More than 350 faith leaders endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden earlier this week, claiming that he and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) have the “moral clarity” to “restore the soul of this nation.”
The endorsements were gathered by Faith 2020, which describes itself as “a big-tent multi faith coalition of American faith leaders.” The leaders spanned several different religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, and Islam.
Rev. Fred Davie, who is the executive vice president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, was the “chief organizer of the endorsements,” according to Religion News Service (RNS). Davie told RNS, “Our country is at an historic inflection point and in desperate need of moral leadership. This election presents a stark moral contrast between the common good values of the Biden-Harris agenda and the divisiveness of the current administration.”
Union Theological Seminary made headlines last year when photos circulated depicting their students confessing their “climate sins” to plants in the school’s chapel.
Some of the other prominent people on the list include Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor who founded a pro-LGBT church in Colorado, and Robert E. Lee IV, who is the great-great-great nephew of his namesake and left the ministry to become a Black Lives Matter supporter.
Not all faith leaders are throwing their endorsement behind the Biden-Harris ticket. By contrast, Pastor John MacArthur, who has recently been wrangling in Los Angeles courts after keeping his church open despite coronavirus lockdown orders, maintained that true Christians cannot vote for the Democratic Party, given their platform.
During a recent interview with the Falkirk Center, MacArthur said that Trump had called him to express his solidarity with the church for exercising their right to peaceably assemble.
“[Trump] was very gracious and said, ‘I just want to thank you for taking a stand. Church is essential, and I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing,'” MacArthur said. “And then we talked a little bit about, certainly from a biblical standpoint, Christians could not vote Democratic. Because there’s no way Christians can affirm the slaughter of babies, homosexual activity, homosexual marriage, or any kind of gross immorality.”
“No way we could get behind a candidate who was affirming transgender behavior, which of course is really the ‘reprobate mind’ of Romans 1. So I said, ‘These things aren’t even political for us, sir.’ I said, ‘These things are biblical, these things are laid down by the Word of God.’ We love God, we desire to honor him. Upholding righteousness in a society is what a church is supposed to do. So I said any real true believer is going to be on your side in this election because it’s not just an individual, it’s an entire set of policies Christians cannot, in any way, affirm.”
Regarding what he would say to those who claim the Bible has no prescribed political system and offers Christians the liberty to vote for either political party, MacArthur said, “That sounds like 25 or 30 years ago, when the differences were sociological or economic between, you know, ownership and labor. That is long gone.”
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