Analysis

11 Democrats Who Quote The Bible To Push Their Leftist Agenda

   DailyWire.com
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 19: Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (L) speaks with former Vice President Joe Biden during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Loyola Marymount University on December 19, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Seven candidates out of the crowded field qualified for the 6th and last Democratic presidential primary debate of 2019 hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Religion remains an integral part of the lives of many Americans, a country whose Pledge of Allegiance contains the line “one nation under God,” at least for the time being. The fact that 64% of eligible voters, and 79% of Republicans voters, identify as Christian often results in America’s religious communities being viewed by opportunistic politicians as another valuable voting bloc. 

With an additional 52% of registered Democrat voters identifying as Christian, it is increasingly common for Democrats to make a concerted attempt to entice religious voters during election season. This is often done through sporadic and isolated references to the Bible, often quoting random passages from either the Old or New Testament in order to simultaneously pander to religious conservatives and use scripture to further a “progressive” political platform.

Joe Biden 

During his so-called “victory speech,” Joe Biden referenced the book of Ecclesiastes, saying “‘To everything there is a season: a time to build, a time to reap, and a time to sow and a time to heal.’ This is the time to heal in America.”

Joe Biden has also been refused Holy Communion at a Catholic Mass due to his “public support for abortion.” 

Nancy Pelosi

To commemorate Earth Day in 2008 — a day which coincides with the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, a fact which many argue is completely non-coincidental — Nancy Pelosi released a statement quoting a Bible verse that read “To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.”

Unfortunately for Pelosi — a supposedly devout Catholic who also believes that “strong Catholic faith and abortion rights can coexist” — she quoted a Bible verse that’s not in the Bible. Not to be deterred, this is a quote Pelosi has repeated to share, saying in 2019 that “I can’t find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time. I keep reading and reading the Bible — I know it’s there someplace. It’s supposed to be in Isaiah. I heard a bishop say, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation … ’”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

During her 2012 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Elizabeth Warren quoted Matthew 25, saying “In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Ironically, as reported by the Daily Wire in 2017, “this was the same convention where the Democrats booed the insertion of God into the party platform.”

This passage became popular among Democrats after “strategist Mara Vanderslice founded the Matthew 25 Network, a grassroots PAC designed to organize the Christian left for Obama.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

In response to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told Sean Hannity that “I don’t think we’re going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly not on matters that we’re going to leave into the hands of a much, much higher authority,” Ocasio-Cortez referenced Genesis and Leviticus on Twitter.

 

Barack Obama

During a speech promoting amnesty, Obama said “The good book says, don’t throw stones in glass houses. Or … make sure we’re looking at the log in our eye before we are pointing out the mote in other folks’ eyes.”

“Don’t throw stones in glass houses” is a centuries-old proverb which doesn’t appear in the Bible, and the latter part seems to have been based on Matthew 7: 1-3, which states “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged … Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

Pete Buttigieg

During a Democratic presidential primary debate, Pete Buttigieg referenced the Bible to justify raising the minimum wage, saying “Minimum wage is just too low. So-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage when Scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their Maker.” 

Buttigieg was referencing Proverbs 14:31, of which one translation reads “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” 

Pete Buttigieg has also referenced the Bible in support of the Left’s position on abortion. During a Rolling Stone interview, Buttigieg said “Now, I actually think that if you look at an issue like choice, there’s so many parts of the Bible that associate the beginning of life with breath that there’s plenty of scriptural basis to reach different conclusions about that.”

The original Hebrew of the passage Buttigieg deliberately butchers states that God “breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being,” with a deeper interpretation indicating that God breathed in a soul or spirit, not literal breath.

Hillary Clinton

During an Iowa campaign event, Clinton was asked the part her faith plays in her political ideology, to which her response was:

“My study of the Bible … has led me to believe the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do. And there is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger, creating opportunities for others to be lifted up … I think there are many different ways of exercising your faith.”

Cory Booker

After criticizing those “using religion as a justification for discrimination” while discussing the “juxtaposing issues of religious freedom and LGBTQ rights,” Sen. Booker referenced Micah 6:8, saying “It said in Micah, ‘What do you want from your Lord, but what is it you want from your people? Which is to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly — walk humbly — and, so for me, I cannot allow, as a leader, that people are going to use religion as a justification for discrimination.”

John Kerry

During a State Department speech, Secretary of State John Kerry called to combat climate change in Muslim countries, saying:

“Our fates are inextricably linked on the environment. For many of us, respect for God’s creation also translates into a duty to protect and sustain His first creation: Earth, the planet. Before God created man, He created Heavens and Earth.

Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid out in the Scriptures clearly beginning in Genesis. And Muslim majority countries are among the most vulnerable. Our response to this challenge ought to be rooted in a sense of stewardship of Earth. And for me and for many of us here today, that responsibility comes from God.”

Bill Richardson

During a 2007 Democratic presidential primary debate, the former New Mexico Governor was asked to cite his favorite Bible verse, to which Richardson replied “The Sermon on the Mount, because I believe it’s an issue of social justice, equality, brotherly issues reflecting a nation that is deeply torn and needs to heal and come together.”

Joe Kennedy III

In response to calls to repeal Obamacare, which Paul Ryan had described as “an act of mercy,” Kennedy used the Bible to insinuate that any criticism of the Affordable Care Act was a rejection of scripture.

“I was struck last night by a comment that I heard made by Speaker Ryan, where he called this repeal bill ‘an act of mercy.’ With all due respect to our speaker, he and I must have read different Scripture,” Kennedy said as the House Energy and Commerce Committee dove into the details of the GOP effort.

“The one I read calls on us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, and to comfort the sick.

“It reminds us that we are judged not by how we treat the powerful, but by how we care for the least among us,” said the Brookline Democrat and scion of the most famous Massachusetts political dynasty.

“There is no mercy in a system that makes health care a luxury. There is no mercy in a country that turns their back on those most in need of protection: the elderly, the poor, the sick, and the suffering. There is no mercy in a cold shoulder to the mentally ill,” he said, appearing to read from notes.

“This is not an act of mercy. It is an act of malice,” he said.

***

Whether it be Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi inventing Bible passages, or Pete Buttigieg or John Kerry misinterpreting the Bible in pursuit of their own political objectives, each example listed above has a common theme: the intentional use and abuse of scripture in order to solicit support from religious voters for policies which are, in many cases, completely antithetical to the words Democrat politicians so happily bastardize.

Ian Haworth is host of The Ian Haworth Show and The Truth in 60 Seconds. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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