Arizona Republican Kari Lake has received a scathing rebuke from a petition posted on Thursday by a community of Christians asking her to "stop invoking God."
Lake, a supporter of Donald Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, who ran a failed campaign for Arizona governor in 2022 is currently running for U.S. Senate in her state.
At a campaign rally in Lake Havasu City last month, Lake told her supporters to arm themselves during an "intense" lead up to November's election.
"The next six months is going to be intense," Lake said. "We're going to strap on our seatbelt. We're going to put on our helmet—or your Kari Lake ball cap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case."
Alex Nicoll, a representative of the campaign, told The New York Times at the time that Lake was "clearly talking about the Second Amendment right for Arizonans to defend themselves."
However, it did not go over well with an online group of Christians known as Faithful America. According to its website, "Faithful America is the largest online community of Christians putting faith into action for love and social justice."
In an online petition posted on Thursday, Faithful America addressed Lake and wrote: "As your siblings in Christ, we are alarmed that, at a recent campaign rally, you said, 'We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.'"
Faithful America then went into the biblical history of Lake's "armor of God" reference.
"The Bible passage in Ephesians 6 that you referenced is meant to be a metaphor for the spiritual strength for Christians to stand firm in our faith. Indeed, one of the seven pieces of the armor of God is the shoes of the gospel of peace—meant to symbolize readiness to spread the message of peace and salvation.
The group continued: "Christians who follow the Prince of Peace should not be encouraging or threatening political violence, period. To do so is an enormous distortion of our faith."
Faithful America ended its petition by writing: "We believe that when Jesus told Peter to put away his sword because those who live by the sword die by the sword, it could also apply to Glocks and guns. Please stop invoking God to provoke political violence."
Newsweek reached out to Lake's campaign via email and online form for comment.
So far, 1,398 people have signed the petition out of the Christian group's goal of 5,000 signatures.
What the Polls Show
Meanwhile, Lake's Democratic opponent, Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego, has recently been leading by a few points in the polls.
In a poll conducted by Emerson College/The Hill from April 25 to 29, Gallego was beating Lake by 2 points (45 to 43 percent). The poll surveyed 1,000 Arizona registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more
