North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson called on conservatives to commit themselves to a political movement fueled by love and faith in a speech Thursday, criticizing the media and at times growing tearful while addressing the Faith & Freedom Coalition prayer breakfast.
“If we are doing this because we hate those who oppose us, we will get nothing,” Robinson told attendees of the conservative advocacy group’s event. “We will be useless, even to our friends.”
And the Republican nominee for governor urged Christians to re-focus their church communities on faith itself.
“Christians in this nation for too long have used the church as a country club, as a meeting place, for gathering, to do business,” Robinson said.
“A church is not a place where we’re supposed to be meeting for the purposes of making money or making friends, or spreading our own message. A church is a place where we’re supposed to be spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
His remarks come ahead of the final day of the Republican National Convention, and struck a more personal chord than the brief address he gave to the full convention on Monday.
He pointed to his wife during the speech, saying she had “been through the fire” and “when they came after me, they came after her as well.”
He doubled down on his description of former President Donald Trump as “America’s Braveheart.” And he asked attendees to think about how to respond to a question posed by William Wallace in the film: “what will you do with that freedom?”
“Will we feed our children pornography in schools?” Robinson asked. “Will we run our economy into the ground because we have become beholden to our enemies overseas? Will we cower and run in fear when lies are being told?”
Robinson also had pointed criticisms for the news media in the speech, calling it “corrupt to the core” while defending conservative views on abortion, gender and education.
“I tell people all the time, the media can get as mad as they want at me,” he said. “The left can get as mad as they want. Say what you want to say about me, frown all you want, boo all you want, jeer all you want. But if God is smiling because of what has come out of my mouth, I am happy indeed.”
The lieutenant governor’s history of inflammatory remarks has drawn national media attention and criticism from his political opponents. Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democrat running against him for governor, said Robinson’s comments last month that “some people need killing” amounted to “endorsing violence.”
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