Recently, a megachurch pastor in Texas sparked uproar from the left and liberal Christians after he claimed voters who support the Democratic Party are not following the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible. Landon Schott, the senior lead pastor of Mercy Culture Church, a megachurch with multiple congregations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, recently blasted the Democratic Party on issues such as abortion.
Schott recently said on social media, “I’m not a big Trump guy. I’m not a Republican … but there is only one party that is standing up at their convention saying that ‘we’re going to overturn Roe v. Wade.’ Listen to me very clearly. I know people don’t like this because most people aren’t pastored, most people aren’t confronted spiritually, and most pastors just care if people show up and give. And if they show up and give, then they don’t care.”
He continued explaining his stance, “I couldn’t care less. I don’t really care if you like me. I don’t care if you go to our church. I care that you know God and that you’re right with God. … If you think that aligning with a party that is flippantly murdering children and celebrating it … friend, you are not on the Lord’s side.”
After backlash toward the pastor’s comments, he made a follow-up post that added further context to his original statement. “I’ve been asked over and over, ‘Pastor Landon, are you saying you’re not a Christian if you vote for a Democrat?’ LET ME BE VERY CLEAR… THAT IS CORRECT!!” he said.
Schott emphasized, “YOU ARE NOT A BIBLE-BELIEVING, JESUS-FOLLOWING CHRISTIAN IF YOU SUPPORT THE GODLESS ROMANS 1 EVIL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! … Please, stop pretending you’re a follower of Jesus. You’re simply a lukewarm ‘pretend Christian!!!’ (Romans 1) + (Revelation 3),” he wrote.
The Christian Tribune reported on similar comments from Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur who claimed that “true believers” in Christ would vote for former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election. “There’s no way that a Christian can affirm the slaughter of babies, homosexual activity, homosexual marriage, or any kind of gross immorality,” MacArthur claimed.
He added, “No way we could stand behind a candidate who was affirming transgender behavior, which of course is really the ‘reprobate mind’ of Romans 1.” He added that he emphasized to Trump that the topic abortion and LGBT “aren’t even political of us,” but rather “these things are biblical; these things are laid down by the Word of God.”
The Grace Community Church pastor further told Trump that “any real” Christians will be voting for him in November. “I said [to Trump] ‘any real, true believer is going to be on your side in this election,’ because it’s not just an individual, it’s an entire set of policies that Christians cannot in any way affirm,” he said.
MacArthur also warned, “There’s a sense in which God takes His hand of blessing off that society. When He gives them up, it means he gives them up to the consequences of their choices. If you follow that pattern, what you get is Joe Biden, who is the epitome of all those things that I just talked about,” he said, while simultaneously claiming immorality is running “rampant in his [Biden’s] own family at an epic level.”
Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Deuth,_Landon_Schott,_Calvin_Robinson_%26_Ronnie_Floyd_(53203844476).jpg