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LIVONIA, Mich. (AP) — Standing before hundreds of people in a suburban Detroit chapel, at an event organized by Donald Trump's campaign, Marlin J. Reed declared that God had called on them to vote for the former president.
“You are being called upon to stand up and face down this darkness and face down these lies and refuse to stop speaking, but to speak up and to stand up and make it known that we are not going to take this," said Reed, the pastor of New Wine Glory Ministries in Livonia, Michigan. “We are not going to lie down, we are not going to allow you to take our country and take our rights and our freedoms.”
“Even if it means war, we are not going to allow you to take it,” Reid said to cheers.
Trump's campaign has directly nourished a fusion of hard-right politics and theology to energize evangelical Christians in swing states. The campaign has launched a “Believers for Trump” program and conducted several calls with conservative faith leaders, overwhelmingly evangelical pastors, on how to mobilize their congregations for Trump. The Republican nominee plans an event Monday near Charlotte, North Carolina, with allied pastors.
The “Believers for Trump” initiative includes outreach to Black voters, a traditionally Democratic constituency with which Trump has tried to increase his support. The Oct. 5 stop in Michigan included Black speakers such as Ben Carson, a longtime Trump surrogate who was his housing secretary. Carson urged evangelicals not to shy away from what he called “corrupt” earthly politics.
“Unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot, you’re always choosing between the lesser of two evils,” Carson said to applause. “That’s why God gave you a brain.”
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who spoke at the Republican National Convention and whose Detroit church hosted a Black conservative roundtable with Trump over the summer, rallied the crowd and proclaimed that the United States must remain a Christian country.
Churches in African American communities have long conducted “Souls to the Polls” efforts to mobilize Black voters. Black pastors have a tradition of speaking on political issues with a moral and spiritual lens. Similarly, conservative evangelical pastors have often frankly discussed opposition to abortion in the past but refrained officially from endorsing GOP candidates.
Democrats have also stepped up outreach to churchgoing voters.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee hosted a call to launch its “Souls to the Polls” effort with the civil rights activist Martin Luther King III, who endorsed Harris and called Trump “a disaster for Black America." The campaign has kicked off its own "Souls to the Polls" program and set up a faith advisory board of progressive faith leaders that includes Harris' pastor, Amos C. Brown, who leads Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Harris has visited Black churches this month, including New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta on Sunday morning.
The engagement of faith voters in the 2024 election underscores an unprecedented blending of partisan politics with Christianity at a moment when many churches have seen attendance decline and as issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and liberalizing cultural norms dominate debate within many congregations.
At the close of his event with Carson, Reid boasted that the gathering had already prompted some backlash online for bringing politics into a religious space.
“I’m getting attacked on Facebook. I’m being told by several people, I’m going to go to jail and I’m breaking the law, and you can’t have politics in church," he said.
He noted that he had not registered his church as a nonprofit that has to remain officially nonpartisan specifically so he could say what he wanted.
“I knew this day was coming a long time ago. We’re a different kind of charter,” he said.
A former New York playboy who was once viewed with deep skepticism by evangelical Christian leaders, Trump is now embraced as a champion of religious liberty by the Christian right. GOP events are filled with Christian iconography and many Trump's supporters say he has been divinely blessed, particularly after he survived an assassination attempt at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One man at Trump’s October rally in Butler carried a large wooden cross.
Trump often posts Christian prayers and images. He has licensed a “God Bless the USA” Bible — made in China and selling for $59.99 — that includes copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance alongside the King James Version text and the lyrics to his campaign walkout song, “God Bless The USA."
The campaign's program for Christians includes a “Believers and Ballots” program. It aims to boost vote-by-mail and in-person early voting efforts by training “Church Captains” who will coordinate their respective congregations on behalf of the campaign, according to a program overview. That overview includes a disclaimer warning churches to consult legal counsel about how congregations can participate in the program.
Trump-aligned groups including Turning Point USA and the America First Policy Institute have outlined plans to mobilize conservative Christian voters in the election around cultural topics such as abortion, LGBTQ rights and public education curricula.
“How many times do we need to emphasize that there are civilizational defining issues on this? If we lose, it’ll be largely because pastors and Christians arrogantly say to God, ’We don’t care. We’re more religious than Donald Trump. I hope they enjoy the gulags,” said Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.
The campaign has had missteps in its outreach to faith voters.
Trump posted an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Sept. 8, when Catholics celebrate the Nativity of Mary, eliding the nuance of the two figures. While his campaign has been eager to spotlight Black pastors who support Trump, the campaign also incorrectly listed one Detroit Black pastor as a supporter in its promotional materials. That pastor is an ardent Harris backer.
In July, Trump faced backlash for telling an audience of conservative Christians that they “won’t have to vote again” after the November election. “Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” Trump said. “You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Evangelical leaders in Trump's orbit have increasingly used the rhetoric that he is “anointed” to fight "spiritual warfare” against Democrats.
White evangelical Christians overwhelmingly support Trump this year, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. White Catholic voters also largely support the former president’s reelection bid. But Trump significantly lags in support among other faith communities, including mainline protestant Christians, Hispanic Catholics, Black protestant voters, Jewish and Muslim Americans, and atheist or agnostic voters, according to Pew.
Not all evangelical Christians are turning out for Trump. Some faith leaders have launched an Evangelicals for Harris campaign targeting their fellow evangelicals to turn out for her.
The event in Livonia featured scant Biblical references. Carson, in his remarks, claimed that immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally were violent criminals intentionally sent by foreign countries to the border “where foolish people would take care of them.”
“Frankly, we see the opposite on the other side," Albert Mughannem, a realtor in Livonia who came to support Carson. “We see evil, we see demons.”