{"id":33981,"date":"2024-10-27T21:29:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T02:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33981"},"modified":"2024-10-31T21:05:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T02:05:36","slug":"harris-and-trump-lean-into-their-faith-in-appeals-to-christian-voters-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33981","title":{"rendered":"Harris and Trump lean into their faith in appeals to Christian voters in Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two Georgia megachurches hosted presidential candidates last week, highlighting the stark differences between how Kamala Harris<\/a> and Donald Trump speak about faith and what Georgia\u2019s Christian religious congregations expect of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Trump and Harris communicate differently to the public about their faith, religious leaders on the left and the right are casting this election in apocalyptic terms. And both candidates know religious voters will be essential to winning swing states like Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is so good to be here with everyone today and to worship with you,\u201d Harris said from the pulpit to thousands gathered at New Birth Missionary Baptist church in south DeKalb county last Sunday. \u201cOn this day, then, I am reminded, with everything that we reflect on, on the parable from the Gospel of Luke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four thousand people packed the pews of the predominantly-Black megachurch outside of Atlanta, one of the most prominent and powerful Black churches in America \u2013 a point of which pastor Jamal Bryant regularly reminds his congregation. New Birth owns more land than any Black church in America. It gave away $83m in college scholarships last year, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wields its political clout deftly. New Birth\u2019s congregants include many of Atlanta\u2019s most powerful political figures \u2013 mayors, sheriffs, members of Congress. Bryant said it has hosted appearances by five presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But people who attend New Birth aren\u2019t there for a stump speech. And Harris didn\u2019t give one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to give political speeches in a sanctuary, because you\u2019re there to worship God,\u201d said state senator Emanuel Jones, a DeKalb Democrat who attended church at New Birth last week. \u201cTo me, it is not a good use of a sanctuary to try and politicize \u2013 particularly on a Sunday, by the way \u2013 to try and mix politics with religion. I think she does a really good job of keeping them separate. She did that today, and we all should.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris campaigned in Georgia with her pastor Rev Dr Amos Brown, pastor at Third Baptist Church of San Francisco and a contemporary of Martin Luther King Jr and other luminaries in Atlanta\u2019s civil rights history. She told a CNN townhall a few days later that her first call after learning that Biden would be withdrawing was to Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do pray every day,\u201d she told Anderson Cooper. \u201cSometimes twice a day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris will discuss her faith when it comes up, but doesn\u2019t go out of her way to portray her campaign as religiously motivated. Conversely, she never mentioned her campaign directly while speaking at New Birth. She shied away from the political themes common to her political rhetoric \u2013 abortion rights, the cost of living and the general unfitness of her opponent. She used the word \u201cfaith\u201d 16 times in her 14-minute address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFaith is a verb,\u201d she said. \u201cWe show it in action, in our deeds and in our service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she had not come to deliver a political speech, in a church with the flags of dozens of countries lining the balconies, the subtext was clear enough \u2013 a repudiation of conservative xenophobia about immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elaine Montgomery heard it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike she said, when you don\u2019t help people like my neighbors and we all in this world,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cEverything belongs to God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montgomery, 69, from Stone Mountain, Georgia, was wearing a pink hat big enough to see from space that Sunday. She was on her way to vote. Her disdain for Trump\u2019s expression of faith was plain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a man speaking on a level that\u2019s below God, I will say that,\u201d Montgomery said. Her voice lowered. \u201cI don\u2019t really think Donald Trump<\/a> had faith. I really don\u2019t. I\u2019m serious, you know, because if he had faith and he believed in Jesus Christ, he wouldn\u2019t be doing the things he does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith matters in Georgia. White Christian evangelical beliefs correlate with the strongest support for Donald Trump, and about 38% of Georgians fall into that category, according to the Pew Research Center<\/a>. Black voters in Georgia are also much more likely to be religious than the baseline, and Black voters represent about 30% of the electorate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgia, in the heart of the Bible Belt, has one of the highest rates of regular church attendance<\/a> in America at 42%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Sunday, 42,694 voters cast a ballot in Georgia, many going in a \u201csouls to the polls\u201d push regularly organized by churches, particularly in metro Atlanta. In the flurry of conservative election legislation that followed the 2020 election in Georgia, a plan to eliminate Sunday early voting floated through the legislature. Outcry from pastors across the state ended that gambit. Mobilizing religiously-motivated voters is a necessary, if insufficient, requirement for any candidate to win a Georgia election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump found himself in Zebulon, Georgia, last