As Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday (Oct. 21) during remarks at a “faith leaders” event, the crowd erupted in chants of “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”
In a TV episode, this would be the point after the opening sequence where we freeze the frame and have someone look at the camera and say something like, “You’re probably wondering how we ended up here.” So let’s back up to understand how the name of Jesus is at risk of becoming another MAGA rally chant like “Build the Wall!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
During an Oct. 17 rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Harris criticized Trump for appointing three Supreme Court justices with the intention of overturning Roe v. Wade (as happened with the Dobbs decision). Some hecklers started yelling, “Lies! Lies! Lies!” Her statement was actually true, but Trump has been trying to distance himself from some of the implications of the Dobbs decision since it’s not politically popular.
“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris retorted to the hecklers, sparking applause and cheers from her crowd. “I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
It’s faint, but you can hear the “Lies!” chant in the video right after she says that “they did as he intended.” And some initial reports on the rally also noted that was what she was responding to. But in case it’s not clear, I took the software I use to edit Dangerous Dogma and increased the volume on the section when Harris wasn’t talking and the hecklers shouted. The cries of “Lies! Lies! Lies!” are the dominant sound the microphone picked up from the crowd.
So why does this matter? Because a bunch of pastors and conservative Christian activists are now lying about the shouts of “Lies!” After the quip by Harris went viral on social media, a new claim emerged that the comment Harris responded to wasn’t “Lies!” but “Jesus is Lord!”
A Trump supporter who attended the La Crosse rally shared a video on Instagram insisting that Harris was telling people to leave for shouting that “Jesus is Lord!” In the shaky phone video, you can indeed hear someone saying that phrase shortly before Harris’s quip. But there are some problems with the argument (besides the video and audio evidence I’ve already shared).
The video is filmed from the back of the large arena. The person yelling about Jesus seems to be close as they can be heard clearly but Harris speaking into a microphone is barely audible. That would also suggest the reverse: Harris can’t hear the person whose voice we hear in this video. Lots of people shout during rallies; the key is who Harris actually heard and responded to. The best guess would be the words her microphone picked up (“Lies!”). Additionally, the Instagram video is set far back to Harris’s left. But in the media videos of Harris, she looks at people off to her right and much closer.
Yet, this inaccurate claim quickly took off to depict Harris as anti-Christian. Conservative pundit Charlie Kirk pushed it to claim that “Christians are not welcome in Kamala’s Democrat[ic] Party.” Fox News used it to undercut Harris’s remarks about her faith at a Black church on Sunday. Elon Musk even tweeted out the video, adding, “Kamala hates Christians.”
Many pastors quickly amplified the claims about Harris on social media, using it to attack her faith (even though Harris appears to be the only one of the two main presidential candidates who is actually a member of a church). Jack Hibbs, a politically active pastor in California, even repeated the accusation during his sermon on Sunday. Hibbs then urged people to vote against Harris as a righteous act.
Then on Monday, Trump attended a “faith leaders” event that Clay Clark helped organize. He’s the guy who puts together the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling carnival of MAGA politics, Trumpian prophecies, election denialism, and COVID conspiracies. Monday’s campaign event started with comments from several pastors, including Baptist minister and congressional candidate Mark Harris, whose previous run for Congress in 2018 saw his “win” thrown out because his campaign committed voter fraud. Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain and evangelist Franklin Graham also spoke to praise Trump as a righteous person chosen by God to be president again. Eric Trump and Ben Carson both brought up the allegation that Harris had told people they were at the wrong rally for saying that “Jesus is Lord!”
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a faith leaders event on Oct. 21, 2024, in Concord, North Carolina. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
Then Donald Trump came on stage as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the U.S.A.” Trump didn’t mention that the supposedly patriotic Bibles he’s been helping Greenwood sell are printed in China (and are theologically heretical). But he did attack Harris’s faith. Claiming Harris would persecute Christians, he repeated the claims about Harris and the La Crosse rally.
“At a campaign stop, she heard shouting from the background, ‘Jesus is Lord!’” Trump said. “And Kamala Harris ridiculed them, mocked them. … She’s very destructive to religion. She’s very destructive to Christianity. And very destructive to evangelicals and to the Catholic Church.”
“But while Kamala says that people who believe in Jesus don’t belong to her rallies,” he added, “in our movement we love Christians, we welcome believers, and we embrace followers of Jesus.”
The crowd cheered and then started chanting “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” Trump smiled and soaked in the chant like he does when crowds yell “Build the wall!” or “Lock her up!” As the chants continued, several people raised their hands as if in a worship service.
After the failed assassination attempt on Trump in July, he responded by raising his fist and urging his followers to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Since then, that has become the most common chant at his rallies. Numerous speakers — and even some preachers — have started the “Fight!” chanting, including at the faith leaders event. The quick move on Monday to also chant “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” as Trump attacked Harris worries me that this will also join the rotation of chants at Trump rallies.
We must not stand quietly by as the name of Jesus is co-opted and bastardized to be used as a partisan chant. And it’s not merely because of the hypocrisy in chanting “Jesus!” to support someone demonizing Haitian immigrants and who was convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business documents to cover up his hush money payments to a porn star he had an affair with. The name of Jesus does not belong to any political party or the movement of any Caesar.
The problem isn’t what Harris said at her rally but what some Christians are chanting at Trump’s. That is what it looks like to take the Lord’s name in vain.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
A Public Witness is a reader-supported publication of Word&Way.
To receive new posts and support our journalism ministry, subscribe today.
