On Wednesday before Easter, Greg Laurie walked in the darkness outside the White House after enjoying a dinner with President Donald Trump and a few dozen prominent evangelical leaders.
The founding pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, looked into a phone camera held by another pro-Trump pastor, Travis Johnson, and described how “great” it was to visit “the seat of power,” the “most important building in the world.”
Laurie was back in Riverside on Easter Sunday. At the 31:35 mark of his Resurrection Day sermon, he spent six minutes telling the Harvest congregation about his visit to Washington.
Trump spent four hours with evangelical leaders on that Wednesday evening. Laurie and his friends got a tour of the White House, which included a stop in the presidential family quarters and the famous Lincoln bedroom: “The pastors were like kids in a candy shop.”
It’s surprising that Laurie was in that particular candy shop. He is 72 and came to faith in 1970 as part of the Jesus People movement, a countercultural evangelical movement of young people who were searching for meaning and hope in California’s hippie culture and eventually found it in Jesus. A Christianity Today headline in 2013 summarized the drug past of many participants: “They got high on Jesus instead.”
The “Jesus people” staged a Holy Spirit-led rebuke to what they saw as the stuffy traditionalism of mainstream evangelicalism. Laurie told the story of the movement in his 2018 memoir Jesus Revolution. Five years later, Hollywood turned the book into a feature film. This West Coast spiritual revival had a profound impact on Laurie’s life, sending him on the path of Christian celebrity.
Today Laurie has a global outreach through his multicampus megachurch, which includes a Harvest Christian Fellowship in Maui, Hawaii; mass evangelistic crusades in Angels Stadium; and a media outreach that includes books, movies, and a large social media presence. He wants to “point people to Christ.”
Laurie desperately wants the United States to experience revival, and argues that Trump’s presidency is a sign of it. After praying at a Trump rally in California during the 2024 campaign, he said he would gladly do the same at a Kamala Harris rally if asked. Laurie said his relationship with the politicians he encounters is “pastoral,” not “political.”
In January, Laurie asked his social media followers to pray that God would surround Trump with Christian advisers. He quoted Proverbs 29:2, which says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice” (NRSVue). He is on record as opposing the separation of church and state. He said he doesn’t like the phrase Christian nationalism and prefers to call himself a “Christian patriot.”
Last month, Laurie offered a homily on X about how he sought entry to the White House in April but “my name wasn’t on the list. Yep, pastor gets denied at the door. It reminded me of something far more serious—what Jesus said will tragically happen to some people one day when they step into eternity.”
Laurie explained that after further ado “they let me in. No harp music or pearly gates—but a tremendous worship service packed with White House staff members ready to praise the Lord. I shared a verse from the Book of Esther and reminded them that, yes, God had placed them there—for such a time as this. What an honor it was to be there. And don’t worry—I made sure my name is on the right list too.”
Queen Esther in the Bible used her proximity to power to tell King Ahasuerus that his executive order would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. Laurie has stated clearly that he sees his task differently. Following Trump’s inauguration, he said, “We are tired of the crazy ‘woke’ agenda we’ve been dealing with.”
Laurie added, “God has placed Donald Trump in office,” and he agreed with Trump’s statement that “I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Laurie said, “I know President Trump understands the important role faith plays in the history of our nation, as well as the need for it in our present and future. And I am very appreciative of the fact that many Christians have been put in positions of influence around him. Godly people influencing and counseling him is exactly what we want.”
John Fea is distinguished professor of history at Messiah University.
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