Evangelical Reverend Robert Schenck: Trump "Using Bible as a Prop" | Amanpour and Company 

Today's evangelicals are turning people away from Christ, rather than to him. That is serious.

So, to use their words, they made a deal with the devil, literally.

It does not take an evangelical Christian clergyman to point out that the man is not a true believer. Actions always speak louder than words. The behavior and actions of the one who recently posed for a photo opportunity with a Bible in hand, in front of a church in Washington, DC, are in diametric opposition to the moral principles and lessons taught in the Holy Scriptures.

All I can say is: Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a worthy one to emulate. Thank you, Rev. Schenk, for being an honest and compassionate Christian. Thank you to Michel Martin and to Amanpour and Co. for this coverage!

I desperately needed to hear from this follower of Jesus!! This made me validated. I’m not trying to make friends or enemies or change anyone’s mind!! I heard a believer say that Donald Trump is NOT a believer. I have always felt this.

These evangelicals never talk about the elephant in the room! Separation of church and state. Our founding fathers had the prescience to realize this would be a problem. The Church has FAR too much influence on our political affairs. Time for it to end!

Preaching the gospel doesn’t mean taking over the government and courts and forcing beliefs on people .

Jesus at his most vulnerable time was offered the same deal by Satan but he refused...THANK YOU LORD! Sadly seems the evangelical church took the deal. It is never to late to do the right thing and confess your sins to our father but also to your church members and ask for forgiveness. Your flock deserves a leader with eyes upon our Lord not the false phophet donald trump.

I'm so comforted listening to this wonderful man. I have family members (one generation younger than I) who have COMPLETELY LEFT Christianity because of the reasons he discussed. It's heartbreaking :-( I'm "spiritual" but not religious. I believe in God, but the God I believe in is loving, all encompassing, and within each of us. Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., etc. HAVE made a deal with the devil. It's HORRIFIC.......

As an ex-Catholic and atheist who left The Church and the (once)GOP many years ago, and whose family is devoutly religious, this made me tear up. Thank you for doing this interview

When Trump was elected, I cried and cried, I asked the Lord how this could have happened. I was heartbroken. I am a Christian, I am not white, my parents immigrated from Mexico, I was born in Chicago. I had heard about Trump years before he ran for President. When he became a serious contender in the race, I said to myself that surely people will see him for what he truly is. That’s why I was beyond shocked and dumbfounded when the man Trump won the presidency of the United States. I became equally shocked and dismayed when so many Christians were backing him when he began his reign of terror on the immigrant and refugee community. Of course there are many Christians who see that this is against the teaching of the Bible to welcome the stranger among us. I became heartbroken again when a very prominent evangelical pastor in Southern California opened his church for full and open services in the midst of this COVID pandemic. Some of the words that pastor used to reopen his church sounded eerily like some of Trump’s. I have respected this particular pastor, I have many of his books. I thought to myself, “Not you too? Anyone but you!” Again I cried. I didn’t vote for Trump last time and I will NOT vote for him this time. I am appalled that so many of my brothers and sisters have become his mouthpiece. I was in an interchange of comments with a 70-year-old Trump supporter in a RU-vid video. Many of the commentators were Trump supporters. Well, this particular commentator said Trump is the first President he really cares about. I had to respond to him, I was very respectful of him and never once berated him for supporting Trump. He used many of the same words I’ve heard Trump use against me-without even knowing anything about me! I reasoned with him, used scripture to try to help him see the truth about Trump. I finally had to say good bye. I pray the Lord will open his eyes. As for Trump’s Christian followers, he’s told them what they wanted to hear: “I’ll abolish abortion and I’ll put conservative judges on the bench.” The problem is that I believe Trump laughed at all of them behind their back. I have no way of knowing if he truly did this, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Just like the pastor in this interview, I’ve had to ask the Lord to forgive me for hating Trump. I’ve asked the Lord to change my heart and to help me to pray for him to repent. Of course Trump has to want this for himself. I also pray that the Lord open the eyes of many Christians to see Trump truly is against all of us. I also pray Trump will not get re-elected.

