Evangelical Christian leaders Friday sent an open letter to President Donald Trump urging him to speak out against the alt-right movement, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Signed by dozens of conservative Christian pastors, the letter praises Trump's denunciations of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan, but presses him to more directly condemn a movement it describes as "racist, evil and antithetical to a well-ordered, peaceful society."

"This movement has escaped your disapproval," says the letter, which was first reported by CNN. "We believe it is important for this movement to be addressed, for at its core it is a white identity movement and the majority of its members are white nationalists or white supremacists."

According to the Journal, the letter was drafted mostly by Keith Whitfield, dean of graduate studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and William Dwight McKissic Sr., a prominent black pastor from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.

But the letter illustrates the divide among evangelicals over Trump, according to the Journal. Several people who openly opposed Trump during the campaign signed the letter, including Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy, the Journal reported.

"A lot of these people who signed are friends of mine," Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and a member of Trump's advisory board, told the Journal. Jeffress was not asked to sign the letter, the Journal reported.

"I also know some of them who absolutely despise the president, and cannot get over the fact that a majority of evangelicals voted for him. It shows how little influence these leaders have in the election and over evangelicals."

McKissic told the Journal the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last month had prompted the group to put together the letter to the president.

"He never specifically named the alt-right," McKissic said Trump's response to violence in Charlottesville. "We saw on their sites, they did not feel in any way condemned by those statements."