News
Featured Image
Pete (right) and Chasten ButtigiegEthan Miller / Getty Images

February 19, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg invoked Christianity against Republicans yet again Tuesday evening, this time claiming political support for President Donald Trump could not be reconciled with the Bible.

Referencing past comments the former South Bend, Indiana mayor had made suggesting Trump and faith are incompatible, CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked Buttigieg at a presidential townhall if it was “impossible to be a Christian and support Trump,” Fox News reported.

“I'm not going to tell other Christians how to be Christian, but I will say I cannot find any compatibility between the way this president conducts himself and anything I find in Scripture,” he replied. “Now, I guess that's my interpretation, but I think that it's a lot of people's interpretation and that interpretation deserves a voice.” The answer came shortly after declaring that “God does not belong to a political party.”

The answer is striking in light of Buttigieg’s own well-known deviations from Christian teaching, including his “marriage” to another man and his support for effectively-unlimited legal abortion

The candidate has repeatedly refused to condemn late-term or partial-birth abortion, and pledges to appoint pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court and make the abortion drug RU-486 available over the counter. As mayor, he vetoed Women’s Care Center’s re-zoning application to build a pro-life pregnancy center near the site of a proposed abortion center, and he has largely dodged questions about the discovery of thousands of babies’ corpses on the property of a deceased area abortionist.

Buttigieg has even tried to justify abortion on religious grounds, claiming in September “there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath.” Pro-lifers responded at the time that Buttigieg was twisting Genesis 2:7’s account of God creating Adam – “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” – while ignoring long-settled biological criteria that establishes a living human being is created upon fertilization.

Buttigieg’s own brother-in-law, Michigan pastor Rhyan Glezman, responded at the time that Buttigieg was a “modern-day pharisee” who has “manipulated” and “weaponized” Scripture in the name of politics, and is “making up their own rules and regulations.”

As for Christian support of Trump, the current president has defended religious liberty and established a strong pro-life record. His record is more mixed on LGBT issues, though he generally errs on the side of conscience rights and has consistently opposed the gender-fluidity movement. 

Additionally, the Bible does not require Christians to shun individuals or leaders with sinful pasts, nor does it dictate how Christians are to weigh the relative flaws of two competing candidates for political office. Most denominations of Christianity do, however, recognize certain issues as holding a clearly higher moral urgency than others, such as the “intrinsic evil” of abortion

Buttigieg currently holds a one-delegate lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democrat presidential nomination.