Recently, Nashville-based pastor Ray Ortlund of Immanuel Church deleted a post on social media endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris after receiving substantial backlash. Ortlund’s post and the subsequent reaction represent the contentious debate among the Christian vote ahead of the presidential election.
Taking to Threads, a feature of Instagram, Ortlund shared an update to the now-deleted endorsement, writing, “I have deleted a post from earlier today because it was being misinterpreted. I should have foreseen it. My fault.” The pastor received mixed reactions from users in the comments section.
“Ray — Can you help us better understand how it was misinterpreted? Sounded pretty straightforward — you’re voting for Harris.I have no idea how you come to that decision. But if that’s your conviction, please explain it,” one person asked in confusion.
Screenshots shared to X show Ortlund’s original post, which read, “Never Trump. This time Harris. Always Jesus.” One person responded to his statement, writing, “How can you vote for Harris/Walz as a believer? Do you think that killing babies is something Jesus would support? Put your personal views on the person aside and vote for the party that is going to support your morals and religious beliefs. I believer that any party that has ANY association with murdering children of GOD should be immediately out of the question.”
Ortlund responded, “Abortion is a horrible evil. But the evils on the other side have risen to levels that jeopardize the foundational rule of law in our country. I am thinking long-term and voting for us to have a chance at national renewal.”
Another person questioned Ortlund’s assertion, writing on X, “What “evils on the other side” could he possibly be referring to that are greater than the mass murder of the most innocent souls among us? Imagine how many more babies would be murdered if Kamala became president and chose the next two supreme court justices/or they pack the supreme court? This is TDS on full display and our babies are going to pay the price.”
The Christian Post reported on various other criticisms of Ortlund’s controversial Harris endorsement. “Politically-motivated prosecutions of one’s electoral opponents, government-encouraged censorship of dissenting voices on social media, prosecutions of peaceful pro-life protestors, executive orders that have no basis in laws passed by Congress, the refusal to enforce laws already on the books,” Vice President of Discovery Institute John G. West said.
“This only a short list of what has been happening. But Ortlund assures us that in order to protect the rule of law we must vote for the same people responsible for these things. His comments are exceptionaly [sic] revealing about the echo chamber in which some leading evangelicals live,” he added.
Christian musician Samuel Sey stated, “If Ray Ortlund really believed abortion is a horrible evil, he wouldn’t be voting for Kamala Harris. This is shameful.” Former GOP North Carolina lieutenant governor candidate Allen Mashburn sounded off on Ortlund, claiming that it “can’t be ‘This time Harris’ and ‘Always Jesus.'” He added, “Those two statements are diametrically opposed to each other and not biblically cohesive,” added Masburn, who lost the 2024 primary against current GOP candidate Mark Robinson.
Featured image credit: Lonnie Tague for the Department of Justice, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kamala_Harris_(cropped).jpg