Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wants to lecture Christians on what they should and should not believe.
Mayor Buttigieg is running for the White House. He’s openly gay and married – a central theme of his candidacy. He’s also an Episcopalian – which according to the Mainstream Media – makes him the nation’s top theologian.
On Sunday – he was bad-mouthing pro-Trump evangelicals during an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“It’s something that really frustrates me because the hypocrisy is unbelievable,” Buttigieg replied to a question about why the evangelical community is devoted to the president. “Here you have somebody who not only acts in a way that is not consistent with anything that I hear in scripture or in church, where it’s about lifting up the least among us and taking care of strangers, which is another word for immigrants, and making sure that you’re focusing your effort on the poor.”
“But also personally, how you’re supposed to conduct yourself,” Buttigieg continued. “Not chest-thumping, look-at-me-ism, but humbling yourself before others.”
“And we see the diametric opposite of that in this presidency,” he added. “Even on the version of Christianity that you hear on the religious right, which is about sexual ethics — I can’t believe that somebody who was writing hush money checks to adult film actresses is somebody they should be lifting up as the kind of person you want to be leading this nation.”
Mayor Pete also took a few cheap shots at Vice President Mike Pence.
“If you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me – your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,” he told a gathering of LGBTQIA+ supporters.
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins defended the vice president during an interview on Starnes Country.
The issue is not that Mayor Pete has a problem with the words of Mike Pence, he has an issue with the words of Scripture,” Perkins said.
He also took issue with the mayor’s unfair smear of evangelical supporters of President Trump.
“The reason evangelicals were thrust into the arms of Donald Trump was because of the hostile policies of Barack Obama promised to continue under Hillary Clinton,” Perkins said. “Donald Trump, while he may not have been their first pick, his policies have been unlike any other Republican president we have had when it comes to the issues of life, human sexuality, religious liberty.”
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, wondered which God the mayor is serving.
“A lot of liberals say they love God and serve God but the God they are serving is a God of their imagination – a God who loves abortion and hates Israel. The real God – the God of Scripture, hates abortion and loves Israel,” the pastor said on my nationally-syndicated radio show.
The mayor may quote from the Good Book in public — but privately he wants to shove Evangelical Christians into the closet. In essence, he has weaponized his faith.
“If Pete Buttigieg has trouble with Mike Pence’s belief in traditional marriage, his quarrel really is with Jesus,” Jeffress said. “Jesus is the one who outlined traditional marriage.
Pastor Jeffress implored the mayor to stop calling people hateful names just because they are upholding the teachings of Christ.
“Don’t call be intolerant for upholding that belief,” he said.
Mayor Pete tries to justify his beliefs by picking and choosing which parts of the Bible are relevant. He says judge not, but then he judges. He denounces chest-thumping while thumping his chest. He preaches tolerance while casting stones at those who defend natural marriage.
That’s the Gospel of Mayor Pete.