Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence will speak at auxiliary events during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis next week.
Pence already was known to be a speaker at a luncheon hosted by the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission on Tuesday, June 11. Now, a new conservative think tank has announced Trump as a virtual speaker at its Life and Liberty Forum on Monday, June 10.
Trump is listed among 15 speakers at the free luncheon sponsored by the Danbury Institute. The luncheon will be held at the Indiana Roof Ballroom, which can seat up to 1,500 people. It is not clear who is footing the bill for the free luncheon.
Now a convicted felon facing dozens of other criminal charges in other courts, Trump remains popular with Southern Baptists, who typically fall in the category of white evangelicals who are known to be Trump’s core supporters.
However Pence, Trump’s former vice president, has broken with Trump recently and fallen out of Trump’s good graces. Pence will be featured by an official SBC agency; Trump will be featured by an unaffiliated nonprofit.
Joining Trump on the program will be 14 other notable conservatives including Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Tom Ascol, leader of the Southern Baptist Calvinists group Founders Ministries; Richard Land, former head of the ERLC; and Brad Jurkovich, a Louisiana pastor who leads the Conservative Baptist Network.
Additional speakers are conservative activist Julie Scott Emmons; Tim Lee, chairman of trustees at Liberty University; Mark Walker, faith outreach adviser for the Republican National Committee; Shane Winnings, president of the New Promise Keepers; Candi Finch, former aide to Dorothy Patterson who was fired from Southwestern Seminary by board action; David Closson, director of Christian ethics and biblical worldview at Family Research Council; Sam Brownback, former U.S. senator and former ambassador at large for international religious freedom; C.J. Cavin, head of the Danbury Institute; Natalie Bowman of the Danbury Institute; Ryan Helfenbein, communications director for Liberty University who last year said in a speech Adolf Hitler stood for “conservative values”; and evangelist Tim Lee.
Trump apparently will address the group via video.
Publicity for the luncheon says it “will explore topics surrounding life and liberty and especially how churches can change the course of a country” by upholding “the Judeo-Christian values upon which our nation was built.”
The Danbury Institute is a conservative, “pro-family,” anti-diversity advocacy group affirmed by the James Dobson Family Institute and with ties to Paige Patterson and the Conservative Baptist Network.
Listed partners of the Danbury Institute include the Family Research Council, Liberty University, Students for Life, Standing for Freedom Center and Promise Keepers, among others.
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