Pastor: Black Pentecostals Won’t Vote for a Woman to Be President

Dr. Darrell Scott, pastor of New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland, Ohio, ruffled the mainstream media’s feathers—and a few #NeverTrumpers’, as well—by suggesting that many African-American Apostolic Pentecostals won’t vote for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman.

The part-time Donald Trump surrogate unleashed several tweets on Twitter in which he made his claim that “More Blacks will vote for Trump than people think!” Here’s what he wrote:

There are entire African American Pentecostal/Apostolic Denominations that will NEVER vote for a Woman to be President!

Some Traditional Black Apostolic Denominations do not believe Women should be in leadership, and will NEVER vote for a Woman to be President

MILLIONS of Black Apostolic’s will not vote for a Woman President! More Blacks will vote for Trump than people think!

MILLIONS of Black Apostolic’s don’t believe in Women Pastors…much LESS Women PRESIDENTS. They will never vote for Hillary!

That led to what CNN producers were perhaps expecting to be a heated head-to-head debate with Bishop Joel Trout of Harvesttime Apostolic Ministries, an Atlanta-area church, on CNN last weekend. Trout, who said he is also a Donald Trump supporter, said the Apostolic Pentecostal movement has “evolved over the years” to include women in positions of authority, including as pastors and bishops.

But they never really argued the issue.

Scott said his position is based on a literal reading of the Bible, and noted that it is shared by millions of Apostolic Pentecostal Christians. He noted that some apply those views only to church leadership, but he said there are many who hold that position “in all parameters of their life.”

“The Apostolic movement is made up probably of about 75 or 80 percent women,” Trout said. “But, gender is really a distraction. The real issue to me about Hillary is this: Last year, April of 2015, at a women’s international or worldwide summit, she declared that the church needs to change its views on abortion. That, to me, is more dangerous than her gender.”

He said Clinton has challenged the church to change itself, and that “it takes a lot of hubris” to do so.

Scott followed up by saying he wasn’t attempting to make a blanket indictment of all African-American Apostolics. He said he knew of many who do not hold to such “ultra-traditional views.” He said his tweets were simply reflecting what he was hearing “on the ground” as an African-American pastor in a key battleground state in the 2016 presidential election.

The CNN host ultimately asked Scott if he would “welcome those votes” from people who held to the same position. The pastor said he would “welcome any vote for Donald Trump,” because that’s his candidate of choice, but he also knows there is still the fear of backlash in the African-American community for supporting the Republican presidential nominee.

Then, the host turned to Trout, asking about the “birther” efforts Trump engaged in prior to becoming a presidential candidate. The bishop said rather than hear an apology from Trump, he would like to hear one from Hillary Clinton, whose 2008 presidential campaign tried to use it as a whisper campaign during the presidential primary.

“I doubt it’s going to sway a lot of African-American voters regardless,” he added. “He’s running against Hillary, not Obama.”