Pastor Keith Mannes announced on Monday that he has had enough of his church devoting their selves more to the president than to God.
Mannes had served his community of East Saugatuck, Michigan for more than 30 years at Christian Reformed Church. But the pastor says he can no longer, in good conscience, defend his congregation.
“There’s a quote from Martin Luther King where he said, ‘The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,’” Mannes told the Detroit Free Press. “That just hit me hard because I think, broadly, the white evangelical community in our country has abandoned that role.”
Mannes added, “The question of the church largely and how it’s functioned in this moment has been really disturbing. That’s been troubling enough that I need to lay it all down.”
Mannes went on to say that he felt a disconnect with the church the moment Trump came down the escalators at Trump tower to announce his presidential run.
“From the time he came down the escalator… It’s only been building ever since,” Mannes said. “From the beginning I thought there’s something about this man and the instrument that he is for a lot of things that are just very not Jesus.”
Mannes’ last sermon at Christian Reformed Church was Oct. 11.
“It just floors me how church-going people who read the Bible and sing the hymns can show up at a [Trump] rally and just do that deep bellow like an angry mob supporting these horrible things that come out of his heart and his mind,” Mannes said. “It just began to trouble me so much that I am a pastor in this big enterprise.”
