A slew of prominent pastors released statements about the results of the 2016 presidential election on Tuesday, calling for unity, prayer and respect — and offering congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump.
“Now that the presidential election is finally behind us, our nation must put partisan politics and divisive rhetoric behind us as well,” the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said in a statement issued to Faithwire. “Instead of the agenda of the donkey or the elephant, Christians must be about the Lamb’s agenda.”
Rodriguez encouraged believers to “speak power to truth” and to “rise up as the body of Christ and as an independent voice” to hold Republicans and Democrats, alike, accountable. He also offered up prayers for the coming Trump administration and for the country at large.
Other Christian leaders, like Ronnie Floyd, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, offered congratulations to Trump and prayed that God would grant wisdom to the president-elect. Like Rodriguez, he encouraged Americans to embrace reconciliation and peace following the ever-contentious presidential campaign.
“This is a time to rebuild and to reconcile, to lock arms with our fellow Americans and work with our elected officials for a better future,” Floyd said. “We must remember that the task of protecting our rights to life and religious freedom is as much the responsibility of the average American as it is of the individual sitting in the oval office.”
And it didn’t end there. Bruce Marchiano, an actor who stars in Pure Flix’s “The Encounter” and who heads Marchiano Ministries, told Faithwire he’s hoping to see Americans trust God, regardless of where they stood on the 2016 campaign.
“It all boils down to trusting the Lord in spite of what we see with our eyes and what’s going on with our circumstances … just trusting him,” he said. “So, I would just encourage everyone, whether your candidate won or didn’t win, there’s only one posture to take in these times … I think of Hebrews 12:2-3 — ‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.'”
Marchiano continued, “Don’t be looking around at this, that and the other. Fix your eyes on him and follow.”
Others shared similar sentiment, with Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor at Shadow Mountain Community Church, saying he believes the 2016 election has been a “moment in history when God has reminded us that our ultimate citizenship is indeed in heaven, and not on earth.”
Rather than placing focus and inherent trust in fellow men, Jeremiah said he’d like to encourage Christians to look to God, asking for prayer for Trump and his administration, and expressing hope that God will have mercy on the U.S.
“We pray that God might have mercy on our nation and that our leaders might know and fear Him, for as the Scriptures say, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” he said. “This is a time when we must hold fast to our calling to be good citizens and to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, pointing those around us toward our hope in Christ and breathing life wherever there is despair.”
Below, see what some celebrities and other well-known figures had to say about the aftermath of the 2016 campaign:
Pastor Paula White of New Destiny Christian Center said in her own statement that she’s been encouraged to see people of faith coming together amidst such a divisive campaign season, noting that she’s seen evangelicals, Catholics, pentecostals and Baptists, among others, coalesce around “a mutual love for our country and through a mutual faith in God.”
It’s clear that many American preachers are looking for common ground in the wake of a hard-fought presidential campaign — one that deeply divided Americans of all stripes. In addition to the aforementioned statements, some pastors joined together before the election results were even in on Tuesday to call on the country to respect the process as well as the results.
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