Washington Post: “Donald Trump has been looking for ways to reach out to evangelical voters before the GOP primaries. On Sunday, the businessman and his wife attended church services at the nondenominational First Christian Church, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. But when the Communion plates were passed, Trump mistook the silver plates for the offertory, digging out several bills from his pocket.”
Said Trump later: “I thought it was for offering.”
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that “being an atheist remains one of the biggest liabilities that a presidential candidate can have; fully half of American adults say they would be less likely to vote for a hypothetical presidential candidate who does not believe in God, while just 6% say they would be more likely to vote for a nonbeliever.”
That said, many Republicans think Donald Trump would be a good president despite his perceived lack of religiousness among GOP voters.
Jeb Bush said he doesn’t think Donald Trump is a Christian, ABC News reports.
Said Bush: “No, I don’t know what he is. I don’t think he has the kind of relationship he says he has if he can’t explain it any way that shows he is serious about it.”
Of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s endorsement, he added: “For a guy who has stated he has never sought forgiveness, it’s hard to imagine how someone who is a strong believer would embrace that idea. There may be other reasons that Mr Falwell is supporting him.”
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Donald Trump called on Christians to “band together” and “unify” at an address to Liberty University students, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Christianity, it’s under siege. We don’t band together. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together… we have to unify.”
New York Times: “In dozens of interviews with evangelical voters in 16 states, from every region of the country outside the Northeast, those supporting Mr. Trump sounded a familiar refrain: that his heart was in the right place, that his intentions for the country were pure, that he alone was capable of delivering to a troubled country salvation in the here-and-now.”
“To the best of my knowledge, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, okay?”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the New York Times, taking a swipe at Sen. Ted Cruz.
Decrying the ugly “rhetoric” coming from the presidential race, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) delivered a powerful message of solidarity with the congregation of an Arizona mosque, the Arizona Republic reports.
Said Flake: “We are a better country than has been on display this week. My hope and prayer today is that the isolated voices calling for division are overwhelmed by the chorus of voices, like those in this room today, calling for acceptance, for tolerance and inclusion.”
“We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20%, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in any way possible.”
— Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), quoted by BuzzFeed, suggesting up to 20% of Muslims support terrorism.
“I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”
— Dick Cheney, quoted by the Washington Examiner, on Donald Trump’s call for banning Muslims from entering the United States.
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It’s a signed, limited edition with imitation leather cover.
Sen. Marco Rubio told CBN that religious believers must “ignore” laws that violate their faith.
Said Rubio: “In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin — violate God’s law and sin — if we’re ordered to stop preaching the Gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. So when those two come into conflict, God’s rules always win.”
Donald Trump says the United States will have “absolutely no choice” but to close down some mosques where “some bad things are happening,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice.”
“As part of a broad national security plan to defeat ISIS, Republican Presidential candidate John Kasich proposed creating a new government agency to push Judeo-Christian values around the world,” NBC News reports.
“The new agency, which he hasn’t yet named, would promote a Jewish- and Christian-based belief system to four regions of the world: China, Iran, Russia and the Middle East.”
Rick Klein: “The speed with which the Paris attacks went from a national-security debate to an immigration one says more about the perceived state of today’s Republican Party than it does about today’s perceived security threats. The Republican contenders have sought to one-up themselves with letters, bills, demands, and sound bites aimed at blocking the Obama administration from allowing Syrian Muslim refugees into the United States. Half the nation’s governors – almost all of them Republicans – are threatening not to welcome them into their states, even though there’s little they can do to bar them if the federal government accepts them as refugees. Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have offered differing (and mostly non-specific, so far) proposals to make it easier for Syrian Christians to enter the US as refugees, while potentially blocking Muslims.”
“The rhetoric brought a harsh rebuttal from President Obama, who called it ‘un-American’ to impose a religious test on refugees. It does not, for now, look un-Republican in this primary season.”
Donald Trump “issued another call for more scrutiny of mosques in the United States as fresh fears of terrorism, spurred by the attacks in Paris, dominated the presidential campaign conversation on Monday,” the New York Times reports.
Trump said last month that he would be open to shutting down mosques and he reiterated that the idea should be studied: “I would hate it do it but it’s something that you’re going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred, the absolute hatred, is coming from these areas.”
Pope Francis called the wave of terrorist violence that killed at least 127 people in France “a piece” of the “piecemeal Third World War” and said the bloody rampage was “not human,” the New York Daily News reports.
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) called for converting as many people as possible to Christianity because Jesus is “coming soon,” The Hill reports.
Said Bachmann: “We recognize the shortness of the hour. And that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, he’s coming soon.”
Bachmann added that “the prophets longed to see the days that you and I live in.”
Donald Trump took an indirect shot at Ben Carson for his religion, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “I’m Presbyterian. That’s down the middle of road. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist I don’t know about.”
Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist, a denomination that believes in a literal reading of the Bible.
In the aftermath of the Oregon mass killings at a community college, Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R) took to Facebook to say that “fellow Christians who are serious about their faith” should “think about getting a handgun permit.”
Said Ramsey: “The recent spike in mass shootings across the nation is truly troubling. Whether the perpetrators are motivated by aggressive secularism, jihadist extremism or racial supremacy, their targets remain the same: Christians and defenders of the West.”
He added: “While this is not the time for widespread panic, it is a time to prepare… Our enemies are armed. We must do likewise.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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