First Baptist Church of Dallas senior pastor Robert Jeffress hosted his friend President Donald Trump for a virtual Easter service on April 12.
“I got a call from President Trump,” Jeffress told his congregation after the service. “He went on and on about how much he enjoyed our Easter service. He said, ‘Robert, please pass along a message to your congregation of how I love First Baptist Church of Dallas.’”
Three days later, his megachurch of 14,000 members received a loan of between $2 million and $5 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. The program was designed to help businesses with 500 employees or less during the pandemic by connecting them to bank lenders that could provide loans of up to $10 million. The loans are forgivable, meaning the church won’t have to worry about paying back the funds as long as most of the money went toward keeping employees on the payroll.
Jeffress said the church, which also hosted Vice President Mike Pence for a patriotic event on June 28, qualified for help from the government, just like everyone else.
“We met all the criteria set forth by the SBA, and I’m just glad they believe church employees deserve the same protection as Planned Parenthood and Grindr,” he said.
Loans between $2 million and $5 million or more accounted for just 0.6% of the nearly 4.9 million PPP loans awarded from April 3 to June 30. The downtown Dallas church told the SBA that the multimillion-dollar loan allowed it to keep all 293 of its employees.
The loan was revealed in data released Monday by the SBA that detailed companies receiving loans of more than $150,000, a group that accounts for less than 15% of total loans. It contained ranges for loan totals, rather than actual amounts.
Altogether, four churches in North Texas received PPP loans in the range of $2 million to $5 million. One of them, Pastor Tony Evans’ Dallas-based Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship with 10,000 members, acquired the 157-acre Golf Club of Dallas in May -- the same month it received the loan. The others include Rockwall-based Lake Pointe Baptist Church, which has six locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Dallas-based Potter’s House, founded by Bishop T.D. Jakes and now totaling 30,000 members. Potter’s House applied for the loan solely to support is 350 employees, said Frank Dyer, chief operating officer of T.D. Jakes Ministries. Employees also helped other churches and small businesses apply for PPP loans, he said.
Bank of America was the lender to First Baptist, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, Potter’s House and six other religious organizations in North Texas, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, which airs Jeffress’ daily television show.
Megachurches are common in Texas, which claims six spots in a ranking of the 20 biggest churches in the U.S. by the Hartford Institute for Religious Research. It defines a megachurch as having a weekly attendance of more than 2,000. Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston holds the top spot on the list with 43,500 members.
Besides size, megachurches are also characterized by celebrity pastors who often make regular television appearances and sell lots of books -- Jeffress has 26 books -- and are high-tech, allowing them to implement big screens into the service so everyone can see, including those viewing online.
Let’s talk finances
Churches are typically funded by individual donations, charges for use of facilities, and trust funds and investments.
With an average attendance of 3,495 on Sundays in 2019, First Baptist Church of Dallas set a two-year goal starting in December 2018 to raise $82 million for its ministry, missions and a two-floor expansion on one of its buildings. So far, it’s raised $45.1 million and hopes to raise the remaining $36.9 million by the end of November.
Jeffress previously guided the church -- founded in 1868 -- through a renovation in 2013 that cost $130 million, which it says is the largest church redevelopment project in U.S. history.
Like other nonprofits, churches are tax exempt. But, unlike other nonprofits, churches aren’t required to file a 990 IRS tax form that shows data such as employee salaries or where it spends money.
According to SBA rules, 75% of the original PPP loans must go toward payroll. That means between $1.5 million and $3.8 million would have gone to First Baptist employees. The SBA later lowered that to 60% of the loan spent on payroll.
American Atheists, an organization that advocates for separation of church and state, criticized the loans to churches and other religious groups as “an unprecedented giveaway.”
“In two months, the Trump administration has given churches and religious schools more money than double the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s] annual budget of $6.5 billion,” said Nick Fish, president of American Atheists. “If that doesn’t make it crystal clear what this administration’s priorities are, nothing will.”
Ties to Trump
Jeffress, who has made over 2,000 television appearances, first connected with Trump about five years ago after the president caught one of his shows on Fox News and called him.
“He invited me to Trump Tower, and we became instant friends,” he said.
Jeffress, a regular Fox News contributor and adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, is a member of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Trump created in May 2018 to ensure that religious organizations have advocates in the White House. Former presidents Barack Obama and George Bush had similar initiatives under different names.
As a member, Jeffress provides recommendations to the Trump administration about its policy agenda affecting faith-based and community groups.
Critics have raised concerns about Trump’s decision to include Jeffress, who has a history of making controversial remarks. His past comments include calling Mormonism a cult, saying “what gays do is filthy” and supporting Trump’s opinion that the U.S. shouldn’t allow immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries.
But Trump is unbothered by Jeffress’ controversies.
“He’s a terrific guy, a terrific man,” Trump said of Jeffress during a daily White House COVID-19 briefing in early April. “I’ve gotten to know him very well. He’s a man of great compassion.”
White evangelicals for Trump
This intertwining of Trump and a Southern Baptist pastor is hardly surprising.
White evangelicals have long been the cornerstone of Trump’s voters with 82% of them saying they would vote for him or lean toward voting for him for president if the 2020 election were held today, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 16-22.
For many evangelicals, including Jeffress, they support Trump partly because of his anti-abortion stance, including the appointment of two conservative Supreme Court Justices: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
"I can say without any hesitation that America is in danger of God's judgment because of abortion," Jeffress said during a service in March. "The reason I can say that is because of what's already in the Bible."
The First Baptist Church of Dallas posts all of Jeffress’ Fox News appearances -- 10 in the past month -- on its YouTube channel, which has more than 48,000 subscribers. However, the church also runs a disclaimer on its site.
“Any information, videos, appearances, posts, etc. related to any political topic. . . represent the personal views or opinions of the individual expressing them, but do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of First Baptist Church of Dallas,” it says.
Donations still needed?
Jeffress, 64, grew up going to First Baptist Church of Dallas and was appointed pastor in 2007 after terms as pastor at churches in Eastland and Wichita Falls. And Jeffress isn’t letting the pandemic impede the growth of his reach.
In June, he announced a $575,000 Praying for America Matching Challenge to support his radio, television and internet ministry. He shared the donation link again with his Facebook followers on July 5. Jeffress hosts a daily radio program, Pathway to Victory, for about 1,000 stations and a daily television program by the same name that broadcasts on the Trinity Broadcasting Network -- the world’s largest Christian TV network. The network’s Fort Worth office also received a PPP loan in the $2 million to $5 million range.
The church’s executive pastor, Ben Lovvorn, said the SBA loan has nothing to do with political standing.
“We’re facing economic uncertainty just like anyone else,” Lovvorn said.
The program has over $130 billion left in its second round of funding and has extended the deadline to apply to Aug. 8.
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