Brother, my challenge as a Christian is believing your Damascus road experience. To me, as a Christian, Donald Trump represents the absolute worst that resides in the hearts of those who live in a state of separation from God, not in communion with God. I don't hate you....I don't hate him, or any of his followers, despite the horribly misguided and unconscious things they do - but what will it take for the so-called people of God to see that they have been duped, and that they are complicit in evil?

FINALLY!!! An honest evangelical!! Sad that you're in an extremely tiny minority. Educated and younger people see through the real motivation of evangelical leaders: Drunk on POWER!! Values be damned!!

Trump not a Christian? Who would have imagined such a thing? Whutt an amazing thought!!!!

The evangelicals have been the best argument against christianity. Was absolutely shocked when EVEN Pat Robertson rebuked him

He is the first evangelical to speak up against Bunker Boy. 'Bout fracking time!

Wish this would get a few million views.

They’re willing to let the world burn to get another judge on the bench. Nice.

Bravo. I'm not an evangelical but an Episcopalian. We have differing views but we're both followers of Jesus who is the center of our life. I'm so pleased to hear what Mr Schenck is saying.

Brilliant interview. Not often that one hears someone admit their mistakes on such a scale. Bravo. We need more of this. Honesty.

When cults collapse they often do so quickly. Here's for hoping.

No Way! Really? Trump held the Bible up like it was a talisman in a cheap vampire movie.

The Hypocresy is so Blatant!!!! I wonder if they truly read the life of JESUS.

As a Roman Catholic, I have seen this since the beginning of this Presidents adminiustration. His hypocrasy was so obvious back then. We are first Christians, praciticing and failing, but the Lord spurs us on. The man in the White House is like the Herod of that time. Saying one thing and doing another, this should all be so possible to see. Thank you Reverend Robert Schenc. Most sincere prayers.

We need more voices like his.

Please explain The Access Hollywood interview where Billy Bush was punished and Trump unaddressed. Why was Billy punished so harshly and not Trump? The lack of accountability for hush money paid for affairs w women in the porn and sex worker industry is unexplainable to me. How is this acceptable for any citizen, let alone our president?

If separation of church and state is real why don't people who preach about politics from the pulpit pay taxes for the churches? Or shut up

Although I couldn't disagree more with his theology, I wholeheartedly applaud his humanity.

Brilliant interview and very thought provoking.

Pre-Trump the word "evangelical" was an acceptable word. After Trump, I found myself asking for a sermon defining the "Evangelical Christians". It had become perfectly clear that "they" did not respect the difference between right and wrong, truth and lies, good health and intentional murder, a wage for honest labor and theft, respecting and acknowledging the worth of all of God's creatures and considering all subservient to Trump's desires alone. "They" had made a deal with the devil, and now they din't have the moral backbone to admit it. It's more important to them to fill the highest court in the land with rapists and inadequate jugheads, than to build solid case law that will survive the test of time. Well, Trump has already allowed the U.S. virus death toll up beyond 115,000, with intentions to see it grow to 200,000. "They" will have a piece of responsibility for each of those deaths. If a huge country like New Zealand can manage with so few deaths, then our high death count is due to interference and negligence.

I'm not even a Christian and I love this guy.

Half the country had a feeling about this almost 4 years ago. It's almost like you can hear the "pop" of his head coming out of his ass, now he's trying to warn his friends. Better late than never? VOTE like you lives depend on it. They do!

Slowly, slowly, they’re starting to come out...

"Maybe this is a time for us to stop talking as I'm doing now and instead weep with those [...] who weep."

What an incredible interview! Michele, you have such a gift! Hearing Rev. Schenck discuss current Evangelical culture gives me hope for my family and me, born, raised, and living in the South. My prayer is for his message to be heard by many to change hearts and minds.

