Tim Walz's Church Doesn't Like Calling God 'He', Supports Reparations, Pride Parades

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz attends a church that preaches beliefs related to gender, race and sexuality that many Christian denominations strongly oppose.

Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, identified The Pilgrim Lutheran Church of St. Paul as a parish during a 2020 briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials released by Pilgrim Lutheran Church instruct parishioners not to refer to God with male pronouns, push congregants to support reparation funds, encourage them to observe Ramadan, and include a modified gender-neutral version of the prayer of Sir, among other liberal practices.

Pilgrim Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a mainline Protestant denomination that has been criticized by some conservative Christians for ordering transgender i lesbian bishops as well as for his own to hug of LGBT ideology.

“The ELCA is, by and large, an American liberal Protestant denomination,” Jonah Wendt, a policy adviser for Mike Pence's Advancing American Freedom and a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri, told the Daily Caller News Foundation Synod. “They reject the inerrancy of the Scriptures, they order women to the pastoral office [and] hold what many would believe to be unbiblical views on abortion and homosexual behavior.”

Pilgrim Lutheran Church in 2015 approved “guidelines for language in worship” where the congregation stated that “a patriarchal culture gave rise to the writing of Scripture and the selection of the canon” and, to rectify the alleged injustice, pledged to use neutral language of gender to describe God. Church members, for example, are encouraged to “choose non-anthropomorphic language” such as “chicken” or “baker” to refer to God, and are asked “not to limit them by following them with pronouns male or female”.

The guidelines instruct parishioners to refer to God using titles that indicate actions but do not imply gender, such as “lawyer” or “healer.” Walz Church also uses a modified version of the Lord's Prayer, beginning with “Our guardian, our mother, our Father in heaven” instead of the traditional “Our Father who art in heaven”.

“This approach is certainly unscriptural,” Wendt told the DCNF. “Throughout the Bible, God chooses to use male pronouns and we should take God at his word. I hope that any Christian, Lutheran or not, would run away from a pastor or church body that chooses to change the way they represent who they are God to suit his own political agenda.”

During the racial unrest following the death of George Floyd in 2020, Walz's church encouraged its parishioners to take to the streets and protest for racial justice, seconds to a Pilgrim Lutheran social media post. The church led its members in vigils and marches to protest Floyd's death as well as “Come hear community updates about uprisings/riots, how we can support our neighbors, and how to pray especially for our neighborhood.”

Walz faced criticism for his handling of the Floyd riots, failing to deploy the Minnesota National Guard to Minneapolis the day its mayor and police chief called for help to quell looting and arson that were intensifying in the city, the New York Times. reported. Damage in Minneapolis from the riots totaled $107 million, with more than 1,000 buildings burned or damaged. seconds in the Minnesota Reformer.

“It was obvious to me that he froze under the pressure, under a calamity, while people's property was being burned,” Minnesota Republican Sen. Warren Limmer recently told the NYT.

Racial justice is a major focus of Pilgrim Lutheran Church, with the congregation also pushing its members to give to a reparation fund hosted by a local non-profit organization to provide housing grants to black residents in St. Paul so that the predominantly white congregation could “atone” for their role in systemic racism.

“We as white citizens and congregants have been complicit in the systematic exclusion of black, indigenous, immigrant and other people of color from the full participation and benefits of the common good,” a church statement said. “We regret the suffering caused by our racism. We strive to more fully live out the Gospel commitment to love our neighbors as ourselves by listening well, changing our hearts, and partnering with our neighbors to build a community of anti-racist justice where all can thrive.”

Walz signed a bill in 2023 that would send money to communities allegedly harmed by the criminalization of marijuana, Star Tribune reported. A Democratic state lawmaker who sponsored the bill called it “a form of reparation.”

The Pilgrim Advocates for Racial Equity team was responsible for drafting the church's reparations program. A similar team, the Pilgrim Racial Task Force, housed a two-part forum on “white privilege” in October 2019, according to a social media post.

Walz's church has also promoted dozens of pieces of left-wing literature to help its parishioners become “anti-racists.” The Project 1619Which one teaches that America is fundamentally racist, was one of the headlines.

Pilgrim Lutheran Church also takes a liberal stance on issues of sexuality and gender by sending its members to leave at gay pride paradesworking for to amplify the “voices of women and non-binary/gender non-conforming individuals”, having gender neutral bathrooms i celebrating “departure day”, among other initiatives.

Vouchers signed an April 2023 bill that empowered the state of Minnesota to revoke custody of parents who deny their children sex reassignment, hormone replacement or cosmetic surgery, among other interventions.

The Pilgrim Lutheran Church, like Walz himself, positions himself as an ally of the Islamic community by encouraging its congregants through its now defunct Twitter account a attend meals celebrating the Muslim holy day of Ramadan and for providing the signs to stick on their windows wishing those around them a “Blessed Ramadan”.

Walz regularly attends Muslim religious meals and has spoken at events hosted by local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, seconds in the National Catholic Register.

“Satan wants to do everything in his power to separate Christians from the one true faith,” Wendt said. “Many mainline Protestant denominations in America have fallen prey to the spirit of the times and are willing to make any concessions necessary to stay in line with an ever-changing culture.”

Walz's office, the Harris campaign and Pilgrim Lutheran Church did not respond to DCNF's requests for comment.

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