{"id":203348,"date":"2026-03-13T18:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/203348\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T18:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:16:08","slug":"texas-pastors-tapped-by-sen-john-cornyn-for-faith-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/203348\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas pastors tapped by Sen. John Cornyn for ‘faith council’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastors Jack Graham, Robert Jeffress among Evangelicals named to Cornyn council By Ian M. Giatti<\/a>, Christian Post Reporter Friday, March 13, 2026\"Sen.Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks to members of the media at the Austin Marriott Downtown on March 03, 2026, in Austin, Texas. | Brandon Bell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ahead of a runoff election against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Sen. John Cornyn has announced the launch of a Faith Advisory Council that includes well-known Evangelical pastors and leaders from across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cornyn and Paxton failed to secure a majority of the vote in the state\u2019s Republican Primary on March 3, forcing a May 26 runoff vote for the Republican Senate nomination.<\/p>\n

On March 10, the 74-year-old Cornyn announced the formation of a \u201cFaith Council\u201d made up of \u201ctrusted leaders,\u201d including pastor and author Max Lucado of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Prestonwood Baptist Church Pastor Jack Graham, and First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress. \u201cWe need principled results, not showmanship, to protect life, religious liberty, and our values,\u201d Cornyn wrote<\/a>. \u201cGod bless Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Christian leaders named to the Faith Council include Phil Schubert, the president of Abilene Christian University and Dr. Gus Reyes with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, CBN reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s inclusion on Cornyn\u2019s advisory council is perhaps somewhat unexpected: Paxton, Cornyn\u2019s opponent, has previously claimed to be a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church, where Graham serves as senior pastor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A former Southern Baptist Convention president who has supported Trump since his first presidential campaign in 2016, Graham has not formally endorsed any candidate in the GOP Senate race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Online bios of Paxton posted on the National Association of Attorneys General website <\/a>and elsewhere state Paxton is a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, a suburb located 20 miles north of Dallas.<\/p>\n

After he was elected attorney general in 2014, Paxton tapped<\/a> Marc Rylander, a former pastor at Prestonwood’s North Campus in Prosper, Texas, as his communications director.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether Paxton continues to attend Prestonwood as a member. The Christian Post reached out to both Paxton\u2019s office and Prestonwood for comment, but no response was received as of time of publication.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Jeffress declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Paxton, who has long positioned himself as a loyalist to President Donald Trump, has faced a series of scandals in recent years. A 2015 indictment against Paxton for securities fraud was dismissed <\/a>in early 2024 following a pretrial agreement, while federal investigators declined to prosecute him in April 2025 on separate bribery and corruption allegations.<\/p>\n

In September, he faced allegations of a sex scandal involving an aspiring social media influencer. He dismissed<\/a> an initial report from the Daily Mail at the time but did not specifically dispute the allegations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly after the March 3 primary, Trump stated <\/a>he would \u201csoon\u201d announce his endorsement and expects the other candidate to promptly drop from the race, calling his endorsements “insurmountable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!\u201d Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.<\/p>\n

Ian M. Giatti is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at:\u00a0ian.giatti@christianpost.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pastors Jack Graham, Robert Jeffress among Evangelicals named to Cornyn council By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1967,39873,27],"class_list":["post-203348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ken-paxton","tag-sen-john-cornyn","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}