It seems that ever since Donald Trump was elected president after winning the crucial evangelical vote, it has become more and more common for politicians to cite Bible verses to back up partisan talking points.
This week both Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren of (D-Mass.) used Bible verses to defend their disapproval of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, The Christian Post reported.
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The two senators argued that those who support Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation are “complicit in evil,” and that Scripture backs their claims.
At a press conference Tuesday, Sen. Booker argued that the nomination presented a moral dilemma.
“I’m here to call on folk to understand that in the moral moment there is … no neutral,” Booker said during the press conference on Capitol Hill.
“In a moral moment there is no bystanders. You are either complicit in the evil — you are either contributing to the wrong or you are fighting against it,” he continued.
Booker said that Kavanaugh’s nomination should be opposed, referencing the famous “the Lord is my shepherd” prayer from Psalm 23.
“There is a saying from the Abrahamic faiths in one of the Psalms that says ‘Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'” he said. “We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but that doesn’t say ‘though I sit in the valley of the shadow of death.’ It doesn’t say that ‘I am watching on the sidelines of the valley of the shadow of death.’ It says, ‘I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death.’ It says, ‘I am taking agency that I am going to make it through this crisis.'”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren also invoked the Bible while speaking at Tuesday’s presser.
“Corporations have won 62 percent of the cases they’ve been in whenever they are up against workers, shareholders, people who represent the public interest,” she began, arguing how detrimental it would be to have another conservative justice on the Supreme Court.
Warren then cited Matthew 25 to prove that Kavanaugh is an “immoral” pick.
“This moment is crystalized in Matthew 25,” she said. “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Warren added that “it is not enough to have a good heart — we are called to act,” arguing that she and others that are opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination are “on the moral side of history.”
Warren noted that it is important to value all life, which is ironic considering she has been a staunch pro-abortion candidate for years.
Just months ago, she called a 20-week abortion ban “unconstitutional,” saying that the ban “would put women’s lives and women’s health at risk.”
“Government officials ought to listen to women whose lives are on the line,” she stated while on the Senate floor.
Most of the fear that comes from Democrats who oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination stems from his conservative pro-life beliefs.
While Democrats have called press conference after press conference, Christian leaders in America have mostly praised the nomination of Kavanaugh.
Rev. Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and adviser to President Trump, spoke out abot the opposition to Kavanaugh:
Those on the progressive, socialist left are of course already enraged. Another conservative justice threatens their agendas and the direction they were trying to push this country. We need to thank God for this long awaited opportunity to change the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Graham stated in July. And we need to be faithful to pray for Judge Kavanaugh and his family during the very intense confirmation process.
Other pastors have chimed in, including Greg Laurie, the senior pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside and Irvine, California. Laurie has called for prayer over Kavanaugh’s nomination, stating that millions of Americans will be praying that he will be confirmed.
Laurie himself has asked God to “grant Judge Kavanaugh His wisdom to continue this proud legacy of defending our unalienable rights, and may God give him favor for a speedy and fair confirmation.”
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, also joined the chorus of supporters, saying, “I join millions of Americans in congratulating Judge Kavanaugh for his nomination, a well-respected jurist widely regarded for his intellect, temperament, as well as for his dedication to the Constitution.”
“While certainly conservative, Judge Kavanaugh is well within the mainstream of American legal thought and theory,” Rodriguez said.
(H/T: The Christian Post)