The pastor of a megachurch in Texas announced on Instagram on Monday that people who vote Democrat are not Christians.
Landon Schott, senior pastor of Mercy Culture Church, a multi-campus church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, wrote, “I’ve been asked many times, ‘Pastor Landon, does voting Democrat mean I’m not a Christian?’ And I can tell you straight away: Yes, it is!!
He continued, “If you support the atheistic evil of the Democratic Party, then you are not a Bible-believing, Jesus-following Christian!”
Schott founded the non-denominational church in 2019, according to the church’s LinkedIn account. He founded the church in 2017 after receiving a blessing from disgraced Gateway Church founder Robert Morris.
Schott currently leads six campuses and eight services at the church, including one with a Spanish-speaking congregation. The Rev. Tom Lane, the former senior pastor of Gateway Church who claims he was unaware of the child sexual abuse allegations against Morris, now serves as an apostolic elder at Mercy Church.
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In a post on Monday, Schott called the Democratic Party “the party of the devil,” adding that those who support the Democratic Party are “simply lukewarm ‘fake Christians.'”
“I’m not a Republican, and evil exists on both sides,” Schott wrote, “but tell me again how you can say that as a Christian based on the Bible and support the demonic policies of the Democrats!”
Schott’s remarks came as the Democratic National Convention is currently underway in Chicago, an event that kicked off Monday to promote Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee.
Schott makes his point
On Tuesday, Schott further emphasized his position in a video post.
He cited the Democratic Party’s views on abortion, homosexuality and transgenderism as reasons for his comments. He said the Democratic Party supports sexual perversion, idolatry and child sacrifice.
“I know people don’t like this because most people don’t see their pastors, most people aren’t spiritually oriented, and most pastors only care if people come to their churches and donate,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you like me or not. It doesn’t matter whether you come to our churches or not. … To align yourself with a political party that casually kills children and celebrates it… you, my friend, are not on the Lord’s side.”
“That’s not true,” he said, addressing concerns that Democrats are the only ones tackling poverty. Instead, he said Democrats are destroying cities with policies that don’t work.
He added: “The most devastated cities in America are Democrat cities because their policies aren’t working. It’s unbelievable.”
He also scolded black Christians who plan to vote for Harris because she is black.
“That’s what gay Christians do: They try to put their identity above Christianity,” he said. “Gay Christian? There’s no such thing. There’s no such category. Am I a black Christian? Sorry, there’s no such category. There’s no such category. There’s no such category for white Christians.”
The pastor said he pastors a multicultural and diverse church, but added that his role as a pastor is to cut through false and sinful thinking by condemning the party’s satanic ways.
Schott argued that voting Democrat is the same as committing a crime.
“Any group of people who pretend to be Christians but vote for policies that are antithetical to Christianity and biblical values is literally worshiping the devil,” Schott said. “Anyone who votes for these policies is being deceived. You are not a true follower of Jesus.”
“This is the downfall of America, the downfall of American Christianity,” he emphasized.
Controversial pastor Greg Locke commented on Schott’s post, saying, “Amen!! I pray the media is more tolerant of you than when I said it a few years ago!! They are out with a vengeance. Good luck man of God!!”
Prominent pastor Dwight McKissick responds
Prominent pastor Dwight McKissick, senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, disagreed with the idea of condemning people simply based on the party they voted for.
“It is impossible to vote for either party, or for the candidate of either major party, for president, without making moral compromises,” McKissick wrote in a post yesterday on X. “The Kingdom of God is not on the ballot. Neither is Christ the King.”
McKissick explained that both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of fraud.
“Our voting decisions, when assessing or defining justice, should not be based on our perception of which party or candidate represents justice,” he said, “but rather on who we believe will best govern our country and fulfill the responsibilities of government as enshrined in our nation’s founding governance and goals documents.”
McKissick cited former President Trump’s “34 felony convictions, a racial discrimination lawsuit that was settled for money, and a sexual assault confession” and urged people not to question his morality based on his voting decisions.
Other pastors condemn voting Democratic
In recent years, other pastors have made similar statements to Schott about voting Democratic.
In a July sermon, Alton R. Williams, pastor of World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church in Memphis, Tennessee, told his congregants that he could not vote for a party that “endorses sexual perversion of any kind.”
“I can’t vote for a party that would allow transgender people to go into the women’s bathroom,” he says. “I can’t. I can’t support a party that wants to cut off girls’ breasts and turn them into boys. I can’t support a party that says a boy today can become a girl tomorrow. I can’t support a party that wants to remove God from its platform.”
In 2022, Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued that Christians are “disloyal” if they “vote wrong,” which many interpreted as a condemnation of Christians who vote Democrats.
“We have a responsibility to make sure that Christians understand the stewardship of their vote, their responsibility as believers to vote — the urgency of voting, the treasure of voting,” Mohler said, “and understand that to the extent they don’t vote or they vote incorrectly, they’re being disloyal, because voting is a powerful stewardship.”
Earlier this month, Charlie Kirk, founder of the Christian nationalist group Turning Point USA, encouraged pastors to tell their congregations to vote for Donald Trump.
“There’s only one way to save this country,” Kirk said at a political training conference in Dallas, Texas, “and that’s to wake up the beast that is the American church.”
In a recent podcast with The Royce Report (TRR), Phoenix pastor Caleb Campbell pushed back against the idea that Christians must use political power to save America.
Pointing to Jesus’ confrontation of Peter’s violent behavior in the Garden of Gethsemane, Campbell said, “What Jesus is showing us is that if you really want to change society, if you really want to shape culture, if you really want to see righteous people, you have to lay down the sword and take the way of the cross. As Philippians chapter 2 says, ‘Follow me and take the form of a servant.’
“So my concern with American Christian nationalism is not the end they strive for – justice and a just community – but the means to get there – dominance, power and culture war.”
Freelance journalist Liz Lykins has written for WORLD Magazine, Christianity Today, Ministry Watch and other publications.
