Religion News Service

DALLAS

Anyone who knows the Bible shouldn’t take issue with the idea that God has given President Trump authority to take out North Korea’s dictator, said Pastor Robert Jeffress, the Dallas megachurch leader who drew sharp rebukes for stating just that.

Pastor. Jeffress’ words made headlines around the world. Some Christians and non-Christians accused him of exacerbating an already alarming war of words between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the temperamental young leader of nuclear-armed North Korea.

His statement came after President Trump warned that North Korea would “be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if its leader kept threatening the United States.

In July, North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach California.

The critics have overreacted, said Pastor Jeffress, lead pastor of First Baptist Dallas, whose public observances on current events have made him a target for criticism in the past. A public pastor with the president’s ear, Pastor Jeffress, 61, does not shy away from sharing his belief that Scripture should undergird politics and diplomacy.

“What I said was that the Bible has given government the authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination or war, to topple an evil dictator like Kim Jong-un,” said Pastor Jeffress, elaborating on an Aug. 8 statement in which he said that God has given President Trump “authority to take out Kim Jong-un.”

“That authority comes from Romans 13. Paul said that government has been established by God to be an avenger of those who practice evil,” Pastor Jeffress said in an interview. “I made it very clear that Romans 12 says we are to forgive one another when people offend us — don’t repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.

“But in Romans 13, Paul isn’t talking about individual Christians. He’s talking about government. Government is an organization God uses to bring vengeance against those who practice evil.”

Mr. Jeffress said his statement wasn’t the same as saying that “God ordained President Trump to nuke North Korea.”

But many thought it came too close.

Dallas Morning News columnist Robert Wilonsky questioned “how a man whose calling is supposed to be that of peace could so fervently proselytize in favor of war.”

In a National Review piece, Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, criticized Pastor Jeffress’ “bellicosity.”

And Christianity Today editor in chief Mark Galli penned an editorial titled “The Use of Nuclear Weapons is Inherently Evil.” After naming Pastor Jeffress, Mr. Galli wrote: “One would hope that Christian supporters of the president’s views would at least qualify and nuance their statements.”

North Korea did not come up in Pastor Jeffress’ public comments last Sunday at First Baptist, a Southern Baptist megachurch that claims 13,000 members and occupies six city blocks on a $135 million campus at the heart of downtown Dallas.

The pastor — whose sermon focused on Jesus’ last supper with his disciples in Luke 22 — said he felt compelled to address the fatal, violent clashes between white supremacist groups and counterprotesters on Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Va.

“Whether it’s immorality, or racism that we’ve seen on display in Charlottesville this week, the ultimate answer is the transformed heart that comes from knowing Jesus,” he said.

While a popular figure at his home congregation, Pastor Jeffress is no stranger to controversy outside First Baptist’s walls.

In 2011, he suggested at the Values Voter Summit that Republican Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was part of a “theological cult.”

In 2014, he wrote a book, “Perfect Ending,” that claimed then-President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage was clearing the way for the Antichrist.

“I believe that the job of a pastor, a preacher of God’s word, is to share what God is saying about issues that are confronting people today,” Pastor Jeffress said during the interview. “The Bible teaches us how to be saved, and to go to heaven, but it tells us more than that.

“It tells us how we are to live in the world as well,” he added. “So whether the issue is the use of force and dealing with an evil dictator, or dealing with racism in this country, I think the job of a pastor is to share what God’s word says.”

Pastor Jeffress says those who doubt his message fall into two camps: “Either people who are ignorant of what the Bible says or people who don’t believe what the Bible says.

“But if you had listened to some of the Christian pacifists we’re hearing today in World War II, when Hitler was marching toward world domination, we would all be speaking German and saying ‘Heil Hitler,’ ” he continued.

“I know President Trump wants a diplomatic solution,” the pastor added. “But if diplomacy fails, he has the God-given authority to use force to remove an evil dictator.”