Responding to a reader’s concerns, Part 3: Can a liberal Democrat be a Baptist . . . a Christian? 
by Bill Jones

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Click here to read Part 4.

Click here to read Part 5.

I was especially disappointed by your use of quotation marks enclosing the word “Baptist” as applied to Kamala Harris; then you made clear the reason – “her liberal political views are too much.” That was about as transparent as it gets – if someone is liberal politically, then they’re not a real Baptist, in your eyes, probably not even a real Christian.

My wife and I ran into this same attitude at the church where we were members for 17 years, from 1987-2004. On the eve of the Iraq War in March 2003, the pastor used a Sunday morning sermon to denounce what he called “Hollywood liberals” who were critical of George W. Bush. The climax of his diatribe came when he thundered, “George W. Bush isn’t stupid. It’s these Hollywood liberals who are stupid!” This was received with a chorus of “amens” and applause, the likes of which I had never heard in all our years at that church.

As a member of that congregation, whether I’m a Democrat or a Republican is immaterial. It would have disturbed me either way, because this was a misuse of God’s house and a time that was purportedly focused on worshiping God. The pastor had instead profaned God’s house by using the pulpit as a political lectern, endorsing a politician and political party. He had made anyone who might support the other party or who might be critical of the president feel small and out of place among his/her supposed church family.

At that time, the people in that church had been our church family for over 15 years, yet in that moment we felt like outsiders; we felt as if everyone in that place thought less of us; we were no longer equal church members. Our politics – but even moreso, our stands against SBC violations of Baptist principles AND against using God’s house as a political precinct – made us outsiders, ostracized even though we shared the same faith in Jesus that these people professed. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I would not have wanted someone else to feel the way we felt.

You’ve just done the same thing in putting quotes around “Baptist” because of Kamala Harris’s “liberal political views.” In doing so, you denigrated my faith and the faith of many other Baptists and Christians who hold liberal political views because of – not despite – our faith in Christ. We take Jesus’s words in Matthew 25: 31-46 very seriously and believe that Jesus calls – even demands – us to oppose policies that put children in cages, separate immigrant families, turn away human beings fleeing oppression in their countries; that Jesus calls us to oppose using God’s house to bully those who don’t agree with us politically; that Jesus calls us to oppose dispersing peaceful protesters with tear gas so the president can use God’s holy word – which he gives no evidence of ever having opened – as a photo op to secure his political base. Yet Mike Pence supported every one of those policies.