Operation Gideon: Cruz’s South Carolina salvation

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is betting that an old-time religious revival will deliver him victory in South Carolina’s GOP primary on Saturday.

When Cruz announced Thursday that 300 Christian leaders across the state had endorsed him, it was the culmination of what the campaign has dubbed “Operation Gideon.” 

{mosads}It’s an alliance among a close-knit group of prominent Christians in South Carolina who are leveraging their positions as faith leaders to influence their thousands of followers to join them in supporting the Texas senator for president.

Among Cruz’s most influential supporters in the 300: Bob Jones III, the chancellor of the influential conservative Christian university in the state that shares his name; Ed Lofton, parish priest for an enormous Catholic church in Summerville; and the Revs. Stephen Williamson, Andy Wells and Chad Watson, who together are credited with arranging a Christian rally on the steps of the state capitol last summer that drew at least 10,000.

There’s also Bill Monroe, the pastor of the largest Baptist church in South Carolina, as well as Tommy Kelly and Skip Owens, the current and former presidents of the state’s Southern Baptist Convention.

“This is something I’ve not seen in my lifetime,” Watson said. “You have pastors and faith leaders across the state that maybe normally wouldn’t join together — people with doctrinal differences — but for sake of religious liberty, they’re laying those differences aside to stand with Cruz.”

The “Operation Gideon” tag and the 300 members it counts as activists are pulled from an Old Testament story in the book of Judges, at a time when the Bible says the people of Israel had turned their backs on the Lord. 

God recruited Gideon, a young and unaccomplished man, to attack a group of idol worshippers. The Lord whittled down Gideon’s army from tens of thousands to only 300 to ensure all the glory went to God and not the army of men.

The biblical Gideonites marched on their foes armed with only trumpets and tambourines and other musical instruments. The wayward Israelites scattered at the sight of Gideon and his army, and returned to worshipping the Lord.

Cruz’s Gideonites believe the U.S. needs religious revival to save it, and they believe the Texas Republican is the only candidate who can deliver that.

“I’m a Republican, but I want the party to give us a candidate that we can vote for in good conscience, not someone who we vote for because we’re against whatever Democrat,” Williamson said. “Cruz is that guy.”

The religious leaders have held voter registration drives and personally knocked on doors.

They’re calling acquaintances and hitting the campaign’s phone banks at offices in Columbia and Greenville several times a week, where they feast on Chick-fil-A, an institution Christians have embraced for its opposition to same-sex marriage. They watch the debates together and stay for the post-game analysis.

Once a week, dozens of pastors join a conference call to lift Cruz, his campaign and the nation up in prayer. The call doesn’t end until everyone on the call has had a chance to pray.

Many will be fasting in the days leading up to the primary, a practice encouraged in the Bible during times of spiritual trial.

But the pastors say the real payoff will be in the followers they reach.

They’re not standing at the pulpit and telling their congregations who to vote for — that would run afoul of IRS rules governing nonprofit organizations. 

But they’re also not hiding their support for Cruz. 

The pastors interviewed by The Hill said they explain to their followers why they believe Cruz is the best candidate for Christians to support.

They say that they’re hearing countless stories from congregants who have never before voted but now plan to cast a ballot for Cruz in the Republican primary.

“My feeling is that as a pastor, we have a public office of moral influence,” said Carl Broggi, whose Community Bible Church in Beaufort has some 4,000 congregants that Cruz addressed in person last Sunday.

“My responsibility as a pastor is to show morality comes from scripture,” he said. “If the Bible is the word of God, people must understand that to vote intelligently, they must be informed by scripture. I explain to my congregation why my study of the Bible led me to support Ted Cruz.”

All of the faith leaders interviewed by the The Hill said the same factors drove them to join Operation Gideon.

They say they’re alarmed by what they see as the federal government cutting into their religious liberty, citing last summer’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage.

And they’re worried that the Republican Party might nominate Donald Trump, who they view as an imposter with a history of championing secular values. 

Several pastors said they don’t believe Trump has had a true change of heart on abortion. They say they don’t want a first lady who has posed nude in a magazine, as Melania Trump has done. They don’t like the real estate mogul’s crude language. And they don’t believe Trump is a Christian, noting that he’s publicly stated that he’s never asked the Lord for forgiveness.

“I don’t think Donald Trump is a conservative and I don’t think he’s a Christian,” said Brad Lindsey, a church official at Gethsemane Baptist in Lexington. “If he hasn’t asked for forgiveness for his sins then he’s not a Christian. He’s tapping into anger right now and that’s all he’s got.”

Still, polls show Trump with a huge lead over Cruz and Marco Rubio, who are running a distant second in South Carolina just days before the election.

Some polls show Trump’s margin bolstered by majority support from self-identified evangelicals in South Carolina, who made up about two-thirds of the 2012 electorate there.

Cruz’s Christian leaders say their legions of supporters are underestimated in polls, noting that their candidate is the only one to outperform in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Cruz’s ground game, grassroots support and evangelical backing propelled him to a record-setting victory in Iowa, even as polls showed him trailing Trump significantly heading into Election Day.

“The polls don’t show the full extent of the army we have or who we’ve reached,” said Williamson, the rally co-orgainzer. “I personally have more than 100 pastors who are close friends, who I eat supper with, and every one is voting for Cruz and they’re letting their people know that. These are not Sunday Christians. These are militant Christians and they will be voting.”

It’s been a trying week for Cruz leading up to Saturday.

His rivals have attacked his integrity, accusing him of lying and engaging in dirty campaign tactics. The Texas Republican badly needs to finish in second place in the Palmetto State to build momentum heading into the March contests in the Deep South, where expectations for him will be high.

Watson noted that he and his colleagues organized the rally that drew at least 10,000 on the steps of the state capitol less than two months after the Supreme Court had ruled on gay marriage.

He believes they can do better for Cruz on election day.

“This is what grassroots activism looks like,” Watson said. “The polls are underestimating the strength of God.”