Monday, talk radio and television host Glenn Beck suggested that “southern evangelicals” who vote for Donald Trump “aren’t listening to their God.”
Since then, the comment has been met with rebuke from southern pastors who have taken exception to criticisms of Christians who have voted for the Republican presidential front-runner. And some have even taken their rebuke past the comment itself, and directed it at Beck’s own Mormon theology.
“Beck’s wacko comment speaks for itself,” Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, told Breitbart News. “However, by using the phrase ‘their God’ to refer to the God we evangelical Christians worship, Beck is finally admitting that the true God of the Bible is different than the god of the Book of Mormon. I congratulate Beck for his honesty in differentiating between the two.
“However, I am somewhat puzzled that Beck claims to know how the God Christians worship would vote in the Republican primaries.”
Jeffress, who has not officially endorsed Trump but has been vocally supportive of the candidate and has repeatedly defended his claims of being a Christian, has faced criticism himself for suggesting the Bible doesn’t provide direction for voting on specific candidates. But he’s not alone in that assessment, either.
In the same Breitbart article, Dr. Thomas S. Kidd of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, also took exception to Beck’s Comments. The history professor, who also serves as the associate director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at the university, offered his own rebuke of the talk radio host.
“Assuming that Mr. Beck is referring to evangelicals who vote for Trump, I would make a distinction that Beck does not: The Bible certainly offers principles on how to think about government and politics,” he said. “The Bible does not, however, tell us which individual candidates to vote for. If other Christians don’t vote for our preferred candidate, we should not say that they are not listening to God. None of us has special access to God’s opinions about candidates.”
Kidd is no supporter of Trump and made that abundantly clear. His comments instead were directed specifically at the theological implications of Beck’s comment.
“There are many reasons why devout Christians should hesitate to vote for Donald Trump,” he said. “But God has not revealed Ted Cruz as the divinely anointed alternative, either.”
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