A professional-Israel pastor who inveighs in opposition to “sharia regulation” and desires Jews to just accept Jesus is the favored candidate in a crowded congressional major in Oklahoma on Tuesday.
Jackson Lahmeyer, the founding father of Pastors for Trump and a political activist from the Tulsa space, secured the president’s endorsement forward of Tuesday’s major for the state’s solidly Republican 1st District Home seat. Different huge GOP endorsements quickly adopted, together with Home Speaker Mike Johnson and Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise, serving to to tug Lahmeyer away from the opposite 9 candidates vying for the nomination.
A lot of Lahmeyer’s nationwide profile has been outlined by his common invocations of “sharia regulation,” conventional Muslim doctrine typically used as a right-wing shock tactic. One among his marketing campaign platforms is “Making certain That Sharia Regulation By no means Takes Root In Our Nation.”
On Sunday, Lahmeyer additionally responded to allegations printed by the Every day Mail that he had cheated on his spouse, writing in a put up on X that “this matter was already handled privately between me and my spouse, Kendra, by means of counsel and prayer with God and religious advisors.”
Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District is dwelling to a thriving Jewish neighborhood — one which has not too long ago urged Jews from Canada to take up residence — in addition to a number of massive Jewish organizations together with Schusterman Household Philanthropies.
A number of representatives of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa declined to touch upon Lahmeyer’s candidacy. Nevertheless it’s clear that if elected, he’ll carry to Congress some particular concepts about Jews.
“The Antichrist shall be a political chief of Jewish descent,” he instructed a livestream of his church on Oct. 8, 2024, a day after the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ assault on Israel. “That’s how the Jews will worship him.”
Throughout his sermon, Lahmeyer based mostly the declare on his studying of biblical prophecy, arguing that the Antichrist will “converse nice blasphemy” and can “don’t have any regard for the gods of his fathers.”
Lahmeyer’s preaching in regards to the Jewish Antichrist has additionally sparked concern amongst some Jewish voters.
“Jackson, I’m appalled at this put up. I’m Jewish. I supported you[r] run for workplace at each flip. I’ve youngsters and grandchildren. Antisemitism is at an all time excessive. I’m scared for them. That is abhorrent,” one X person wrote in response to a February 2023 put up on X by Lahmeyer claiming the Antichrist shall be “Jewish” and a “gay.”
Lahmeyer pushed again on the response, replying to the person that “This isn’t anti-Semitic AT ALL. The Christ is Jewish. Scripture signifies that the Antichrist will even be Jewish.”
Regardless of these apocalyptic beliefs, Lahmeyer has repeatedly framed assist for Israel as a key tenet of his religion, reflecting a Christian Zionist worldview that sees Jewish return to Israel as a success of biblical prophecy.
“I stand with the Jewish folks as a result of God almighty stands with the Jewish folks,” Lahmeyer stated in an Oct. 9, 2025 put up dismissing claims he had been paid by the Israeli authorities to put up pro-Israel content material. “So these of you who’re on the market saying I’m getting $7,000 a put up, I want that had been true, however you’re an fool and also you’re unsuitable.”
Matthew Taylor, a scholar on the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Research, instructed the Jewish Telegraphic Company that Lahmeyer’s statements about Jews and Israel replicate a typical pressure of Christian Zionism.
“He’s pro-Israel on this very explicit sense of he has a robust attachment to a theological conception of Israel,” Taylor stated. “Relating to questions in regards to the Antichrist and whether or not the Antichrist is Jewish or not, that’s all fairly commonplace hypothesis inside fashionable evangelicalism.”
These views, as soon as largely confined to Lahmeyer’s attain as a storefront pastor, have adopted him into a bigger political enviornment as he has remodeled from a fringe activist right into a political contender with presidential backing.
“It’s my Nice Honor to endorse MAGA Warrior, Jackson Lahmeyer, who’s working to symbolize the unbelievable folks of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, and has been with me from the very starting of our Motion to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!,” Trump wrote in a put up on Fact Social Monday reaffirming his endorsement of Lahmeyer.
Trump praised Lahmeyer’s position in founding “Pastors for Trump,” which he launched in 2022 to arrange evangelical pastors round getting Trump reelected. The identical yr, Lahmeyer misplaced his Republican major bid to unseat Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, whom he referred to as a “coward” for not backing Trump’s makes an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Lahmeyer, who didn’t return a Jewish Telegraphic Company request for an interview, is a member of the White Home Religion Workplace and Trump’s Nationwide Religion Advisory Board.
He has been cultivating relationships with the Trumps for years. Along with backing the president’s election claims, Lahmeyer has hosted the president’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr., in addition to FBI Director Kash Patel at his church and on podcast episodes.
Lahmeyer’s rise coincides with a rising motion of conservative Christians and right-wing influencers who’ve been more and more essential of Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Throughout an occasion marking the second anniversary of Oct. 7 titled “The Case for Israel,” Lahmeyer addressed the rising prominence of anti-Israel figures on the Christian proper, together with Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“Each Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, they’re Roman Catholics, so to them the church has changed the Jewish folks, the state of Israel, and that’s the reason they’ll make these claims,” Lahmeyer stated.
However Lahmeyer has stopped in need of condemning Carlson’s rhetoric, regardless of criticism from Trump and evangelical members of his administration together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
“Some very influential leaders, all of whom I like — Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene — have taken a really controversial stance regarding the nation of Israel,” Lahmeyer instructed NPR in November.
Taylor stated the fallout over Israel throughout the MAGA coalition between Christian antisemites, comparable to Carlson and Owens, and Christian philosemites, comparable to Huckabee, positioned Lahmeyer in a precarious place as he seeks workplace.
White evangelicals present widespread assist for Israel, with 72% reporting a optimistic opinion of the Jewish state in response to an April 2025 ballot by the Pew Analysis Middle, however amongst Republicans beneath 50, optimistic sentiments about Israel have dropped lately, falling from 63% reporting a optimistic view in 2022 to 48% in 2025.
“Quite a lot of younger evangelicals are shifting away from Zionism, and changing into much less sympathetic with the state of Israel, each theologically and simply when it comes to world occasions, and the struggle in Gaza,” Taylor stated. “So I feel it’s a really difficult place that he’s in, attempting to sort of run as a politician on this second the place MAGA is fracturing over among the issues he may very well be very publicly recognized with.”
Reporting the tales that outline our period. When historical past unfolds in real-time, the Jewish world turns to JTA. Your assist ensures we are able to doc the complexities of struggle and the resilience of Jewish communities with integrity.
