Messiah College’s chair of the history department John Fea coined the phrase “court evangelical” to describe evangelical leaders who defend Donald Trump no matter what he does. Even Republican Senators have expressed confusion and negative reactions to the firing of James Comey, but not the court evangelicals. Watch:
"We need to concentrate on these real accomplishments instead of being distracted by the manufactured Comey crisis" ~ @robertjeffress #MAGA pic.twitter.com/yJ7XEyDUcj
— BRIAN FRASER (@bfraser747) May 13, 2017
Robert Jeffress is most certainly a court evangelical. Actually, the Comey controversy is real and for more reasons than Trump fired the head of the agency investigating him. Trump sent his surrogates out with a cover story and then changed it the next day. Somewhere in there is a lie and it doesn’t seem very evangelical to lie; except that for the court evangelicals, lying is just one of those political things that strongmen do.
According to Fea (I agree with him), court evangelicals “have put their faith in a political strongman who promises to alleviate their fears and protect them from the forces of secularization.” Fea’s list includes:
Jerry Falwell Jr.
Paula White
James Dobson
Mark Burns
Ralph Reed
Robert Jeffress
Eric Metaxas
Franklin Graham