David Barton: The Bible Says Pastors Should Recruit Political Candidates

Christian pseudo-historian David Barton, whose entire career is built on convincing gullible Christians that his personal political agenda is always justified by the Bible, is now using that approach to get pastors to recruit candidates for the 2022 midterms… because that’s what Jesus wanted.

He made the comments at Mountain View Baptist Church in Cowpens, South Carolina on Monday:

“If you go to Exodus 18:21, the Bible is very clear,” Barton said. “The Bible says, ‘Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.’ OK, guys, let’s have elections. Let’s have local, county, state, and federal elections.”

“But how do you get those [candidates]?” Barton asked. “Who does that providing? It’s interesting: the spiritual leader. Moses says — and he repeats this in Deuteronomy 1 and Deuteronomy 16 — he says, ‘I went and recruited from among you good people, and I brought them before you and set them before you, and you chose from among those good people.’ In other words, ‘I recruited candidates for office, and then you elected the candidate you wanted to office.’ So what happens is there’s a recruiting effort going on in the background. Moses is the one who did it.”

As Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch correctly notes, the Exodus passage Barton references shows Moses unilaterally appointing judges to settle disputes, not recruiting candidates for a democratic election.

And obviously, the Bible passages don’t take into account modern political parties, gerrymandering, or how Barton’s preferred candidates want to get rid of democracy altogether.

It would’ve been just as easy for Barton to say God placed Joe Biden in the White House and it’s the obligation of Christians to honor that leadership. But he would never say that. Because Barton is a lying partisan hack, not a Bible scholar who deserves any respect for his faith-based arguments.

(via Right Wing Watch)