Donald Trump's inauguration sermon was called "When God chooses a leader" and was delivered by a controversial preacher

Rev. Robert Jeffress is anti-gay and anti-Muslim — and he gave Donald Trump a sermon

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published January 20, 2017 2:53PM (EST)

 Robert Jeffress (Fox News)
Robert Jeffress (Fox News)

The Rev. Robert Jeffress, whose career has been defined by his intolerance toward everyone from the LGBT communities to other religions like Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims, preached at a private pre-inaugural service for President Donald Trump on Friday morning.

The pre-inaugural worship service has been attended by every president since Franklin Roosevelt (with the exception of Richard Nixon in 1973), many of them like Trump at St. John's Episcopal Church, according to CNN on Thursday. Although Trump is a Presbyterian and Jeffress leads the First Baptist Church in Dallas, the two became close as Jeffress vigorously campaigned for Trump and currently serves as a member of his evangelical advisory board.

While Jeffress' sermon will be private, he sent out a tweet on Thursday that gave an idea of what his theme will be.

Jeffress has a long history of controversial statements. These include claiming that the September 11th terrorist attacks were God's punishment for legalizing abortion, arguing that the apocalypse is being foreshadowed by gay marriage and Fifty Shades of Grey, arguing that same-sex marriage supporters want to destroy Christian businesses, and claiming that "a vote for [Mitt] Romney is a vote for Satan" due to the former Republican candidate's Mormon background. He has also argued that Mormons, Hindus, and Muslims "worship a false god" and claimed that Satan is behind the Roman Catholic Church.

Jeffress isn't the first Trump supporter to argue that the Republican's victory was ordained by God. "This is some day," said actor Jon Voight in a speech at "Make America Great Again: Welcome Celebration" on Thursday. After denouncing the "barrage of propaganda that left us all breathless with anticipation not knowing if God could reverse all the negative lies against Mr. Trump, whose only desire was to make America great again," Voight proclaimed that "God answered all our prayers."

It remains to be seen how Trump views his own alleged relationship with God.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Donald Trump Jon Voight Robert Jeffress