In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this Sunday, at the Life Center megachurch, hundreds of people filed in for a 9 am service. A table on the right side of the entryway stood under a sign reading “Voter’s Guide Here.” Congregants manning the tables asked others whether they’d already voted, and handed out sample ballots for nearby counties—Dauphin, Lancaster, York, Lebanon. At the table, there was also an election guide from the evangelical magazine Decision, featuring a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris next to former president Donald Trump with a banner reading “Socialism vs. Freedom.”
Another pamphlet, titled the PA Family Voter Guide—created by the evangelical Pennsylvania Family Council, which describes it as a “nonpartisan, informative guide” for candidates running for office in Pennsylvania—was also available. Families milled around, grabbing coffee at an in-house café before joining a worship service that could rival many small rock concerts.
“Tuesday, go vote,” Pastor Ben Evenson told congregants at the service. “Let your voice be heard, and let God handle the details. We love this nation, God loves this nation.”
Just two weeks before, the church had played host to centibillionaire and X owner Elon Musk as he hosted a town hall in support of Trump. There, while answering questions at the event, he quipped (again) that “no one’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala Harris” because she is a “puppet.”
The day after Musk’s visit, the church’s founder, Charles Stock, gave a sermon entitled “How to Vote Like Jesus,” in which he discouraged congregants from voting third party or writing in a candidate, saying, “The devil will be happy you didn’t vote.” Stock also told congregants that “a flawed leader who does good things is better than suffering under Ahab and Jezebel, who are wicked,” and argued that government had stepped out of its role by “redefining marriage” and “erasing gender,” which he called a “plague upon our nation.” He also told worshippers about a petition from Musk’s America PAC supporting the First and Second Amendments, and Musk’s (possibly illegal) $1 million per day giveaway in the days leading up to the election.
“It was phenomenal,” he said of hosting Musk’s visit. “It was an honor to host a wider community here, and be a blessing.”
A congregant who spoke to WIRED said that some members of the church did attend the Musk event, and that he felt there was some alignment with Musk when it came to issues of constitutional rights and free speech.
Across the country in Clark County, Nevada, just after 8 am in the low-ceilinged room at Calvary Red Rock Church just east of the Las Vegas strip, the band onstage was finishing its set, the lights went up, and Pastor Gregg Seymour strode onto stage, dressed as a garbageman.