week, doing just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was 45-minutes late to the faith townhall held at Christ Chapel church. Thousands of people packed its hall and sprawled into a parking lot ringed by semi-truck trailers with snipers on the roofs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, without religion, it\u2019s like the \u2013 it\u2019s like the glue that holds it all together. This would be a different country,\u201d he said, noting a declining trend in religious participation, suggesting that \u201cpeople started thinking a little bit differently and they got used to a different way of life\u201d after the pandemic. He spoke about how Christians \u2013 particularly Catholics \u2013 faced unspecified \u201cpersecution\u201d today in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most of Trump\u2019s comments at the \u201cBelievers and Ballots\u201d townhall were campaign fodder about illegal immigration, how great his rallies have been and attacks on Harris and the Biden administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 1,100 people live in Zebulon, about an hour-and-a-half south of Atlanta. Christ Chapel has about 1,600 members, with more at satellite campuses in middle Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Hood, a congregant at Christ Chapel, said he expected Trump to speak about the border and inflation, but also freedom of religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDonald J Trump professes to be a born-again Christian. Does that mean that he\u2019s perfect? Of course not. None of us are. Anybody who says they are is a liar. He appeals to, not just Christians, but all the American people. He loves God and loves people, all walks of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgia\u2019s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, a Republican and ally of the former president, asked Trump about coping with the assassination attempts and the pressure of the campaign. \u201cHow do you lean into your faith and your family to deal with this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI say this. Faith \u2013 when you have faith, when you believe in God, it\u2019s a big advantage over people that don\u2019t have that. It\u2019s a big advantage,\u201d Trump replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the only substantial reference Trump made to his own faith in the abbreviated 40-minute forum for faith voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a longtime activist on the Christian right, succinctly laid out the stakes for antiabortion conservatives as he warmed up the crowd before Trump\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris is \u201cgoing to pass a federal law to impose abortion on demand on all 50 states,\u201d Reed said. \u201cAnd when she\u2019s done doing that, she\u2019s going to repeal the filibuster and then she\u2019s going to pass a federal law imposing term limits on the supreme court which will instantly remove justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts from the court and she\u2019s going to replace them with the most leftwing radical extremist justices ever nominated. That\u2019s her agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first accomplishment listed on the campaign\u2019s \u201cBelievers for Trump<\/a>\u201d website is how Trump appointed three supreme court justices, \u201cwhich led to the end of Roe v Wade and broader protections for religious liberties.\u201d Ending legal abortion is central to the religious conservatism of many of his supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe that life begins in conception. I cannot follow the dictates of being able to abort at any time,\u201d said Carol Whitcomb of Stockbridge, a conservative who attended the Trump forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it also may be a losing political position, even in Georgia. In every state where abortion rights have been a ballot referendum since the end of federal protections, voters have taken the more pro-choice position. Trump has generally avoided talking about abortion on the campaign trail, with no mention of it at all in a later appearance in Georgia last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Stargel of McDonough, Georgia, who attended the forum, has registered a change in Trump\u2019s posture toward abortion, she said. \u201cBut, you know, I believe God has been talking to him, too. God has him here for a reason. I understand that women want to be in charge of their bodies. I get that. But in that case, they make birth control. Use it. Don\u2019t just keep killing babies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed highlighted the stakes of the election: \u201cWe gather in this sanctuary 13 days before not only the most important election of our lifetimes but one of the most important elections in American history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Harris was at New Birth a few days earlier, the church\u2019s pastor Bryant used similar rhetoric, likening this political moment to the biblical story of Esther and her obligation to save Jews from death. \u201cIf you are silent in this moment, your family will not survive,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cThis is not the time for y\u2019all to be bougie and stuck up. Generations of your unborn family are waiting to see what you do next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Georgia megachurches hosted presidential candidates last week, highlighting the stark differences between how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump speak about faith and what Georgia\u2019s Christian religious congregations expect of them. Though Trump and Harris communicate differently to the public about their faith, religious leaders on the left and the right are casting this election in apocalyptic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2580,7301,2005,2302,1230,2872],"class_list":["post-33981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-christ","tag-faith","tag-georgia","tag-harris","tag-trump","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33983,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33981\/revisions\/33983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}