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These church leaders support Trump. What did they say from the pulpit Sunday?

Pastor Paula White leads a prayer in Washington at a pro-Trump rally before his supporters attacked the Capitol.
Pastor Paula White leads a prayer in Washington at a pro-Trump rally Wednesday before a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.
(Associated Press)
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Support for President Trump has been consistently strong among evangelicals, with some calling him the best friend Christians have had in the White House.

On the first Sunday since a mob of his supporters seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s election stormed the U.S. Capitol, a rampage that left five people dead, the messages from the pulpits of pro-Trump church leaders were as disparate as the opinions of the nation’s citizenry as a whole.

They included recitations of debunked conspiracy theories of who was responsible, calls for healing and following Christ instead of any other individual and sermons that made no mention of Wednesday’s chaos or its implications for the future.

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Here is a look at what some were preaching to their flocks.

Sacramento

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who delivered a prayer at Trump’s inauguration and has also advised him, told his congregation Sunday that America needs to hear a message of repentance.

“We must all repent; even the church needs to repent. The American nation will be healed when the American church repents,” he said to some cheers and applause.

In the holiday spirit, U.S. families will come together to debate the future of America, and white evangelicals will continue to cast no stone toward Trump.

Nov. 25, 2020

“We must repent for making the person who occupies the White House more important than the one who occupies our hearts. We must repent for permitting the donkey and the elephant to divide what the Lamb died for on the cross,” Rodriguez said. “We must repent for voting for individuals whose policies run counter to the word of God and the spirit of the living God.”

Rodriguez, the lead pastor of New Season, said he was praying for a season of “instead of”: “Instead of destroying property, building altars. Instead of confrontation, conversations. ... Instead of many under fear, one nation under God.”

Owensboro, Ky.

Brian Gibson, pastor and founder of His Church, spoke to his congregation and online viewers about his bus tour around the U.S. during the past month to speak with Trump supporters.

“I stand up and represent Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I preach to stand for the 1st Amendment. I intend to keep this nation a free nation. His Church, we intend to keep this nation a free nation,” he said, referencing both the president’s recent banning from social media platforms and restrictions on church assembly during the pandemic.

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I questioned Trump’s moral fitness for office in Christianity Today. The response taught me a lot.

Jan. 24, 2020

Gibson was onstage Tuesday at a Prayer to Save America event billed as a combination worship service and rally for Trump the day before congressional certification of the electoral votes. As he described the following day’s violence in Washington, Gibson questioned how easily the Capitol was breached, raising debunked assertions that antifa supporters were among the violent mob.

“So now I know some, some bad actors went in, and I believe potentially there were antifa up there. I think more and more I know there were antifa up there, insiders up there that started that action,” Gibson said, with no evidence. “And I also know that some Trump supporters followed their lead without a shadow of a doubt because you don’t get 2 million people together without having some radicals in the crowd or some simple people in the crowd that you could lead anywhere, right?”

San Antonio

The Rev. John Hagee of Cornerstone Church, a staunch supporter of Trump, did not mention the president by name but criticized the assault on Congress by what he called “a rebellious mob.”

“The Secret Service had to escort the vice president of the United States to safety out of the Capitol building. Gunshots were fired. Tear gas was deployed in the Capitol Rotunda. People were killed. ... This was an assault on law. Attacking the Capitol was not patriotism; it was anarchy,” Hagee said.

Even evangelicals at a church hand-selected by the Trump campaign can vary in their political views.

Jan. 2, 2020

His words drew tepid applause from the crowd at his megachurch, but they soon gave Hagee a standing ovation when he rallied support for law enforcement: “This is what happens when you mob the police. This is what happens when you fire the police.

“This is what happens when you watch a policeman shot and belittle his sacrifice for the public,” Hagee said. “Wake up, America! America and democracy cannot function without the rule of law. We back the blue.”

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Apopka, Fla.

Paula White-Cain, a longtime spiritual counselor to Trump who served as a faith advisor in his White House, made a subtle allusion to the insurrection ahead of her Sunday sermon.

Calling the nation “deeply divided,” White-Cain condemned “lawlessness” and added that “my hope is never rested in any person, any man. My hope is in Jesus Christ.”

White, who delivered a post-election prayer service in which she called upon “angelic reinforcement” to help achieve victory, also reaffirmed her commitment to the 1st Amendment — an echo of the warnings from some conservatives this week that their freedom of speech was threatened.

Coeur D’Alene, Idaho

The Rev. Tim Remington, the conservative Christian pastor of the Altar church, avoided specific references to Trump and the attack on the Capitol, but offered plenty of politically charged warnings.

“The next two weeks are probably the most important two weeks in the history of America,” said Remington, who in the spring led in-person services in defiance of a stay-at-home order issued by the governor. “I pray the army of the Lord is ready.”

A recent editorial spotlighted fissures among the faithful. In some cases, it offered an occasion to solidify support for the 45th president.

Dec. 23, 2019

He targeted the media in particular for criticism.

“I rebuke the news in the name of Jesus,” Remington said. “We ask that this false garbage come to an end. ... It’s the lies, communism, socialism. I don’t know how we’ve put up with it this long.”

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Without going into specifics, he said America was “not seeking the truth.”

“For them to suppress another person’s opinion — it’s wrong, it’s unconstitutional,” he said. “God have mercy.”

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

The Rev. Darrell Scott, the Black senior pastor of New Spirit Revival Center, did not mention the events in Washington.

Scott, an early supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign who worked with the administration on urban and prison issues, once praised the administration as “probably the most proactive administration regarding urban America and the faith-based community in my lifetime.”

But there was no talk of the president Sunday in a livestreamed service titled “What God Has for Me,” in which Scott focused on encouraging congregants to recognize God’s involvement in their lives.

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