Pete Buttigieg said he plans to bring Christian values back to the White House and ensure that religion will not be used to divide the American people.
Speaking at a campaign stop in Iowa on Monday, the 2020 presidential candidate said, “But I’m also offering to people who are guided by a faith tradition in making their decisions about what they think is right and wrong.
Referencing the words of Jesus according to Matthew 25:35-40, the South Bend mayor continued, “When I’m president you’ll never have to look at the White House and scratch your head and think, ‘Whatever happened to, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you have done to me”?'”
The 37-year-old Buttigieg has made religion a central part of his campaign and has talked about how his faith influences his political views. He has described pollution as “a kind of sin.”
[ Also read: ‘A modern-day Pharisee’: Buttigieg’s evangelical brother-in-law urges him to ‘repent’ of abortion views]
At a recent South Carolina campaign stop, he said faith required him to imagine a “world without weapons.”
“The commitment to peace that is such a core teaching of Jesus is also something that I think is a core goal of the right kind of American foreign policy,” he said.
Buttigieg is currently in fourth place in the Democratic primary with 7% support, according to RealClearPolitics. He is polling in second place behind Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren among likely Democratic Iowa voters.
