LIVONIA, Mich. — Standing before hundreds of people in a suburban Detroit chapel, at an event organized by Donald Trump’s campaign, Marlin J. Reed declared that God had called on them to vote for the former president.
“You are being called upon to stand up and face down this darkness and face down these lies and refuse to stop speaking, but to speak up and to stand up and make it known that we are not going to take this,” said Reed, the pastor of New Wine Glory Ministries in Livonia, Mich. “We are not going to lie down. We are not going to allow you to take our country and take our rights and our freedoms.
“Even if it means war, we are not going to allow you to take it,” Reid said to cheers.
Trump’s campaign has directly nourished a fusion of hard-right politics and theology to energize evangelical Christians in swing states. The campaign has launched a “Believers for Trump” program and conducted several calls with conservative faith leaders, overwhelmingly evangelical pastors, on how to mobilize their congregations for Trump. The Republican nominee plans an event today near Charlotte, N.C., with allied pastors.
The “Believers for Trump” initiative includes outreach to Black voters, a traditionally Democratic constituency with which Trump has tried to increase his support. The Oct. 5 stop in Michigan included Black speakers such as Ben Carson, a longtime Trump surrogate who was his housing secretary. Carson urged evangelicals not to shy away from what he called “corrupt” earthly politics.
“Unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot, you’re always choosing between the lesser of two evils,” Carson said to applause. “That’s why God gave you a brain.”
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who spoke at the Republican National Convention and whose Detroit church hosted a Black conservative roundtable with Trump over the summer, rallied the crowd and proclaimed that the United States must remain a Christian country.
Churches in African American communities have long conducted “Souls to the Polls” efforts to mobilize Black voters. Black pastors have a tradition of speaking on political issues with a moral and spiritual lens. Similarly, conservative evangelical pastors have often frankly discussed opposition to abortion in the past but refrained officially from endorsing GOP candidates.
The engagement of faith voters in the 2024 election underscores an unprecedented blending of partisan politics with Christianity at a time when many churches have seen attendance decline and as issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and liberalizing cultural norms dominate debate within many congregations.
At the close of his event with Carson, Reid boasted that the gathering had already prompted some backlash online for bringing politics into a religious space.
“I’m getting attacked on Facebook. I’m being told by several people (that) I’m going to go to jail and I’m breaking the law and you can’t have politics in church,” he said.
He noted that he had not registered his church as a nonprofit that has to remain officially nonpartisan specifically so he could say what he wanted.
