservative in this culture. But if the salt loses its saltiness, it’s worthless and to be thrown out. And I think that chapter in “18 minutes with Jesus”, chapter two about Jesus’ words, about salt and light are the rationale for why Christians ought to get involved in politics. I mean, politics is not going to bring the kingdom of God into Earth, but it is going to push back against evil. And we’re supposed to be actively doing that. But for salt to do its work, it’s got to get out of the salt shaker. It’s got to penetrate the culture.
TODD: [01:40:24] It seems like there are a lot of conservative pastors or evangelical pastors, people that you and I know. And they’re out there. And really, since the Trump presidency, they sort of went on to this, you know, oh, you can’t preach about politics from the pulpit. They’re against Christian flags and the church house they’re against Christians being involved in the political process. And I’m wondering, was there some sort of a movement within seminaries that suddenly everybody’s teaching about this or or what what led to all of this?
JEFFRESS: [01:41:04] Well, I think there’s been an element of it for a long time, but I think it really heightened during the Trump presidency. And just this week here in Dallas, we had a group of progressive pastors who came together to decry what they call a Christian nationalism, and they defined Christian nationalism as conservative Christians trying to use the levers of government to impose a Christian worldview on a secular government. Well, you know, that is so hypocritical, because the fact is these pastors and other progressive pastors, they have their own agenda. They’re trying to impose. On government. It is a pro-abortion, pro transgenderism, pro open borders values system and they don’t have any problem with imposing that. They call it social justice. But if conservatives vote their convictions, well, then it’s Christian nationalism.
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TODD: [01:42:00] And Pastor Jeffress, as our friend David Barton, would remind us, when you look at some of the key issues in American history, those key moments, the civil rights movement birthed in the church house. When you look at the founding of the nation, that idea of freedom was birthed in church houses and Baptist church houses particularly helped raise up that army to fight the British. And there was a very significant time in American history where you would actually have a church service and then go and vote immediately after the church service. So I think there’s a pretty good history there of of the church being involved in the political, you know, issues of the day.
JEFFRESS: [01:42:42] Yeah, I saw somebody on TV one time who was making that argument that we shouldn’t be involved. I said, would you tell Martin Luther King Jr. If you see him in heaven. Would you tell him he shouldn’t have gotten involved in the civil rights movement? He was mixing politics and religion. I mean, it’s just so hypocritical. It is only Christian conservatives who aren’t supposed to be voting their values.
TODD: [01:43:04] Dr. Jeffress, on that note, and I want to get back to your book in just a moment here, but I’ve noticed of late there have been people within the pro-abortion movement and the transgender as a movement that are actually using Bible verses to make their their case and their point. Your reaction as a as a as a pastor?
JEFFRESS: [01:43:26] Well, Gavin Newsom is the latest example who has put up billboards not just in California, but around the country, quoting the words of Jesus to support abortion. And the words he quoted were from Mark when Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, you know, there are people burning in hell for a lot less than what Gavin Newsom has done and blaspheme, in the words of Jesus Christ, if he’s going to quote Jesus and what he had to say about abortion, the verse he should have put up on the billboard is what Jesus said. It is better for somebody to have a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea than to harm a little child.
TODD: [01:44:06] Wow. All right. You bring the heat every single time you come on the program, Dr. Jeffers, you don’t mince words.