I'm a former evangelical. I was raised in the tradition and at the time of my formative experiences in the church, we (the movement) were becoming more and more political around two issues: abortion and homosexuality. Suddenly, people who believed that politics were personal and private were beginning to stand on street corners, as Rev. Schenck admits he did, above. For the next thirty years, evangelicals stood athwart the tide of rising personal freedoms and liberty and they used their literal interpretation (and one must add here, Calvinist affinity for bigotry and fear of the "other) to make themselves better and wealthier than others. This is the point at which my parents, who were both politically conservative, began to become extremists. This was the period of Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and "family values" and moral majority movements, etc. I lived in a northern state, surrounded by many different sects of "Anabaptist" and even they were appalled by the apparent moral sludgification of their religious peers. Mainstream churches weren't effected as apparently, but those in the evangelical tradition were. Now, as they (evangelicals) mourn the loss of people like me and others younger than myself because of this complicity in the shamelessness of ideas that aren't even put forth in the Bible, they are finally beginning to step on the brakes, because this orange idiot that they've attached themselves to has suddenly "gone too far". Well, it's too little, too late for me. I've been an atheist and anti-theist for many years, and I have come to loathe and disdain any but the most private and personal faith, not because of the faith itself, but because of what it does to the person who claims it. These people allowed their incredible credulity and literal interpretations of the Bible (and barely contained racism) to make them susceptible to the casuistry of the GOP's shameless shilling over forty years and too late they realize their own responsibility and the shameful consequences, suddenly? Well it's been obvious to the rest of us for decades that this moral imbecility and rot at the heart of evangelicalism has mutated the movement into a ragged company of crypto-fascists and bigots. I say (and so do many others) that this administration's blatant and flippant pandering is what they get. If this kills off participation in church life, this is what they get. If this causes churches to go under or to have to pay taxes (while making political statements from their pulpits) that's what they get. These Sunday revenue machines need to be unplugged. Again, they could all take a hint from Bonhoeffer and Niemoller about what taking an actual stand requires. I'm a big fan of Bonhoeffer and Niemoller and I like the correlation between they and what "real" evangelicals need to do to separate themselves from politics, but again, too little too late. Their souls have been sold to an orange womanizing sociopath. Ah well. This is why Hitch said that religion poisons everything. Religious faith amazingly aligns itself with the worst impulses of the human species and this generation's complicity in this unflagging truth is just one more exhibit of the evidence that the evangelical movement has been poisoned and made into an absurdity and parody of itself.

You don't need scripture to weep over the cruelties rot on mankind. Just a heart.

Takes awhile to get going, but towards the end this guy says some important things that many Christians need to hear.

Thanks Reverend for speaking out. God will bless you for this for speaking out that Christians ought to empathize. 'Weep with those who weep...rejoice with those who rejoice'. Thank you for reminding us of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. God bless you. Keep shining as God's light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

A house divided will fall, ignored by white evangelicals

The prosperity doctrine is one of the biggest lies ever to come down the pike. It has nothing to do with the walk of Jesus.

Love this. He's a man after my own heart. He really gets it!

proof they don’t fear god or represent Christ’s teachings! like it’s been said when you make a deal with the devil, there’s a price to pay!

Christocentric ?!? This administration is Trumpocentric

Thank you for this interview. So helpful!

The American churches knew they were dealing with someone sinister. They brought this upon their country. John 8:44

Great interview Yes we have to weep with those who weep He inspired me

Do you think we would find the number 666 under that toupee of Trump's? This man you have interviewed is a reflective thinker and honest. He is a true Christian.

respect for this mans honesty. Hopefully more and more Christians in America will gain similar insights.

40,000+ thumbs up. Thank you. 🙏🏽✨🙏🏽

I was raised devout Catholic and educated at their schools, K-HS. I saw through the hypocrisy in my early twenties, and left. Then in the early 1970's the "I Found It" movement of Evangelicals had a massive U.S. campaign, and for years we were all accosted by these people who confronted everyone on streets and in shopping areas, demanding to know if we'd "Found It". They knocked on doors and wouldn't leave us alone in our homes. NOTHING has driven me away from Christianity more effectively than Christians. I've always taken to heart the "let not they left hand know what thy right hand does" biblical demand, which is why I eventually became a Buddhist (not a religion, but a way of life). All these Christian leaders want is power over others, and of course money, and they use their congregations to achieve it.

This man has finally got the message that Christ was here to teach us...wish everyone would open their hearts and minds...

It takes religion to make good men do horrible things,-Mark Twain.

God is certainly being mocked here, and this will come with a price.

I appreciate this man's testimony and the way he has rekindled his first love and principles! He is someone needed to confront the Christian Right, challenge their blind love and support of a very corrupt and unfit political leader! Enjoyed this interview! Gives me Hope in God!

