Brooklyn Pastor Quits As Trump Adviser

EAST NEW YORK, NY – The pastor of one of New York City's biggest churches has stepped down as an evangelical adviser to President Donald Trump because of a "deepening conflict of values."

Pastor A.R. Bernard, who leads the Christian Cultural Center which claims 37,000 members and is based on Flatlands Avenue in East New York, issued a statement Friday in which he said he'd stepped down from the board several months ago, but officially resigned on Aug. 15. The statement was tweeted by the center.

The resignation came on the day that Trump was widely criticized for comments about a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which developed into violent clashes and ended in the death of an anti-Nazi protester, Heather Heyer.

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Trump said there were some "fine people" involved in the Charlottesville rally and that both the right wing marchers and their opponents were to blame for the violence.

Bernard had been an adviser to Trump since his presidential campaign, but he told the New York Times that he never felt his role had been taken seriously.

Efforts to contact the pastor Friday were not immediately successful.

Lead image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press