One of the more prominent evangelical/fundamentalist pastors who hasn't engaged in right-wing hankering has begun carrying water for the religious right--and in a big way. John MacArthur pastors Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley, and has long been well-respected in the born-again community. His daily radio show, "Grace to You," is one of the most popular shows on Christian radio. Historically, he has been very critical of political hankering. However, People for the American Way discovered that late last month, MacArthur delivered a sermon in which he declared that the Democratic Party has become "the anti-God party." No, I'm not kidding.
We’re living in the outpouring of the wrath of God in the category of His abandoning a culture, and we’re living in the sequence that is here--a sexual revolution, a homosexual revolution, a reprobate mind that unleashes everything, including murder on a massive scale, and hate toward God.
It was shocking to me a few weeks ago, as I said last Sunday, to see that these very things that God hates and that bring down God’s judgment were affirmed as part of the Democratic Party platform. Open sex with government-provided contraception, murder of babies in wombs, God left out of the platform, and homosexual behavior even, advocating homosexual marriage--an oxymoron, since that’s impossible.
Now, all of a sudden, not only is this characteristic of our nation, but we now promote it. One of the parties, the Democratic Party, has now made Romans 1, the sins of Romans 1, their agenda. What God condemns, they affirm. What God punishes, they exalt. Shocking, really. The Democratic Party has become the anti-God party, the sin-promoting party. By the way, there are seventy-two million registered Democrats in this country who have identified themselves with that party and maybe they need to rethink that identification.
See for yourself
here:
So what are you saying, Pastor John? Are we to therefore align with a party that sold its soul to racists and segregationists? One whose current presidential standard-bearer has repeatedly expressed callous sentiments about the poor, has a small fortune stashed away in offshore bank accounts, may very well have lied about when he left the venture-capital firm he helped found and thought nothing about trolling in an utterly discredited conspiracy theory? One that finds waterboarding acceptable, even though any thinking person would consider it torture? One who elected a president who almost certainly lied to the American people in order to get us into a war? And on, and on, and on.
As if that wasn't enough, earlier in the sermon MacArthur spewed the common fundie shibboleth that gays "unleashed on the world the horror of AIDS." That claim, of course, has been debunked several times over.
Comments on the YouTube video are disabled, but it's possible to like and dislike the video--so head over there and start piling up the dislikes.
A week earlier, MacArthur declared that abortion even in cases of rape and incest is forbidden because abortion is inherently an "anti-God act." So in other words, a woman should be forced to bear a child that is a product of an anti-God act. This sermon is on YouTube as well--pile up the dislikes.
MacArthur's sermon is a textbook example of how fundie pastors have managed to throw our politics completely off-kilter over the last 30-plus years. In this world, all that matters is that the Democrats want to kill babies and let gays marry, so therefore the Democrats are unworthy of support. It's why you've got areas that, on paper, have absolutely no business voting Republican giving GOP candidates ridiculous winning margins.
Fortunately, a younger generation of born-agains--including yours truly--have figured out that there's a lot more to politics than just abortion and gays. And once those of MacArthur's generation pass on (MacArthur is 73), it'll be a lot easier to win them over.