Pastors musicians & poets want to convince fellow believers Christian doesn't mean voting Republican

A group of pastors, musicians and poets want to convince fellow believers that being Christian doesn’t mean voting Republican

Doug Pagitt and his band of Jesus freaks pull their big orange bus into a North Dallas church and step out into the gloom. It’s been raining on them since Pennsylvania, and today is no different. Was God telling them something? Pagitt, a pastor from Minneapolis, lets out a sigh. “I won’t take this as a sign,” he says.

For two weeks this group of musicians, poets and pastors from both sides of the political divide has been driving across the country proclaiming the good news – or, to most Americans these days, what is simply news news: that to be Christian, you don’t have to vote Republican.

That you can love gay people and the flag at the same time, support Black Lives Matter along with the troops, and that God is perfectly fine with that. Most of all, the group wants liberal and conservative Christians to join forces and reclaim the gospel from the likes of Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr, who told Fox News that evangelicals had found their “dream president” in Donald Trump. Come 6 November, they’re asking people of faith to set aside cultural differences and vote for the common good, and, by doing so, flip Congress.

The Vote Common Good tour – the name is emblazoned across the tour bus and RV that follows behind – is a rolling revival-cum-hootenanny performed in churches, city parks, pubs and parking lots, replete with klieg lights, backdrop banners and a portable stage pulled from a pickup truck. A list of who’s who in progressive Christianity participate or pop in: activist Shane Claiborne, writer and theologian Diana Butler Bass, hip-hop artist Genesis Be.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/31/trump-democrats-evangelicals-pro-jesus-republicans