Source: Politics<\/p>\n
When Robert Jeffress takes the pulpit at First Baptist Dallas on Sunday, he\u2019ll give his 16,000 congregants a not-so-subtle message: Beware of false faith.<\/p>\n
Jeffress will preach about the Tower of Babel, a topic that shares \u201csome parallels to what’s happening in the election,\u201d he said in a recent interview with POLITICO.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal as a pastor is not to get people in the voting booth, but to keep them out of hell,\u201d the archconservative megachurch pastor, televangelist and longtime Republican backer said. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, \u201cseems harmless,\u201d Jeffress continued, \u201cbut the toxic faith he is preaching will lead people away from heaven, not toward it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, conservative evangelical pastors across the country will be sharing a similar message, with the hope of galvanizing their congregations to support right-wing candidates and causes on Election Day.<\/p>\n
But the big difference from recent years: They\u2019ll be preaching against Democrats in four battleground U.S. Senate and House races who\u2019ve made their faith a key part of their campaign message.<\/p>\n
Talarico is a few classes short of becoming an ordained minister. Kansas Senate Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton is pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the country. In Iowa, Presbyterian pastor Lindsay James and Lutheran minister Sarah Trone Garriott are running for Congress. All four are in tight races in red territory, according to polls.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve all made their faith an explicit part of their closing message.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus said, \u2018Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.\u2019 This is really important. All of these things guide us,\u201d Hamilton says in his stump speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cI approve this message because my faith teaches me that caring for my neighbor is not optional,\u201d James says in a face-to-camera ad<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a marked deviation from decades of the Democratic Party\u2019s gradual march toward a less religious tone that has matched their increasingly secular voting base<\/a>, and an effort to win over politically moderate believers who have grown disgruntled with Trump and the Republicans.<\/p>\n These Democrats’ campaigns have put the country\u2019s conservative evangelical pastors in unfamiliar territory: needing to convince their congregants that self-described fellow believers deserve their condemnation, not their vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some Christians that don\u2019t know how to respond to it, because [the candidates] are using all the same language that we do, but they are advocating for a lot of things that we are not for,\u201d said Josh Bingaman, lead pastor of the First Church Open Bible in Des Moines, Iowa.<\/p>\n Many conservative pastors contend these Democrats are wolves in sheep\u2019s clothing, pointing out disagreements on abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights or even the nature of God.<\/p>\n In Wichita, Kansas, Rob Rotola of Word of Life Church will lay out the stakes of the election in his Sunday sermon.<\/p>\n He said he has \u201cno problem\u201d calling Hamilton a false prophet, and imagines when his sermon is through, his congregants will \u201cfeel sorry for Adam Hamilton and would pray for him, but would tell their friends where he stands.\u201d<\/p>\n In Iowa, Mike Demastus of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ plans to remind his congregants of \u201cthe importance of every single one of us, as believers, to go and vote and be engaged in this process.\u201d He doesn\u2019t include Trone Garriott among those \u201cbelievers\u201d: \u201cShe’s a poser and a fake, and most conservative evangelical Christians see through that as quickly as she can say it.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in the state, called Trone Garriott a \u201cdangerous politician\u201d and dismissed James as straying from the true path.<\/p>\n \u201cTo hijack Scripture to make it fit your agenda, versus to embrace the comprehensive nature of Scripture to fit God’s agenda, that’s a very, very risky thing to do,\u201d Vander Plaats said in an interview.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Talarico pointed to the candidate\u2019s past statements on faith, including his assertion that \u201cwhen I take on the politicians who are serving themselves and not the people, I\u2019m doing it on biblical grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n Trone Garriott spokesperson Zach Schenkman said that \u201cwhile others try to divide Iowans and dictate how every Christian should practice their faith, Sarah is focused on showing up to make a difference for her neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n James spokesperson Jackson Smith said: \u201cNo politician gets to define or dictate how any Iowan practices their faith, and Iowans are disgusted by this kind of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamilton\u2019s campaign declined to comment.<\/p>\n Trump has long enjoyed overwhelming support from white evangelical Christians: In 2024, exit polls<\/a> found more than eight in 10 white evangelical Protestants voted for the president. Even now, as his approval rating among other demographic groups has declined sharply, Trump\u2019s support remains relatively strong with white evangelicals, according to polls<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some conservative evangelical leaders have long mixed faith and politics, criticizing Joe Biden for how he practiced<\/a> his Catholicism, questioning<\/a> whether Hillary Clinton was really a practicing Methodist, and attacking Barack Obama\u2019s sincerity as a Christian<\/a> (Jeffress once said<\/a> Obama was “paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist\u201d).<\/p>\n