We’ve heard a few Religious Right activists over the past several weeks cite conversations with evangelist James Robison to claim that Donald Trump has found Christ but won’t talk about it because it might hurt him politically.
In a conference call with pastors organized by the Ohio group Citizens for Community Values, audio of which was posted on the group’s website on Friday, Robison gave his own take on the issue, not going so far as to say that Trump has been born again, but saying that thanks to his own guidance the GOP presidential candidate has been receptive to “God’s wisdom.” However, Robison said, many outside observers don’t see evidence of this because Trump’s advisers are counseling him not to act too contrite or like a “weepy Christian.”
Robison said that part of former GOP candidate Ben Carson’s “endorsement agreement” with Trump was that Trump had to agree to “spend extensive time” alone with Robison.
“For seven months, I have spoken truth directly to him,” Robison said. “He has received it. Do I see the fruit of the word of God and the seeds I’ve sown coming into full visibility now? Of course not. I don’t see the public, open contrition that we would wish for. I don’t hear the open confession of faith that we would long for.”
However, he reported, “one of the most serious conversations of my life” took place when he was travelling with Trump on his plane, and he prayed that Trump would “yield every part of his life to God” like “a thousand pounds of thoroughbred racehorse” submitting to the control of a jockey.
“I prayed for that great, big, strong man to put a yielded lump of clay in the hands of a mighty God,” he said.
After they left the plane, Robison reported, Trump “pulled me up, Jerry Falwell-like against his chest, and he said, ‘Man I love you,” and continued to tell him that he loved him several times as they parted ways.
Since then, Robison said, Trump has “never let me get more than four feet away from him” when they are on the campaign trail together and has “confirmed the firmness and forcefulness with which I have proclaimed the truth to him one-on-one since April.”
However, Robison said, some of his fellow Christians are criticizing him for his work with Trump, not realizing the extent to which Trump has opened himself to Christianity.
Robison said that he was “perhaps the first one to really talk” with the candidate after the release of a 2005 recording of him boasting about sexually assaulting women. “He was so embarrassed, so broken, so contrite, we could hardly talk,” Robison said.
However, he said, Trump couldn’t be publicly contrite because his advisers told him not to, which he said echoed the advice that “establishment” advisers gave to Ronald Reagan not to look like a “weepy Christian.”
This, he said, was all the fault of the church for not being appealing to many people, which he blamed in part on believers “beating up other Christians,” like those who are criticizing his relationship with Trump without understanding that Trump wants “to hear the transforming truth of God’s wisdom.”
“I’m telling you, you cannot judge what God is doing in this man’s heart because of what is happening before this media and what his own attorneys and advisers say,” he declared.
