🗳️ Pastors For Trump Founder Touts ‘HUGE Announcement’ On Possible Run For Congress🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.
TULSA, Okla. — Jackson Lahmeyer, the 34-year-old founder of Pastors for Trump, didn’t always mix his Christian faith with politics.
The leader of Sheridan Church, an independent charismatic congregation in Oklahoma’s second-largest city, traces his rise as a partisan firebrand to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid the mask mandates and social distancing requirements of 2020, Lahmeyer said, he began offering “drive-in church” and preaching from the rooftop.
“That is what got me involved,” the father of five told me, “because I never would have thought for a moment that the mayor of Tulsa would threaten to arrest me for just having church. … We won that battle.”
G.T. Bynum, a Republican who served in a nonpartisan role as Tulsa’s mayor from 2016 to 2024, disputes Lahmeyer’s account.
“That’s quite the origin story, but it’s a total lie,” Bynum said in a text message. “I’ve never even spoken with the guy, much less threatened him with arrest.”
More context on that controversy in a moment, but first, my reason for writing about Lahmeyer: In true Trump fashion, he’s touting a “HUGE Announcement” next week and hinting strongly that he’ll enter the race for Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District seat.
President Donald Trump has endorsed Tulsa’s current congressman — Rep. Kevin Hern — to succeed Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, the president’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security.
Lahmeyer — who has called Trump “the greatest President since Abraham Lincoln” and labeled Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top epidemiologist during the pandemic, as a “mass murderer” — challenged Sen. James Lankford in Oklahoma’s 2022 GOP primary. Lahmeyer campaigned heavily on his belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
While Lankford, a Southern Baptist and ordained pastor himself, overwhelmingly prevailed, Lahmeyer garnered 94,572 votes, about 26% of the total.
“Although we did not win that race, we exceeded everyone’s expectation with nearly 100,000 votes, $1 million raised and friendships that are still here today,” Lahmeyer told supporters in an email this week, inviting supporters to attend a March 24 announcement concerning his potential run for Congress.
Michael Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and former national security adviser to Trump, endorsed Lahmeyer’s possible candidacy in an X post that the pastor retweeted this week.
“Leaders like Jackson Lahmeyer do not come along often,” Flynn declared.
Also this week, Lahmeyer appeared on the conservative television network Newsmax and emphasized his trust in Trump’s handling of the Iran war.
“I trust the intelligence that he is hearing from people that are actually intelligent, unlike the previous administration,” Lahmeyer said. “Look, you have to realize that anytime you have a religious fanatic who is dead set on accomplishing a religious apocalyptic fulfillment promise that they believe — and he has weapons — that person is very dangerous.
“And so you have to ask yourself the question: Would you rather fight that battle here on our soil, or would you rather fight it there on their soil? … I don’t think we’re going to be there for years like previous wars. I think we’re dominating them, and I think it’ll be over very soon.”
Last week, Lahmeyer indicated that he was headed to the White House for a “round of meetings” about his campaign decision.
“Please pray for me that I will have wisdom and clarity on which path to go,” he wrote. “To my Sheridan.Church family, whether I run or do not run. Just know that … the main thing will always be the main thing and I will continue being the Pastor of Sheridan.Church.”
Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of Pastors for Trump, prays at Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
Representing constituents as a congressman while maintaining his role as the church’s pastor would be extremely rare.
Five ordained ministers — three in the House and two in the Senate — serve in the 119th Congress.
“There is no authoritative count of the total number of clergy who have ever served in Congress,” the Pew Research Center noted in 2015. “But it appears that all the ordained clergy who have served in Congress over the past 225 years have been Christians, and almost all of them have been Protestants.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, maintains his role as senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once led. Lankford has served as an occasional fill-in preacher during his political tenure.
“I don’t know about ministers and pastors specifically, but I do know that it’s rare for individuals to have any kind of outside career working while they’re in Congress,” said Trey Orndorff, a political scientist at Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City.
The demands of lawmaking coupled with ongoing campaign fundraising basically amount to two full-time jobs, Orndorff said.
“So this would be like three if you want to be honest about it,” he said of Lahmeyer’s desire to keep pastoring.
On the other hand, Lahmeyer already infuses his pastoral work with heavy doses of partisanship.
The church’s home page features a banner promotion for “The Remnant Rising,” a June event that will feature Flynn, the president’s son Eric Trump, Lahmeyer and ReAwaken America founder Clay Clark.
Sheridan Church “is getting a front-row seat to some of the biggest names in the MAGA movement,” Em Luetkemeyer wrote for NOTUS and Oklahoma Watch last year.
When Ryan Walters, then Oklahoma’s top education official, ignited a national furor in 2024 with a mandate requiring a Bible in every classroom, Lahmeyer welcomed him on stage at Sheridan Church and prayed over him and his children.
I met Lahmeyer late last year when I covered a sermon by Darryl Strawberry — the former baseball star whose past tax evasion and drug charges were pardoned by Trump — at the Tulsa church. As I reported for The Associated Press, Lahmeyer said he and Trump had talked about Strawberry and that Trump is “a huge fan of Darryl Strawberry.”
Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of Pastors for Trump, poses for a photo with retired baseball star Darryl Strawberry in the pastor’s office at Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
Also last year, New York Times religion writers Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham noted that Lahmeyer — who told me his Pastors for Trump network engaged over 10,000 pastors in 50 states during the 2024 campaign — had visited the White House several times.
Lahmeyer “is part of a cohort of newer supporters with growing influence across the country and on social media, joining longtime Trump loyalists like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress,” the Times reported.
It all started, as Lahmeyer recounts it, with the pandemic — and his preaching on the roof.
“I told the police department when they called, ‘The ladder’s in the back. You guys can come up and get me,’” Lahmeyer said. “They never did, thankfully. That got me involved. Then we never enforced the mask thing.”
I asked Bynum, the former Tulsa mayor, if anyone else from the city might have threatened to arrest Lahmeyer.
“Not with my authorization,” Bynum replied. “We actually had some people wanting us to send police to churches at that time but publicly said we would not do specifically what he is claiming.”
Inside The Godbeat
Antisemitism has brought together strange bedfellows, uniting Islamic terrorists and left-wing extremists, Arie Perliger writes in an analysis piece for The Conversation republished here at Religion Unplugged.
U.S. Jews are grappling with a surge in attacks and bitter rifts over Israeli politics, according to The Associated Press’ David Crary and Peter Smith.
“Sheer miraculous luck” and years of preparation from a synagogue’s security team prevented a Michigan attacker from carrying out a massacre, the Jewish Federations of North America’s president and CEO tells the Jewish News Syndicate.
The Final Plug
I got to enjoy a bit of March Madness Thursday night.
My son Keaton bought me a ticket to see No. 7 Saint Mary’s vs. No. 10 Texas A&M in Oklahoma City. I attended the game with him, my son Brady and my 7-year-old grandson, Bennett.
In his rankings this week of the tournament’s best religious affiliated teams, Religion Unplugged’s own Clemente Lisi identified Saint Mary’s as a potential Cinderella. Alas, the Gaels fell to the Aggies, 63-50, in the opening round.
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.