Matt Chandler Pushes Progressive Talking Points During Election/ Voting Sermon
This entire post is adapted from an X thread by Megan Basham
Last week, Matt Chandler, megachurch pastor and head of the massive church planting network Acts 29, gave a sermon on politics. In it, he pushed the false narrative, peddled by progressives, that the only reason that the GOP took up the issue of abortion was because they “were losing elections” and “developed a strategy in the 70s to co opt us and make [Christians] their people.”
He goes on to say: “[The GOP] know we’re easily manipulated. We are easily worked into a frenzy. We can be controlled by them. They can, and that’s what they did, and they are not for us. They do not all believe what we believe. This is a strategy.”
He does then call out the left for their pro-abortion policies, which he calls “morally reprehensible.” BUT the overall upshot of his sermon recycles the old “both sides are bad.” He specifically stresses that he does not trust Trump. Where does that leave his congregation? Likely sitting out or voting third party. He leaves his hearer with the impression that the two sides are moral equivalents.
It is true that prior to the 1970s, Republicans did not view the sanctity of life as part of their platform. (Editor’s note, probably because abortion was only legalized across the country in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling) But a generation of Christians labored and prayed and strategized and lobbied to try to get one of the major political parties to take up their cause.
These were faithful brothers and sisters following Scripture’s commands to “rescue those being led away to death” and to “take up the cause of fatherless and oppressed.”
In peddling this false left-wing narrative, Chandler is dismissing their efforts and sacrifices. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he is spitting on their legacy.
The work of politics is to use the leverage you have as a voting constituency to get legislators to take up your preferred policies. There is nothing dirty or sneaky in that. It is what the political process is. We should celebrate the fact that Christian pro-lifers of a previous generation did so so successfully with the GOP. We should not denigrate their work.
And remember–for decades these pro-lifers tried to get Democrats to take up their cause too and failed. That is to the Democrats’ shame. We should thank God at least one party was willing to give life a seat at the table.
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