Impeachment Debate Suggests Shifting Religious and Political Winds

(RNS) — The impeachment process is getting biblical. Literally.

Perhaps it all started a few days before the impeachment vote, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told journalists that she had been praying for President Donald Trump and rebuked a reporter who asked if she hated the commander in chief.

“I don’t hate anybody,” she said, explaining that her feelings were a byproduct of her Catholic faith.

Or perhaps the God talk really began in earnest during the debate before the House of Representatives made its historic decision to impeach Donald Trump last Wednesday (Dec. 18) when Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Georgia, compared the president to Jesus Christ.

“Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president and this process,” he said.

His religious ribbing did not go unanswered. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly fired back on Twitter, responding to Loudermilk’s remark by citing Romans 1:25, which reads, “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

These are but a few examples of what has become an atypically religious — and particularly Christian — impeachment process, with lawmakers, faith leaders and even members of the same famous evangelical family invoking the Almighty while making the case for and against…