Yes, this is why I turned my back on my church 4 years ago. I may never know a deeper heart ache.

I've given up on all organized churches. I'm OK praying alone in a closet like Jesus said to do.

I could have listened to the Reverend for hours. That was one of the most powerful interviews I've heard in a long time!

it's as if they didn't see the man coming down the escalator. they didn't hear his inauguration speech. but, at least in this case, better late than never. thank you reverend for being brave enough to see through your past.

Michel Martin is an outstanding interviewer! Keep up the good work!

when you lie down with a dog you get up with fleas....

THANK U FOR THIS INTERVIEW IT WAS AMAZING

I can hear the pain of regret in bro Roberts Schenck voice. I am glad to see Gods' working in you and the love being displayed. May God continue to bless and keep you in His peace.

I stand with you Rob. I was waiting to hear an evangelical who has a platform speaking out! Mr. Trump has made mockery of the presidency and i cannot understand how any God fearing individual could ever condone his behavior. All that comes out of his mouth is death! I pray for your protection and strengthening! Someone has to have the nerve to speak out and not be afraid!

in other words, read "Living Buddha, Living Christ. And practice mindfulness. Rev. Schenck, you are an affirmation of "impermanence".

I wish “religious” people were more often like this man. Introspective, honest, willing to listen, willing to love. Thank you, sir.

I am getting very itchy about the proximity of religious groups to government... there is a mesianic approach to the rethoric of this people that I find dangerous...

Their true God was money all along.

"What does it profit a man of he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?" -- Jesus Christ (Holy Bible, Matthew 16:32)

A very good interview. Thank you.

This Reverend is a gem. As he says, Trump is a secularist and not a believer-thank you for speaking truth to power, sir! Michel Martin asks wonderfully relevant questions and is a great interviewer.

Huge move to embrace Boenhoffer. As an Evangelical he’s often seen as heterodox. This is no simple decision or theological change.

Evangelicals have long been willing to make Faustian bargains. So many evangelicals trade away love for personal wealth, swap community for race identification, and the decency for the seven sins. The marriage of religion with government is a deadly tendency. The USA is the first nation that does NOT establish itself on religious terms. Thomas Jefferson, built up that wall of serration.

Sir, what you are saying is of the essence! If you have any right to do so, please tell loud and clear to your followers and the president that political stunts and photo op do NOT befit any decent church and in fact totally contradict the gospel. The church should do its job, and the State its. Mixing the two unduely has historically brought disaster in any country one can think of!

This is really important for Christians to hear, including myself. Thank you!

Thank you Reverend Schenck for your enormous courage, your honesty, your integrity and your commitment to walking in this world as Jesus did.

Took him 4 years to figure that out? Sheesh. But, hey...at least he finally got there! Bright side, right?

Evangelicals have forgotten Christ’s Golden Rule. “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.”

Towards the end when the "Good Reverend" was listing the most urgent things American Evangelicals need to do going forward, I found myself yelling: '"GROW A PAIR" at the screen of my phone ! 🥺

When I was younger I left the church-- left all organized religion-- after realizing that it really was not about God, it was about maintaining an institution, and paying salaries to employees.

Ms. Martin excellent questions...

They've sold their souls. Unbelievable.

Reverend Robert Schenck you have given me great, respectful pause. Blessings to you for finding your center through your faithful soul searching. Your message is amazingly important for all faithful followers, and especially leaders. This is morally encouraging, my full appreciation for your message.

He is like the only one of the Evangelicals that actually was offended. So many of them have made Trump their god and it’s sad.

Evangelicals - the central message of the gospel is justification by faith in Christ. These individuals are trumpgelicals for they take their message from trump.

Best news ever!

What a fantastic man. This is real Christianity. Thank you

Glad he has come to see the true Jesus. It takes a renewed heart to correct your wrongs.

Preach love and vote for Joe❤️

love

Reverend Schenck, Please do keep speaking out. There are so very many people who need to hear your message. "There is a way that seems right to a man but the end therein is death". God is using you. Keep going please.

Reverend Schenck said it all. Thank you. I am a Catholic and a Democrat, and I am moved to tears.

