Detroit pastor hosting Trump defends visit amid criticism of conservative events in city

When the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell got a call last week from the campaign of Donald Trump asking whether he was interested in his Detroit church hosting an event Saturday with the former president, he couldn't believe it.

"I thought I was being punked," Sewell, senior pastor of 180 Church, told the Free Press on Friday. "I literally thought it was a joke."

But after realizing the opportunity was real, Sewell decided to accept, seeing it as a chance to have the voices of marginalized Detroiters heard by a national campaign. His nondenominational church is located on Detroit's west side, near Grand River and Interstate 96, in a struggling area he said has high rates of mental illness, drug addiction and poverty. Formerly known as Evangel Church, the congregation has been in Detroit for 55 years, renaming itself during the COVID-19 pandemic as 180 Church to symbolize people turning their lives around. The church operates a methadone clinic with hundreds of patients, whom the Trump campaign expressed interest in talking with, Sewell said.

"For him to have a community conversation, I thought it was an opportunity to be able to really give the least of these, the disenfranchised and marginalized, an opportunity to have a voice at the table because typically we're on the menu," Sewell said. "If you come to Grand River, if you walk through our community, you will see, quite frankly, that it's desolate. ... (Trump campaign officials) didn't want to talk to people that had high prestige and high power positions. They wanted to talk to the least of these."

Saturday's roundtable is believed to be the first time Trump has visited a Detroit church since September 2016 when he spoke at Great Faith Ministries International in Detroit, led by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, who drew criticism from some other pastors. Trump last week spoke at a church in Arizona at a rally organized by Turning Point Action, which is holding a conservative conference this weekend in Detroit at which Trump is scheduled to be the keynote speaker.

The Trump campaign hasn't said why they chose Sewell's church to hold a roundtable discussion, but released a general statement Monday about the church visit that said: "Trump will discuss how Joe Biden has failed the great people of Detroit and the State of Michigan," and railed against immigration at the Southern border, crime and inflation. Trump received only 5% of the vote in the city of Detroit in November 2020, one of the lowest percentages among large cities, while Biden received 94%. Trump performed slightly better in Detroit than in 2016, when he received 3% of the vote.

"I let (the Trump campaign) know clearly that I don't endorse any candidate," Sewell said. "I'm a pastor. I can't trade, my spiritual influence for political influence."

In an op-ed on the digital divide published last year in the Free Press, Sewell praised Democratic elected officials such as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their infrastructure bill. At 180 Church, he and other leaders created a computer lab and offer classes for adult literacy, computer training and resume-writing, Sewell said.

"From a political standpoint, I understand it's numbers ... metrics, right," Sewell said of Trump's visit. "If a president is able to get a certain amount of Black votes, he's able to win Michigan, he'll win the White House, right? He's not going to win Wayne County, but he needs to overperform in Wayne County."

But, Sewell added, this visit for him is more about faith, not politics.

"The spiritual component ... is the part that I'm concerned the most about," he said, echoing the views of some evangelical Protestants on politics. "The Bible says that we should be praying, interceding and we should be supplicating for all of our leaders specifically for those that are in authority. ... Our church prays for all of our leaders and in the Bible, you see that political leaders always worked with spiritual leaders. There was Jesus and Pontius Pilate, King Agrippa and Paul, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh and Moses."

But some faith leaders in Michigan and experts are expressing concern about Trump's visit to Detroit and also three conferences being held in metro Detroit this month with Trump ties that feature some controversial speakers.

Last weekend, Grace Christian Church in Sterling Heights hosted a "ReAwaken America" tour led by Clay Clark and Michael Flynn, a retired general who was once Trump's national security adviser and later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. The event at the evangelical church featured prayers, worship and talks by Rudy Giuliani, Eric Trump and anti-vaccine activists. Giuliani, who filed for bankruptcy after being found liable in December in a $148 million verdict involving false election claims, asked the crowd in Sterling Heights for donations.

This weekend, Turning Point Action, led by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, will hold The People's Convention at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit featuring speakers and elected officials who are some of the biggest names on the right.

There is also a separate convention in Detroit on Saturday held by the America First Foundation, led by Nicholas Fuentes, described by some groups who monitor hate groups as a white nationalist who promotes racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic views. The America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in Detroit features several white nationalist advocates, including Jared Taylor. Trump had dinner with Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in 2022. Emails sent to America First seeking comment were not returned. It's unclear where in Detroit the conference will be held.

Fuentes was denied entry to the opening night of The People's Conference, according to several social media posts from people at Huntington Place.

