Popular Evangelical pastor, Ray Ortlund, who hails from Nashville where he leads Immanuel Church, decided to announce to the world that he would not be voting for former President Donald Trump, but instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a post published on social media platform Threads. The backlash was swift and furious. It didn’t take long for Ortlund to feel the heat and opt to take the post down.
It’s always sad to see a pastor, someone who is supposed to be a shepherd leading the people of God closer to Him, compromise their principles for the sake of being “nice.” Jesus never called His people to be nice. He called them to love others more than themselves. To love their enemies. Love is an action. Loving others is obeying the law of God and treating folks the way God commands. And that doesn’t always mean being nice. I don’t think calling the Pharisees white washed tombs and sons of the devil is very nice, do you?
via The Christian Post:
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, more than a little confused.
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 replied to the individual by saying, “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.”
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Someone on X also questioned the point that Ortlund was attempting to make, stating what evils Trump could possibly have done that are greater than murdering thousands upon thousands of pre-born children.
“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 exceptionally [sic] revealing about the echo chamber in which some leading evangelicals live,” he said.
Samuel Sey, a Christian musician, weighed in on Ortlund’s endorsement saying, “If Ray Ortlund really believed abortion is a horrible evil, he wouldn’t be voting for Kamala Harris. This is shameful.”
Allen Mashburn, former Republican North Carolina lieutenant governor candidate, took Ortlund to task by saying that it’s impossible to say, “This time Harris” and “Always Jesus,” as “Those two statements are diametrically opposed to each other and not biblically cohesive.” Nailed it. You can’t be all for Jesus and support someone as wicked and vile as Harris who completely supports abortion, enthusiastically and without limitations. The kind of cognitive dissonance you have to possess to try and make these two points of view coherent is severe.