The Trump administration on Monday claimed it has no idea how the religious leaders who have made controversial comments were involved in the ceremony to open the US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem.
As Israeli forces shot and killed dozens of Palestinian protesters in what was one of the deadliest days of violence at the Gaza border in years, a high-ranking White House delegation, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, gathered to celebrate the embassy’s opening.
But White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah claimed he “honestly” did not know how two pastors — one of whom has said that Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Hindus would go to hell, and another who has suggested that Adolf Hitler was part of God’s plan — came to be involved in Monday’s ceremony.
Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor at Dallas’s First Baptist Church and one of President Trump’s key faith advisers, gave the opening prayer at the ceremony, while Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, delivered the benediction.
During a lecture series in 2010, Jeffress — a pastor with a history of making hateful comments about non-evangelical faith groups — said, “Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism— not only do they lead people away from God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell.”
On his church’s website, he called Islam a “false religion” based on a “false book” that would lead its followers to hell. He also suggested it was not anti-Semitic “to tell a devout follower of Judaism that unless he trusts in Christ as his Savior he is destined for Hell.”
He has referred to both Islam and Mormonism as religions that were “a heresy from the pit of hell” and has referred to non-Christian religions as “cults.”
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