A New York megachurch pastor announced Friday he was resigning from Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board, the first religious adviser to join a wave of defections after the president’s response to violence at a white supremacist rally. Pastor A.R. Bernard announced on Twitter Friday that “it became obvious that there was a deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration.”

Many of Trump’s religious advisers have stood by the President following widespread outrage over his response to violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, while members of his Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned in protest on Friday, capping off a dramatic week that included a stream of CEO resignations from two of Trump’s business councils. “When he vacillated over the last week, especially over Charlottesville, I had come to the point where I had to make a decision to more than just step away,” Bernard told CNN’s Don Lemon on “CNN Tonight.”

“When you vacillate like that, it means that there’s not a set of core values that you have determined to guide your thinking, your decision-making. And I’ve got a problem with that kind of lack of leadership.”

Trump has come under fire from Republicans and Democrats alike after insisting that anti-racism protesters were equally to blame for the deadly outbreak of violence at a white supremacist rally in the university town of Charlottesville last weekend.
Pastor A.R. Bernard becomes the first religious leader to resign from the president's evangelical advisory board.