Presbyterian minister, Reverend Jennifer Butler, has been named National Faith Engagement Director for the Harris/Walz presidential campaign.
Her job will be get-out-the-vote efforts to “churchgoers” in battleground states. She specifically mentions targeting Catholic voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Mormons in Arizona.
Butler’s worldview contrasts starkly with a biblical worldview. Will her efforts make a difference in the presidential election? We’ll see.
Here are 5 things to know about Jennifer Butler.
1. She is a longtime liberal, progressive activist.
In 2005, Rev. Butler founded the advocacy group, Faith in Public Life, whose mission is to advance the “moral imperative for a just, inclusive and equitable country.’ They lead campaigns for causes such as immigrant rights, voting rights and LGBTQ+ rights. This organization has received millions of dollars from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.
“Inclusive” means special rights to the left’s protected victim groups and “equitable” means giving these groups tax dollars to make things equal.
She served as Chair of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership in the Obama Administration. According to her own website, she has spent “the last three decades strengthening and rebuilding the progressive faith movement.”
She also seeks to target white Protestants in the mainline churches – Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, and her own church, the Presbyterians. These denominations have discarded biblical worldviews on family, marriage, gender, and life issues.
During an interview with MSNBC, Rev. Butler said that “Christianity has long been used to justify the oppression of others.” In announcing her role with the Harris campaign, she never once mentioned “sin”, “salvation” or “gospel”, but she did mention Democrats and the Democratic Party 19 times. She appears more interested in the health of our “democracy” than in the salvation of souls.
In a talk to the Democratic Socialists of America, she claims that people with a lust for power and the power of the state have been “distorting the message of Christ for their own ends.” There is certainly truth in that statement, but I don’t think she applies it to the Democratic party.
She sees her role as a minister and political activist to “help people hear the voice of true Christianity that is about freedom for the oppressed.”
2. She supports abortion.
According to Rev. Butler’s interview in Rolling Stone, “Extremists have sought to use religion as a tool to dominate women’s bodies, but Christians have a long history of being in favor of abortion rights.”
Outlawing abortion, Butler said, violates biblical principles that say women deserve respect and should control what happens to their bodies. “Being anti-abortion was always a fig leaf for racism and anti-regulation/taxation agenda,” she admits.
She called the overturning of Roe v. Wade oppression justified by Christianity and primly declared, “That is not my faith.” She says the Harris campaign is specifically wooing “evangelical women” who support abortion.
3. She supports the LGBTQ+ agenda.
Rev. Butler claims that members of the LGBTQ+ community are exactly the type of marginalized people Jesus would hang out with today. She may be correct. But where she states her belief Jesus would not judge them, she appears to forget Jesus’s words to the women accused of adultery, “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11)
She is in full support of same-sex marriage and for taxpayers to fund health care related to their gender identity. She believes Scripture-based opposition to the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is bigotry and accuses Republicans of using religious liberty as a “weapon” to pass discriminatory bills against the LBBTQ community… like banning gender-affirming care for children.
4. She believes Christianity has been “hijacked” by white supremacy.
In her words, white Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy, faith, and Christianity itself. She calls it a “deliberate attempt to conflate religious identity with ethnic and national identity, to say that America is a nation that is founded by and for white Christians.” She also labels America as an imperial cult and a greedy, bloodthirsty beast.
Christian nationalism is often the label the progressive left uses to attack conservative Christians who hold to a biblical worldview. Many conservative Christian pastors believe that it’s an attempt to intimidate and silence Bible-believing Christians.
Christian nationalism, in her mind, is behind conservative views on gay marriage, banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and mutilating surgeries for minors, overturning Roe v. Wade, state abortion bans or restrictions, and restricting sexually-explicit books to protect children.
Former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann says that being labeled a Christian nationalist shows that Christians are standing up for biblical values. Here at IFA, we constantly pray for righteous leaders who seek the will of God for our nation and would propose laws based on God’s view of morality and justice, which is at odds with the progressive faith movement of America’s mainline churches.
Reverend Butler appears to be more committed to her social justice, equitable agenda of leftist social policies, than she is to advancing the gospel of the Kingdom of God. For example, she believes it’s impossible to follow Jesus and not embrace Critical Race Theory. This philosophy states white people are oppressors, black people are victims, and there is no forgiveness.
As Christians, we are called to interpret politics through the lens of Scripture, not a socialist/Marxist/liberal agenda.
5. She believes in religious freedom “for me, but not for thee.”
Religious liberty is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution in two ways – by preventing the government establishing a religion, and by protecting the free exercise of religion. It’s this free exercise that Rev. Butler appears to have a problem with.
She labels Bible-believing Christians as Christian nationalists and claims we are a threat to her religious freedom. She calls for the end of “Maga Christianity that threatens all our freedoms”, and she believes the Harris/Walz is just the ticket to do this.
Yet, is she concerned for the religious freedoms of grandmothers arrested and imprisoned for praying outside abortion clinics… or florists, bakers and photographers fined and run out of business for refusing their services to gay couples… or teachers fired for not using preferred pronouns… or concerned parents silenced when speaking out against the woke indoctrination in their public school, or churches fined for staying open during COVID, or the FBI investigating Catholics who worship in the traditional Latin Mass as potential terrorists… just to name a few examples.
Religious liberty means people do not have to compromise their biblical values and beliefs in order to conform to culture or government or apostate churches and leaders. In America, religious freedom covers all people and faiths equally.
Let’s pray for Reverend Jennifer Butler.
Dear Lord, we pray for Reverend Butler that she would open her heart to truly and daily believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Break Satan’s chains of blindness and deception that keeps her from the knowledge of Your truth, especially what Your Word says about life, marriage, gender and the sinful nature of man. May she have a powerful Damascus experience, and like Paul be blinded by the light of truth. May she hear your voice calling her name and may she repent.
Lord, in Your grace, may she escape the devil’s snare of lies and be overcome by Your goodness and truth. May she take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ. Bring her into the fullness of life in Christ. We trust in your mercy and cry out for all apostates to return to you. We pray this for her and all false teachers in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Redeemer, and Lord. Amen.
