Democratic pastors run to reclaim Jesus from Trump's Republicans

A band of white Democratic pastors have a striking message ahead of November's US midterm elections: Republicans have hijacked Jesus for political gain, and we're not going to stand for it.

For decades, it's been a truism that Republicans have cornered the Christian market -- at least when it comes to white voters.

But these ministers are so fed up with President Donald Trump, and particularly his policies against immigrants, that they're running as Democrats in November to rein him in.

"The Christians we're hearing in Washington don't reflect the Jesus of the Gospels," one of the insurgents, Adam Hamilton, told AFP.

As the head of a 24,000-member Methodist megachurch in deeply conservative Kansas, Hamilton would typically fit the profile of a right-wing Republican Christian.

However, along with support for fiscal responsibility and a strong military, the 62-year-old Hamilton backs legal access to abortion and protecting LGBTQ rights in his campaign for the US Senate.

Citing the "crassness and mean-spiritedness" of Trump's presidency, he said what's happening in Washington is "inconsistent with the values that I've preached for 36 years."

"I want to stand up and be heard saying: 'This is not OK.'"

Democrats have a long tradition of clergy in politics, but predominately among African Americans.

In Congress now, there's Senator Raphael Warnock, who leads Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr was pastor.

But the last white, Democratic pastor in Congress was Bob Edgar, a Methodist minister representing Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1987.

Now, in these midterms, no fewer than seven white clergy or ministers-in-training representing the Democratic Party are vying for congressional seats.

From Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas and Tennessee, they're mostly political newcomers. Three of them are women.

But they're united in aiming to reclaim the Bible from Republicans and using Christian teaching to support more liberal policies on immigrants and the poor.

Perhaps the most prominent is James Talarico, a 37-year-old Presbyterian seminarian running for a Senate seat in Texas.

In a staunchly conservative, Republican-led state, his Scripture-laden speeches have helped him make deep inroads.

"You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off health care while cutting the taxes of billionaires," Talarico said in one speech.

One reason Republicans have dominated the white Christian electorate is that Democrats have gradually shifted from being identified as the party of the working class to a secular elite where religion can be unfashionable.

Indira Duggirala, co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Interfaith Council, acknowledged that there has been a "vacuum in that religious space in Democratic politics."

The emergence of these faith-oriented candidates -- which she said happened organically -- "is not an unwelcome change."

"It's OK to be a Democrat and be religious," she told AFP, while emphasizing that government must be secular.

For many Democrats, as well as many Christians, Trump's MAGA movement and the rise of Christian nationalism have been alarming.

There's been particular revulsion at the way Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds Pentagon prayer meetings and uses stridently religious language to justify the US war against Iran.

"Christian nationalism is one of the biggest threats to democracy in the United States," said Robb Ryerse, an evangelical pastor who is vying for a congressional seat in Arkansas, another predominantly red state.

But Ryerse, 51, and others in the Democratic Christian pushback say they are ready to right wrongs.

"We need people of faith to stand up and say the United States has a separation of church and state," Ryerse said, describing one aspect of his mission as helping to "clean up the mess" made by fellow white Christians on the right.

If he wins, Hamilton would be the first Kansas Democrat elected to the US Senate since 1932 -- and he says he's ready to make that history.

"It's time," he said. "I think we're going to do it. There are a lot of people out there who are saying we need change."