There is a lot of misinformation circulating, as usual, after something that happened at a Kamala Harris rally in which she was talking about the fact that you do not need to abandon your deeply held religious beliefs to accept that it should not be the government that decides matters that should be decided by women in consultation with their doctors. Some are claiming that someone shouted “Jesus is Lord” and that Harris responded by saying that they were at the “wrong rally” and belong at the smaller one down the street. If you listen to the shouting, there were various things being shouted and almost none of them could be heard clearly if you were the one speaking or indeed anywhere near the front. But let’s imagine for a moment that Harris heard the person who shouted “Jesus is Lord” and was responding to them rather than the people who shouted “lies.” What would it mean for Harris who is a Christian in the Baptist tradition to tell that person they were at the wrong rally?
As a Christian and a Baptist, I can tell you why I might have made a similar quip. I’d have said it because it is not a Christian like me or Harris who needs to be told “Jesus is Lord,” it is Trump. I’d have said it because the voices that think the United States should be monolithically Christian belong at Trump’s rally. Trump claims that Harris is bad news for Jews, but Harris as a Baptist like myself is an advocate for separation of church and state. Those who want only Christian voices heard do not belong at a rally that represents American values and historic Baptist values.
Here is the context of the entirety of the event:
There is a helpful video on Instagram by April Ajoy that I also highly recommend.
In short, the assumption that Harris was responding to the “Jesus is Lord” shout is at best questionable, but if she was, the suggestion that she did so in a way that was attacking Christians is simply ridiculous. When I as a Christian say that Christians should not be obnoxious at rallies and that such lack of decorum is more suited to Trump, that isn’t attacking Jesus or Christianity, it is combatting the distortion of Jesus’ teaching known as Christian nationalism. There is no chance whatsoever that Harris, a Christian, was saying something anti-Christian. As an illustration, I saw that someone wrote “Free Palestine” on a bulletin board dedicated to my university’s Career and Professional Services office. That graffiti will be taken down, not because of any anti-Palestinian sentiment, but because it is graffiti and does not belong there.
The matter is ambiguous, and I’m open to being corrected on this. The quickness of Christians to judge, to misrepresent, to interpret in a hostile way is what should disturb you more than this off the cuff quip that cannot possibly be an attack on Christian faith. A friend shared this cartoon for instance. In doing so there is no indication of awareness of Jesus’ warning that you will be judged in the manner you judge other, but instead a haste to assume the worst, condemn, and distort, in a manner that would be terrifying to anyone who took Jesus’ words seriously.
Have a listen to Kamala Harris speaking at a Baptist church recently. Have a read of this article about the religious backgrounds of the candidates. And for the love of God stop misrepresenting Trump as devout and Harris as anti-Christian when the evidence shows that neither is the case.
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