Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest church ministries in Southern California recently defended speaking at a rally of former President Donald Trump as the election draws near. Laurie maintained that he sought to “point people to Christ” during his remarks at the event.
Laurie took to X, sharing a video statement about speaking at the rally in Coachella. However, the prominent pastor also noted that he would be more than willing to speak at a rally hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris, demonstrating that he doesn’t show partisanship when sharing the Gospel.
He wrote in his post, “I was asked last Saturday to speak and pray at a Trump rally in Coachella. I agreed to do so. BTW, If I was asked to speak at a Harris rally I would do so as well. When I go into settings like this, I go as a representative of. God’s Kingdom. Some would say that Christians should not be involved in politics. I disagree. Here are some thoughts about that as well as my complete opening remarks and prayer at that event.”
Laurie explained in the video shared to his X account, “My job as a follower of Jesus, and specifically as a pastor, is to represent Christ. And I understand that when I go into any setting, I’m there as a representative of the Kingdom of God, and my primary objective is to point people to Christ.”
The Harvest pastor criticized the idea that followers of Jesus should refrain from political invovlement. “Christians shouldn’t get involved in politics,” Laurie questioned, “Where would you get that idea?” Christians have always been urged to influence society to reflect the teachings of Christ.
Furthermore, Laurie disagreed with the commonly touted “separation of church and state” argument. “That was in a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a particular person who asked about this. It was not in any of the documents, the founding documents of our nation. And the objective of Jefferson in writing on that particular topic was to keep the government out of the Church, not to keep the Church out of government,” he added.
“We as Christians must permeate, we must saturate our culture. Our job is to shine as bright lights and function as salt,” he continued. “Jesus said, ‘You’re the light of the world, you’re the salt of the Earth.’” Laurie added, “We show our light through our good works and the things that we do to help others in preaching the Gospel. And we are salt by stopping the spread of evil because that’s what salt did back in biblical times. They would rub it into meat so it would not rot.”
Watch Laurie’s message below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.