This story was reported by Reid Forgrave in Minneapolis, Jenny Berg in St. Cloud, Jp Lawrence in Mankato, Trey Mewes in Dundas, Sean Baker in Rochester, Jana Hollingsworth in Duluth, Kim Hyatt in Lake George, Minn., and written by Reid Forgrave.
ST. CLOUD — Congregants filed into Jubilee Worship Center, an evangelical church just off Highway 15 here, on a recent Sunday. All around were indications of election season.
On church property, visible from the busy highway, were political signs: A Republican candidate for Minnesota House, a nonpartisan candidate for St. Cloud mayor. (Any candidate may pay the church to place signs there.) On a table inside, a sign read, “1 in 3 Christians doesn’t vote. That’s about 25 million people.”
A voter guide detailed policy differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on immigration, inflation, guns and abortion. A church member handed out instructions for a letter-writing campaign asking Christians in Michigan, a crucial swing state, to “vote for the candidates who stand for biblical values.” The script mentioned “transgender ideology,” high grocery bills and criminals crossing America’s borders.
“All we do is encourage people to vote and do their research so they know what the positions are, seek the Lord and vote accordingly,” Rev. Mark Johnson, senior pastor at Jubilee, said after the service. “We don’t promote any candidate.”
Some 70 miles away in southwest Minneapolis, Mayflower Community Congregational United Church of Christ took a very different tone. “PROTECT MULTIRACIAL DEMOCRACY,” read a big sign facing Interstate 35W. Other signs proclaimed progressive values: protecting queer kids, the environment, immigrants and refugees.
From the pulpit, the Rev. Susie Hayward talked about humans building walls: In Palestine and Israel, along our southern border. A couple weeks before, the church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Sarah Campbell, discussed this election in stark terms, drawing on the analogy to German resentment and grievance that led to Adolf Hitler. She spoke of two types of churches, those that enable fascism versus those that resist it.
Neither the church in St. Cloud nor the church in Minneapolis endorsed a candidate. But it was plain where they stood.