Over 13,000 Christians have signed a petition urging any "anti-indictment MAGA pastors" to condemn the threats directed at Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and other prosecutors who have indicted former President Donald Trump.
The petition, set up by the online community Faithful America, was first posted on Tuesday. According to the site, the group originally had a goal of gaining 10,000 signatures, but has since raised it to 15,000.
"Nearly everyone involved in bringing the 91 felony charges against Donald Trump ... is dealing with escalating threats of terrorism and violence," reads the site.
"Yet the far-right pastors who have condemned and politicized the indictments -- including Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, and 'Trump's Top Pastor' Mark Burns -- have seemingly not said a word about these threats, despite helping create the charged, violent atmosphere," it continues.
Graham and Burns are evangelical pastors in America, while Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is a Baptist minister. All three men have been staunch supporters of Trump since his first presidential campaign in 2016, and have dismissed the plethora of charges against the former president as an attempt to disenfranchise his reelection in 2024.
"Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and those who live by the sword die by the sword," Faithful America, an organization dedicated to standing against Christian nationalism, wrote on its petition page. "It's irresponsible and wrong for these pastors who stoked the anger of Trump Republicans to now ignore the violent atmosphere they helped create. Let's join together as Christians and ask Trump's pastor friends to denounce these dangerous threats immediately."
Willis, who indicted Trump, accusing him and 18 others of attempting to overturn Georgia's presidential election result in 2020, has been open about the racist and sexist threats she has received even prior to announcing her charges against the former president. In an email to Fulton County leaders in late July, the district attorney, who is a Black woman, shared a copy of one of such threats with county commissioners, in which Willis was called a "Jim Crow Democrat whore," reported NBC News.
A woman in Texas is also facing federal charges, accused of threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's overseeing the case against Trump over his actions related to the January 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol. And Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has accused the former president of falsifying business records in connection to several hush money schemes in 2016, received a death threat just days before he brought his 34-count indictment against Trump.
The former president has routinely threatened those related to his investigations on his social media accounts, prompting strict bail agreements in his Georgia case and a protection order over his January 6 case.
Trump has historically received strong support from American Christians. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020, the majority of white voters who regularly attended a religious worship service voted for the former president over President Joe Biden. The group that showed the biggest amount of support for Trump was white evangelical Protestants.
A report from Reuters in April found that Trump still held "a significant share" of support from conservative Christians in the current presidential race.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email on Friday night for comment.
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Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more
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