Last month, Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina joined multiple state legislators, various candidates for office, and radical religious-right activists at Temple Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, for the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s "Salt & Light Conference."
As we reported following the event, Cawthorn delivered a Christian nationalist harangue in which he declared that he is waging a “spiritual battle” in the supposedly “evil and vile” Washington, D.C., against people like Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her “cold, evil eyes.”
During his remarks, Cawthorn urged the conservative Christian audience to get involved in politics by encouraging them to follow the biblical examples of David, Daniel, and Esther, who he claimed "influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles."
We'd be very interested in hearing Rep. Madison Cawthorn explain how David, Daniel, and Esther—Jewish figures mentioned in the Hebrew Bible hundreds of years before Jesus—"influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles." pic.twitter.com/6hXyA3qUrb
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 28, 2021
As we noted in a tweet, David, Daniel, and Esther are Jewish figures who were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible hundreds of years before Jesus or the existence of Christianity, so it makes no sense to insist that they "influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles."
Predictably, Cawthorn doesn't actually care about the coherence or accuracy of his statements and has now turned those remarks into a fervently Christian nationalist reelection ad for his campaign. The ad, which was released Sunday afternoon, urged Christians to “take our country back.”
Where are you, men and women of faith?
If we lose this country, our children will never know freedom.
Stand united as men and women of faith to fight for America! pic.twitter.com/FQNKo8vfRs
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) October 3, 2021
