With less than 48 hours before Election Day, there is palpable anxiety in the air, and many of the country’s religious leaders feel it, too.
As reports circulate that post-election violence is a near-certainty, especially in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C. – likely because the perpetually angry, counter-revolutionary left senses another President Donald Trump/GOP victory – some of the country’s religious leaders are urging calm and imploring Americans not to destroy our country over an election result.
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“It does not benefit our nation, doesn’t benefit black people or white people, Democrats, or Republicans, for Washington, D.C. to go up in flames,” Pastor James Ward told the Daily Caller.
“It’s not a political issue at all, it’s a spiritual issue that is affecting our nation,” Ward added.
The outlet noted further:
Police in major cities across the nation, including Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles, are prepping for expected election violence, the New York Times reported Sunday. This looming violence would follow riots and looting throughout the country through the coronavirus pandemic.
The DCNF reached out to many religious leaders for advice and perspective on this potential election violence. Several declined to comment, such as New York-based Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl and retired Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Joseph Chaput.
But others had the courage to put aside their politics and speak up. Like Ward.
“There are more effective ways of getting the kind of results that we need and that has to come through peace,” he said he would tell rioters. “It has to come through earnest dialogue.”
Crown Heights, New York-based Rabbi Yaacov Vehrman the DCNF, “We’re working with local leaders of all the communities in Crown Heights, black and Jewish leaders, other leaders, and we are all on the same page.”
“We do not want violence,” he added, noting further that the New York City Police Department is taking reports and threats of violence “very seriously.”
“If there is violence, we are in touch with law enforcement and we trust NYPD, that they are going to be able to protect the community,” Vehrman told the Daily Caller. “But we are suggesting the doors of the synagogues remain locked, that people are extra alert, and just follow the news.”
“We just want to live our lives,” he said. “We’re all New Yorkers. We just want to live peacefully, support our families, and live a healthy lifestyle and take this country in a good direction.”
Meanwhile, for Pro-Life Voices for Trump co-chair and Priests for Life national director Fr. Frank Pavone said Democratic leftists have attempted “a coup” over the past four years against President Trump. They’ve also “incited distrust of the Electoral college itself and threatened various power grabs through such things as packing the Supreme Court.”
“This is the kind of thing that has to be addressed,” the Catholic priest told the DCNF. “The best way to avoid physical violence, which leaders on both sides of our political divide strongly oppose, is to avoid the non-physical violence embedded in the failure of the Left to accept the results of the 2016 elections.”