Detroit has one of the highest percentages of minority residents among large cities in the U.S., with Black residents making up 77% to 80% of the city, according to census data.

"It's a way of trying to slap the Black community in the face," the Rev. Kenneth Flowers, pastor of Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Detroit, told the Free Press.

Flowers said it's offensive when Trump and his supporters compare the fact he is a convicted felon to Jesus and to Black people who have criminal records.

"The Democrats and the fake news media want to talk about ‘Trump is a convicted felon,’ " U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, said recently. "Well, you want to know something? The man that I worship is also a convicted felon. And he was murdered on a Roman cross."

"Donald Trump has no characteristics of Jesus," Flowers said. "Jesus was a loving Savior. Jesus Christ has compassion. He has forgiveness. He has love. He has demonstrated good deeds. None of those are in Donald Trump. So to say that we see as no problem voting for convicted felon Donald Trump because of Jesus being a convicted felon, there's no comparison. And how dare you compare someone with no morals and values as Donald Trump to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the epitome of morality and ethics."

Flowers and others also expressed concern about Christian nationalism being expressed at the conferences.

"Christian nationalism is not Christianity, and white nationalism is not Christianity," Flowers said.

The Rev. Chris Yaw of St. David's Episcopal Church in Southfield echoed his views. His church a few weeks ago held a talk by Jim Wallis, an evangelical writer and metro Detroit native who has a new book out titled "The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy."

"I am very concerned about the views expressed at these conferences because the speakers espouse a kind of Christianity that is not Christian at all," Yaw said. "There is a militancy at the heart of American evangelicalism that has been brewing and molded for decades that distorts the gospel and brands as 'Christianity' culturally and racially specific views that have no biblical basis."

On immigration, for example, the Bible has liberal views, he said.

"It's not hard to find 20+ verses specifically referring to this like Deuteronomy 10:19 which reads: 'You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,' " Yaw said. "It is important to speak out against this warped interpretation because Christianity is being politicized and weaponized, corrupted for financial and political gain."

The Rev. Wendell Anthony, who leads the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, released a two-page statement on Friday that appeared to slam Trump's visit, but did not mention his name.

"Coming to the city of Detroit to speak at 180 Church to declare that you are a child of God when demonstrating no God-like qualities is a stench in the nostril of God," Anthony said.

Megan Squire, deputy director for data analytics and open-source intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that Fuentes' group America First often holds their gatherings in the same city and at the same time when Turning Point and other conservative groups hold their gatherings as a way to gain influence with more mainstream Republicans.

"The reason that he's having it in Detroit is because he ... usually has this conference, next to or adjacent to a bigger, more popular conference," Squire said. "And the reason that he does that is that these are other right wing conferences that he thinks are insufficiently conservative or reactionary ... insufficiently antisemitic."

Fuentes and his followers are intensely anti-Jewish, she said. During the Israel-Hamas conflict, they have also increasingly attacked Israel.

It's unclear how many will attend the America First gathering.

"He would be lucky if he got 500; he'll probably get more like, 200," Squire said, adding she could be wrong in her predictions.

Squire added that the organizers of America First conferences often hide their location to avoid getting protests or cancellations by the hotel hosting the conference.

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Sewell, pastor of 180 Church since 2019, said he grew up in an abusive home, according to his biography on the church's website.

"High school was a challenge emotionally with his father going to prison and his younger brother being killed," the biography reads. "As a result, Lorenzo became heavily involved in drugs and drug dealing, ultimately becoming a gang leader." He said his life started to change in 1999 after turning to God his senior year in high school. About 300 people attend his church weekly. There was a leadership dispute last year that he said resulted in him wrongly being handcuffed by police, but added those tensions have since been resolved.

Sewell said having Trump at his church could help bring more attention to the needs of Detroit instead of foreign policy issues.

"We need all the help we can get," he said. "I don't care who it is. ... We're putting more money in Gaza than we are Grand River. I understand the pain of Palestine, but what about the pain in my community? ... We have so much attention on Ukraine, what about on America? And if I can get the attention of someone that wants to come and have that conversation, everybody should be willing to listen to that because we need help. Let me ask you a question, If you're drowning and somebody threw you a rope, are you're gonna ask them if they're Republican?"

Sewell said it's too early to tell if more Detroit voters may vote Republican, but said that some are attracted to conservatives on economic and religious issues.

"Tomorrow will be telling," he said. "We'll see."

Contact Niraj Warikoo: n[email protected] or X @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit church hosting Donald Trump for roundtable faces criticism