U.S. Rep. Steven Cohen, a Democrat representing Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District, said demeaning things about evangelicals who voted for U.S. Republican President Donald Trump.
Cohen did so during an appearance on MSNBC’s Weekends program with Alex Witt.
“I feel sorry for the people who support Trump so much. The evangelicals that tell me — I get e-mails from people that say that God ordained that he is president, he is doing God’s work, and he has accepted Jesus Christ and trying to follow his path. I think wow, these people are deluded,” Cohen said.
“Two Corinthians and he can’t quote his favorite Bible passage, and he doesn’t know the 23rd Psalm or the New Testament from the Old Testament, and yet they think somehow he is ordained by God.”
Watch the full interview here. Cohen’s remarks regarding evangelicals occur around the 5:45min mark.
As The Tennessee Star reported earlier this year, this is not the first time Cohen has insulted people of faith.
People who testify before the U.S. House of Representatives no longer must say “so help me God” under oath, and this reportedly delighted Cohen. House Democrats altered the oath after they assumed a majority over Republicans in January.
Cohen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, reportedly said the following about people who want “so help me God” to come back:
“I think God belongs in religious institutions: in temple, in church, in cathedral, in mosque — but not in Congress,” the paper quoted Cohen as saying.
“And God doesn’t want to be used.”
In a rebuttal, Chattanooga Times Free Press columnist Clint Cooper told his readers the Founding Fathers used God in many of the country’s founding documents.
“Cohen, at that point, either was misreading history or was sorry he was called out for not having witnesses say ‘so help me God,’ like a child spotted by the teacher while shooting spitballs in class,” Cooper wrote.
According to Cooper, Cohen refused a Republican congressman’s request to include “so help me God” at a Feb 28 committee hearing.
As The Star also reported, evangelist Franklin Graham expressed his unhappiness with Cohen on social media.
On Twitter, Graham said, “Why has the Democratic Party turned its back on God? @RepCohen of TN said, ‘I think God belongs in religious institutions: in temple, in church, in cathedral, in mosque—but not in Congress.’”
“We need more of God, not less! What @RepCohen is suggesting is what Communism did in Eastern Europe & is still doing in places around the world like Cuba. Communism only allows worship inside approved churches. God is our Creator & the maker of the universe. He is present everywhere; He is not limited to churches or temples. The root of the issue is that many politicians don’t want God in any part of their politics or our country’s business because His standards condemn their sins.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
He will never lose. He has plenty of money and the Ford Machine is dead.
It is hard to believe that he once ran for governor. Got less that 15% of the vote in the Democrat Primary!
The 9th district ( that includes Memphis ) is a crime-ridden, violent open sewer, and Steve Cohen has done NOTHING to address those issues under his own nose.
He is an embarrassment to my beloved home state— almost as much as the pit he represents.
Memphis would be better off without Steve Cohen, and Tennessee would CLEARLY be better off without Memphis.
Cohen is an embarrassment to Memphis. Any resemblance to Cohen and anything Godly is purely a distortion of reality. I try to ignore him in hopes he will go away.
Didn’t Biden commit obstruction of justice? Coming out of his own mouth. Obama and Hillary tried to get information on Mr.Trump before he was elected President. I watch numerous news channels. Democrats changing the topic almost everyday trying to throw President Trump off his game. As far as Pelosi she publicly said she didn’t think impeaching President Trump was a good thing. Don’t remember her exact words. How do Americans know if the impeachment committee is not threatening these witnesses to say what they want to hear? WE DON’T!!! I truly hope we are not heading to another Civil War. I don’t want to have to fight and see family members die on either side. People need to stand down and stop all the craziness. Does anyone really want a war on US soil right on our front yards?
Cohen talking about what scripture President Trump doesn’t know, and Cohen is a democrat. Cohen needs to look in the mirror…a big one!!
Cohen is now and has always been a pathetic joke. A stain on Memphis…
What else can we expect from satan’s mouth piece? Hitler’s has a spare bedroom waiting for you “It” clown. You two have a lot in common.
Cohen is the devil. He is being used by Satan.
Cohen is a NUT!
Hopefully Cohen will run into a dead-end tunnel and do the right thing.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness – these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.
The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.
Let it simply be asked, “where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?”
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
George Washington’s “Farewell Address”.
Every civil government is based upon some religion or philosophy of life. Education in a nation will propagate the religion of that nation. In America, the foundational religion was Christianity. And it was sown in the hearts of Americans through the home and private and public schools for centuries. Our liberty, growth, and prosperity was the result of a Biblical philosophy of life. Our continued freedom and success is dependent on our educating the youth of America in the principles of Christianity.
Noah Webster
The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.
Noah Webster
When you read some of the quotes by our Founding Fathers, and then review some of the decisions issued by our “Courts”,
It become obvious that those decisions are as “TRAITOROUS” to our “CONSTITUTION” and “FOUNDATION OF LAWS” as they would be based on the “COMMUNIST MANIFESTO” and “DOCTRINE OF HELL”.
I’m sure cohen can easily recognize a deluded person since he sees one every time he looks in the mirror.
Eat more chiken!
Cohen isn’t the problem. The numbnuts that voted for him are.