page_title: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign
section_title: Religious community
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign / Relationships with people and groups / Religious community
caption_attribution_description: English: Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson, a Greek Orthodox priest, blesses Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Keene High School, Keene, New Hampshire, September 30, 2015
context_page_description: The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was formally launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, having won the most state primaries, caucuses, and delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He chose Mike Pence, the sitting Governor of Indiana, as his vice presidential running mate. On November 8, 2016, Trump and Pence were elected president and vice president of the United States. Trump's populist positions in opposition to illegal immigration and various trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, earned him support especially among voters who were male, white, blue-collar, working class, and those without college degrees.
  Many of Trump's remarks were controversial and helped his campaign garner extensive coverage by the mainstream media, trending topics, and social media. Trump's campaign rallies attracted large crowds as well as public controversy.
context_section_description: Trump is a Presbyterian and says he attends Marble Collegiate Church, although the church said in a statement that he is "not an active member". In campaign speeches, he had routinely praised the Bible and sometimes carried it, often saying that his own book Trump: The Art of the Deal is his "second-favorite book after the Bible". On occasion, Trump "reflected a degree of indifference" to religion, causing unease among some social conservatives.
  Trump solicited the support of religious leaders, inviting dozens of Christian and Jewish leaders to his New York City offices for a meeting and laying on of hands prayer gathering in September 2015. Trump praised prominent national evangelical leaders of the Christian right, including Tony Perkins and Ralph Reed, and received a blessing and endorsement from Greek Orthodox priest and hedge fund manager Emmanuel Lemelson. In January 2016, Trump received the endorsement of Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., a prominent evangelical leader.
  Trump drew high levels of evangelical support despite holding political views and religious commitments at odds with many evangelicals. In July 2016, 78 percent of white evangelicals said that they would vote for Trump according to Pew Research Center. After the revelation of the "Access Hollywood" recording, members of Trump's "evangelical advisory council" compared their link to Trump to Jesus who had befriended sinners.
  Conversely, some Christian religious leaders criticized Trump. After finishing a trip to the U.S.–Mexico border, Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, said in response to a question about Trump's border-wall proposal: "A person who thinks only about building walls—wherever they may be—and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel." Trump then called the pope's comments "disgraceful".
  Other figures made more direct religious-based critiques of Trump, including from the American Christian right. Russell D. Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public-policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is a prominent Trump critic and argued that Christians should vote for a conservative third party. Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has served in the last three Republican presidential administrations, said that Trump "embodies a Nietzschean morality rather than a Christian one", writing that Trump is "characterized by indifference to objective truth (there are no facts, only interpretations), the repudiation of Christian concern for the poor and the weak, and disdain for the powerless". On the Christian left, a number of commentators, including preacher and New York Daily News columnist Shaun King, criticized Trump's racially charged rhetoric as inconsistent with Christianity.
  Trump struggled with Mormon voters, affecting his party's grip on Utah, where Mormons constitute a majority, and Nevada, where they are a significant minority. Reasons for this include Trump's rhetoric concerning Muslims, which Mormons see as a parallel to their own historic persecution. Following the release of the 2016 Access Hollywood tape, several high-profile Mormon political leaders from Utah, including Utah governor Gary Herbert and representative Jason Chaffetz, withdrew their endorsements for Trump. The Deseret News, a media outlet owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, broke with an 80-year tradition of refraining from presidential endorsements to publish an editorial calling on Trump to step aside.
  The phrase "One people under one God" was noted as having been used repeatedly in Trump speeches, especially to religious groups. Christian media commentators have likened it to Ephesians 4:5, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism". Christian Today termed the use of the phrase "a rare mention of religion by the Republican presidential nominee" in early September.
  At about the same time, Reuters also said Trump "rarely mentions religion" and used the phrase as an illustration that Trump's campaign, previously centered around confrontational issues, ha
caption: Trump receives blessing from Greek Orthodox priest Emmanuel Lemelson, September 30, 2015