Galatians On Adding Politics to the Gospel

I have Christian Democrat friends who can’t believe that any Christian could ever vote for Donald Trump.

I have Christian Republican friends who can’t believe that any Christian could ever vote for Kamala Harris.

This is my life as a pastor.

I like what Pastor Rich Villodas recently said on Twitter (I’ll never call it “X”!!) and I hope to embody this as as well:

Earlier this fall, I saw something else on Twitter that was much more disturbing in the form of this retweet from Dr. Jemar Tisby:

Christians In Name Only??? I had to explore further and read the original tweet from Metaxas, where he retweets a callout of Tisby by name:

I’ve gathered that Jemar Tisby is associated with an official group called “Evangelicals for Harris.”

Let me be clear: I think it’s fair for Christian Republicans to state why they think Christians should vote Republican and not Democrat. And it’s fair for Christian Democrats to state why they think Christians should vote Democrat and not Republican. In fact, this can even be healthy when it’s done with love, respect, humility, and in the spirit that Pastor Rich describes above. But even when it isn’t done with love, respect, and humility, I know it’s still going to happen and I understand why.

But what is not ever okay, and what the Bible clearly condemns with the utmost severity, is adding politics to the gospel.

Let’s take a look at Galatians 1:6-9…

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

So what is the gospel? First off, it’s what makes someone a Christian. Someone who believes the gospel is a Christian, period. So what is it? A few more Scriptures to help us out:

⁹ If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved…¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” -Romans 10:9-10, 13

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. -John 3:16

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. -Ephesians 2:8-9

I could expound on what “Jesus is Lord” means and about Jesus’ invitation to follow him, but the point I want to make here is: JESUS SAVES. Nothing else. And in fact, if you add anything else to this, Galatians 1 says you will be under God’s curse! (Some translations say “eternally condemned”) This is strong, strong coffee that we should not mess around with.

Now go back and look at Eric Metaxas’ tweet about Jemar Tisby and other evangelical leaders like Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, LaTasha Morrison, and musician Derek Minor: “Evangelicals for Harris” are all CHINOS — Christians In Name Only. God is not fooled. Neither should we be fooled.

I mention Tisby, Rah, Morrison, and Minor because they are the four whom I’m most familiar with their work. Their ministries have all helped me in my walk with the Lord and understanding of Scripture. I have good friends who are good friends with Tisby, Rah, and Minor. I’ve heard Tisby and Rah speak live at conferences. I know for a fact that they have declared with their mouths, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead, and they teach others to do the same. But Metaxas just stated that Tisby, Rah, Morrison, and Minor aren’t Christians because they are voting for Kamala Harris. He is saying that to be a Christian requires a vote for Donald Trump, or at the very least, requires that you vote for someone other than Kamala Harris, though Metaxas’ long-standing platform for Trump indicates the former.

According to Eric Metaxas: The gospel (to be a Christian) is that Jesus + voting for Donald Trump is what saves you.

I want to reiterate that I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m a student of the Bible and take its words to be the authoritative Word of God.

But who is Eric Metaxas and why does what he say matter, outside of the 191,000 people who viewed his retweet? I first heard his name after he authored the biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, which was widely celebrated among Christians of every stripe. He used his platform to become an ardent supporter of Donald Trump’s first presidential election, gaining a huge following by those on the political right, and has stayed the course.

Then there’s Christian institutions like my alma mater Cornerstone University, bringing in this Republican celebrity to speak on campus in the chapel to impressionable teenagers and young adults as the headliner for an event titled “Christianity in America: Declining Toward Insignificance or Resurging Toward Revival?” On Instagram, Cornerstone describes Metaxas as a Christian influencer the world desperately needs who is engaging courageously in bold conversations, of which we give all praise and glory to the Lord. (Screenshot #3)

Other Republican celebrities like Betsy DeVos and Tudor Dixon were brought in to chapel and campus events the same semester. CU President Dr. Gershon Moreno-Riaño has appeared as a guest on Tudor Dixon’s podcast and he writes articles for Fox News, an explicitly Republican media outlet. All of which the school celebrates on their social media pages as the advancement of CU’s brand and God’s kingdom. And all of which are a part of Moreno-Riaño’s idea of the Christian mission of the institution and the gospel, which he articulates in this interview with ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism).

But this wasn’t the Cornerstone or the Grand Rapids Theological Seminary that I graduated from. This is a radical shift to the political right by the board and new president Dr. Gershon Moreno-Riaño, hired in 2021 after a 42 to 6 no-contest vote from existing faculty (with 14 abstaining) resisting his hiring due to this very marriage of the gospel and politics and the culture of fear and intimidation toward anyone who disagreed. This fear and intimidation included forcing faculty to sign loyalty oaths, purging the campus of diversity initiatives, and firing any faculty who disagreed. Removing these faculty members (over 150 faculty and staff have left CU in GMR’s tenure!) is described by Moreno-Riaño as “removing the dross, removing the weaknesses, removing the weaknesses that don’t belong” in the ABWE interview.

The problem here is not Republican politics. It is the marrying of politics with the gospel. It is the adding of politics to the gospel, both overtly and subtly. I see both Democrat Christians and Republican Christians doing this, and both need to be warned severely by Galatians 1:6-9, with the most overt examples being highlighted in this blog post. If we believe in the Bible as Christians, we must proclaim it prophetically (speaking biblical truth), just as the Old and New Testament authors did.

I hope you can hear me that this isn’t about being Republican or Democrat. It is about changing the gospel and it’s about idolatry. It would be naive for us to think idolatry only happened in the Old Testament or in the Church of Galatia. It is happening right now, and we need proclaim the same Scriptures to it that the biblical authors did. This will displease people because once an idol has its grip on you, it’s a painful process to release it. So most don’t. Paul knew this, and couldn’t let that be his driving force as a minister of the gospel, and neither can we. It’s no coincidence the next verse following the Church’s idolatry centers on this:

¹⁰ Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. -Galatians 1:10

For more on the situation at Cornerstone University, you can listen to my podcast interview with retired professor Dr. David Turner. You can also view, sign, and share our pastoral letter that we are sending to the CU board and president.

See my follow-up post “Why We Can’t Merge Jesus With Our Political Party”. Subscribe below to receive future posts from the whole blog or this category only:

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Noah Filipiak

Founding Pastor at Mosaic Church

Noah is the founding pastor of Mosaic Church, a multi-ethnic church in urban Grand Rapids, MI. He is a grad of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.
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Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
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