A panel on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” criticized the prayers held at Trump rallies.
MSNBC contributor Jen Palmieri called the prayers “apocalyptic,” asking a writer for The Atlantic, McKay Coppins, “If you imagine a loss for this ticket, you know, what are these rallies and the religious — and the prayers sort of sowing in this crowd of Trump supporters?”
“I think the concern you’re getting at is the one that was rattling around in my mind as I studied these prayers, which is that, of course, if you believe that this election is a battle between good and evil and that God is on your side, if your side loses, you have to believe that something is amiss, right?” Coppins told Palmieiri. “It plants the seeds of conspiracy theory. It plants the seeds of election denialism.”
“I’m almost just as concerned as what happens if Trump wins. I quote toward the end of the piece from a prayer that was given in Iowa, where the pastor who is praying promises righteous retribution if Donald Trump is reelected against those who would seek to do evil,” Coppins said, referring to a recent piece in The Atlantic.
“And again, you know, I think that both sides can be guilty of ratcheting up the stakes of any given election to be too high, but this is an example of where if you believe that God is on your side, it becomes very risky that you believe that a win is not only an electoral mandate, but a divine mandate to do whatever you want,” he continued. “And so I do think that we need to think about that and keep that in the back of our minds as we’re looking at some of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump campaign.”
The criticism comes as mainstream media and left-wing personalities have increasingly condemned Christian nationalism and evangelical involvement in the political sector.
Earlier this year, Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla appeared on MSNBC, claiming that the beliefs of “Christian nationalists” are problematic.
“The one thing that unites all of them … as Christian nationalists – not Christians by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different – is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress. They don’t come to the Supreme Court. They come from God.”
She added that “men” are “determining what God is telling them,” which is to stand against abortion, gay marriage, and other progressive issues.
Liberal pastors convened at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Public Theology and Public Policy in New Haven, Connecticut to sign a declaration opposing “religious nationalism.”
The declaration’s authors called for religious leaders to “launch a season of preaching the moral issues of living wages and union rights, healthcare and ecological justice, an end to the spilling of innocent blood, a re-imagination of criminal justice, and the protection and expansion of voting rights and equal protection guarantees.”
According to the pastors, these issues are critical “moral and spiritual” matters for the 2024 presidential election.