Donald Trump gestures during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., on Jan. 18. | Getty James Dobson: Trump recently accepted 'a relationship with Christ'

Donald Trump: born-again Christian?

The presumptive Republican nominee captured a significant number of evangelical voters during the GOP primary, and that may be due to recently accepting “a relationship with Christ,” according to evangelical leader James Dobson.


Trump met with hundreds of evangelical leaders in New York earlier this week, and while some well-known figures — such as Liberty University's president, Jerry Falwell Jr. — have endorsed the candidate, others are more hesitant to do so.

However, Dobson, a Christian psychologist and founder of the Focus on the Family group, said he knows “the person who led [Trump] to Christ. And that’s fairly recent.”

“I don’t know when it was, but it has not been long,” Dobson said in an interview with Pennsylvania megachurch pastor Michael Anthony following that meeting in New York. “I believe he really made a commitment, but he’s a baby Christian.”

Evangelicals are a key part of the Republican base that Trump will need to turn out in the general election. In the primaries, many evangelical voters preferred Ted Cruz or Ben Carson.

Of the meeting, Dobson — who was previously critical of Trump — said, "I certainly liked what I saw today," POLITICO previously reported.

“I’ve been a Christian, and I love Christianity and the evangelicals have been so incredibly supportive,” Trump said in the private session with evangelicals this week, according to audio obtained by POLITICO. “Don’t forget, when I ran, and all of a sudden I went to states that were highly evangelical, like as an example, South Carolina, and they said, ‘Well, Trump won’t win this state because it’s evangelical’ … not only did I win, I won in a landslide.”

