A Reuters story about increasing political activism by the “religious left” since President Trump’s election annoyed some Religious Right pundits this week. On Thursday, the American Pastors Network’s Sam Rohrer, along with his guests Gary Dull and Dave Kistler, devoted their entire “Stand in the Gap” show to trashing the religious progressives highlighted in the Reuters story.
Rohrer was quite fond of his formulation that, unlike the Religious Right, the “religious left” is in fact “irreligiously wrong.” Rohrer and his co-hosts were not shy about judging the progressive religious activists as “false prophets” and “false teachers” that the Bible warns against.
Dull said that progressives deny the “authority of scripture” and a “biblical worldview” and he offered one possible explanation:
I have found that a lot of the leaders and pastors, a lot of the pastors in this particular movement are ladies, and we believe as we look at the word of God in its true sense, that the word of God teaches us that ladies do not, well, they should not be in the pastorate.
Rohrer has previously said that having women in political leadership is a mark of God’s judgment upon a nation.
Kistler ticked off a list of issues motivating progressive activists—providing sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, protecting LGBTQ people, defending Obamacare, denouncing Trump’s proposed cuts in foreign aid—and decreed them “all leftist causes…that are very, very unbiblical in nature.” Kistler said flatly that it is not possible for a “Bible-believing Christian” or “genuine, true believer in Jesus Christ” to be part of the “religious left.”
The show really went off the rails when they began listing people, organizations and religious denominations that are part of the interfaith Shoulder to Shoulder campaign, which describes itself as “dedicated to ending anti-Muslim sentiment by strengthening the voice of freedom and peace.” The Shoulder to Shoulder steering committee includes a number of Jewish organizations, Protestant denominations, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But according to Rohrer,
No one gets on that list unless they have agreed to the Islamic Quran piece of the equation that says that you cannot, that you cannot be a part of that unless you agree with a portion of the Quran which says that Jesus Christ is not God. That’s right. That Jesus is not the son of God. That is a requirement for getting on this list.
Kistler read part of the long list of participants and said,
Sam, this is unbelievable, that some of these what have been considered down through the years mainline denominations have actually signed onto a document in connection with the Islamic Society of North America denying that Jesus is the son of God.
Added Kistler, in what was most certainly the most accurate thing said during the nearly hour-long program, “Sam, it’s absolutely unbelievable.” The source for this unquestionably unbelievable claim is anti-Islam activist Mark Christian, who presented a webinar for APN last Friday called “Beheading the Church” on “how the church has compromised truth by forming unbiblical alliances with Islam.”