Reverend Schenck - thank you for sharing your heart

I spent a year at Cal lutheran college and let me tell you I knew two professors that I respected. 2. They were the least religious.

So, so much about this is deeply disturbing. Of particular note is the calculating, brazen, venal manipulation of people. Schenk says: “I battled with fundraisers for decades who told me, ‘Look, we need to leave your people afraid and angry; the madder they are and the more fearful they are, the more money they’re gonna send you; give us more fear and more anger…we need more fear and more anger’.” What did/do those fundraisers think they are creating by cultivating fear and anger - deliberately inciting deception and sowing discord - to extract more money? What kind of world have they, cynically and venally, put their hands to conjure? Which god were they serving by doing this? Do they imagine that there will be no consequence *to them* for what they have done, *in the name of the Lord*? Do they think they will never have to account for what they have done? Do they imagine that God is a fool, or corrupt as they are, and winks at this? Enough is enough. You who have done this, know this: God is just and God is righteous - Therefore. There. Will. Be. An. Accounting…. This that you have done “for decades” will not go answered.

Wow. Thank you for your honesty!!

When wicked are in charge the people moan

I personally can have much respect for this man, though there is an important part of Evangelical and Fundamentalist culture that seems to be ignored here. It is not enough to point out only how un-Christ like Trump is and express how wrongheaded any Christian who follows him and bargains with him for power must be foolish, confused, or just coldly power seeking. To the outside observer, Christian or religious or completely athiest, Trump is an obvious hypocrite and his actions seem very against the spoken rules of what outsiders hear from Evangelicals. But having been a female who was raised in Southern Baptist and then Nazarene churches in the Midwest, I recognize Trump's behavior as being nearly a model of the male power brokers in the churches I attended. Men who could preach a hellfire and damnation to make one tremble, regarding sins of the flesh, pro life agendas, preach against lies and deceit, go on about women's rightful place in submission to men, the importance of purity and virtue, no sex outside of the Covenant of marriage with conception left up to the whims of God, and on, and on. And then those same men groped and routinely attempted to sexually assault us young teens whenever they could catch us alone, one in our church raped a 13 year old I know he did that with more than one young girl, but this was the only one that actually got reported to police. He was a respected elder in the Church who often taught and counselled the tweens and teens. Was he driven out of the Church? No, the 13 year old and her father who prosecuted the Elder were driven out. The girl's own mother sided with the elder because poor men cannot be expected to resist the charms of beautiful, young ladies. Also, her daughter had dared to wear make up and sometimes mini skirts to school so she was deemed at fault for seducing the 60 year old man. Her father, being an actual sane human being divorced his wife and won custody of his daughter due to the mother's refusal to stop forcing her daughter to attend church with her rapist while continually reminding her that the incident and any pain she suffered from it had been solely her fault for being a sinning, attractive young female who dared to not dress in loose burlap. Unfortunately, the legal system of Kansas in the early '80's just gave the elder a wrist slap and the church did have him resign from being a Youth leader, but that was all that was done to him. This along with the persecution of the victim by most of the congregation helped reinforce the continued silence of others of us who had been assaulted by this man and a few other men in the Church. The culture demanded our silence if we didn't want to feel further shame for injustice and harm done to us by men in the Church. This man, in the video has certainly met people who took the message of pro life to its deeper, misogynistic conclusion which is that women are dumb, and evil and must be controlled by men. Perhaps, he saw that attitude constantly being used and abused by men who are very like Trump, loud proclaimers of a faith that allows them to do almost anything they want, take no responsibility for any damage they cause, and that most of the men and women in the Church will continue to follow and support them because this is the expression of the spirit of control and domination that is behind the scenes in most Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches. Trump's lies and hypocrisy only makes them feel more justified in their own behavior. More Godly in fact, and him being made President helps prove to them that their behavior is truly righteous. As they often view worldly power and riches as a sign of God's favor. I'm glad this man, who may have been sincere and good left the others behind, but to neglect airing out the disgusting behavior in much of the Fundamentalist culture seems to me to perpetuate the rot in that culture that allows for the support of a man like President Trump and so I hope to see him calling all of it out plainly in the future.

This fellow is fantastic. He is a true inspiration to all of us, not just Christians or evangelicals. God bless him

Thank you for waking up and doing the right thing.