NEW YORK — In the midst of a famine in the professing American church for biblical instruction on selecting leaders for civil government, public records show that a ministry leader at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, founded and led by popular megachurch pastor and author Tim Keller, has been a consistent donor to the Bernie Sanders campaign.
The Federal Elections Commission website, which records the political donations of Americans under the names of their employers, shows that Tiffany Koch, the ministry director at the West Side campus of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, made 76 donations to Sanders since October.
The donations were made several times a week, for example, on February 1, 2 and 5, and on April 18, 21, 22 and 23, with amounts varying from $15 to $100. Next to Koch’s donor info reads under employer and occupation “Redeemer Presbyterian Church/Ministry Director” located in New York, NY. The total donations to date amount to $2,449.
As previously reported, Sanders, a Vermont Democrat, is a same-sex “marriage” supporter and believes that abortion should be legal until birth. He is also self-identified as a socialist.
“Can you name a single circumstance at any point in a pregnancy in which you would be okay with abortion being illegal?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Sanders during a town hall meeting in September.
“It’s not a question of being okay,” Sanders replied. “I believe that it is wrong for the government to be telling a woman what to do with her own body.”
“I guess the genesis of the question is that, you know, there are some Democrats who say after five months, with the exception of the life of the mother or the health of the baby, that perhaps that’s something to look at,” Bair said. “You’re saying no.”
“I am very strongly pro-choice,” Sanders replied. “That is a decision to be made by the woman, her physician and her family. That’s my view.”
Sanders also told students at Liberty University that same month, “I believe in a woman’s rights, and the right of a woman to control her own body. I believe gay rights and gay marriage. Those are my views, and it is no secret.”
As previously reported, Casey Fulgenzi, a self-identified progressive who serves as the manager of social media for Redeemer Presbyterian Church, as well as the assistant manager for Keller’s resource site Gospel in Life, has likewise expressed his support for Sanders.
In February, Fulgenzi wrote on social media that he will “happily vote for either [Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders] when the time comes.” He had shared an article last September on “The Christian Case for Bernie Sanders.”
“He’s Jewish, but his character, words and actions are more Christ like than any of the Christian candidates,” Fulgenzi wrote on April 16 in sharing that he went to hear Sanders speak at a local church. “We deserve that in our next president, whether he or she be Muslim, Atheist, Christian or Jewish.”
Thabiti Anyabwile, the leader of Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C., a congregation planted by church health advocate Mark Dever, who serves on the board for Keller’s Gospel Coalition, recently announced that he will rather vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
“Let the hate begin. But if choice is between Clinton and Trump, I’m voting Clinton. I’ll go back to not voting when this man is defeated!” he wrote on social media on May 9.
Tom Palumbo, a deacon at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, advised Christian News Network that he believes voting is a “philosophical matter” and he would not consider it concerning or sinful for church leaders to vote for candidates such as Bernie Sanders. Messages for Koch and Keller were not returned.
A number of other congregations were listed on the Federal Elections Commission website, with Dawn Aberg, education director at the Church of the Holy Comforter of Charlottesville, Virginia; Frank Elliott, senior minister of the Church of Truth of Los Angeles, California; Scott Shirley, pastor of Church in the Cliff of Dallas, Texas; and Lisa Webb, administrative assistant at Church of the Good Samaritan in Knoxville, Tennessee among those who have donated to Sanders.
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