{"id":29032,"date":"2019-06-04T18:50:19","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T23:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29032"},"modified":"2019-06-04T18:50:19","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T23:50:19","slug":"briefly-donald-trump-manipulated-my-ex-pastor-over-the-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29032","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: Donald Trump manipulated my ex-pastor over the weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

David Platt and Donald Trump don\u2019t belong on the same stage. Other than both being humans, I know nothing similar about the two. Platt is one of the best people I\u2019ve ever known. Trump is among the worst I\u2019ve ever seen on the world stage. Platt is pastor of McLean Bible Church in Virginia. He moved to Virginia to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s International Mission Board. Before that, he was my pastor at the Church at Brook Hills<\/a> here in Birmingham, so I feel qualified to offer an opinion about him. He was the most godly and humble pastor I\u2019ve ever known. He loved people and was passionate about personally becoming more like Jesus and teaching others to do the same. On Sunday, he had just finished preaching and he stepped off the stage to prepare for the Lord\u2019s Supper. He got a message that Trump was on the way to the church and wanted for the church to pray for him. In a letter to the church Sunday night<\/a>, Platt explained that he thought praying for Trump was the right thing \u2014 in a very non-political way. Unfortunately, Platt was naive not to recognize that it would be seen in the context of the political support<\/a> that many religious right Christian ministers have given to Trump. I think Platt made a mistake by allowing Trump onto the stage \u2014 because of the appearance of an endorsement \u2014 but knowing him as I do, I know it was a naive mistake made by a godly man trying to do the right thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Platt and Donald Trump don\u2019t belong on the same stage. Other than both being humans, I know nothing similar about the two. Platt is one of the best people I\u2019ve ever known. Trump is among the worst I\u2019ve ever seen on the world stage. Platt is pastor of McLean Bible Church in Virginia. He Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-briefly","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7yg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29035,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29032\/revisions\/29035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}