During a rapid-fire portion of the “Room for Nuance” podcast, 9Marks President Jonathan Leeman was asked to share a belief from the last five years that he no longer holds.
Leeman was named 9Marks’ new president in April. He explained that in 2018—while speaking alongside now-President Emeritus Mark Dever at a 9Marks-at-9 event during the SBC annual meeting—he publicly allowed for the possibility that Christians could, in some circumstances, vote for a pro-choice political candidate. He said, “I think that was wrong.”
“I think it was 2018, at the SBC, we did a 9Marks-at-9, in which Mark and I on stage talked about the freedom to vote for pro-choice or pro-life candidates,” Leeman explained. “Not because we believed in pro-choice, we are both vigorously opposed to it, but we recognized or we believed that there was still space for Christians to [vote for a pro-choice candidate].” Leeman said, “There’s multiple rocks on the scale.”
Leeman continued, “[We] wanted to say a Christian might choose to do this for other reasons. [For example,] I’m looking at these five issues and I disagree on this issue, but as I do my cost-benefit analysis, I’m gonna vote for this [Democrat] for this reason, [so] we created space for that.”
“Even as we were saying it,” Leeman acknowledged, “I was thinking to myself…I don’t think you should vote for a pro-choice candidate. I think that was wrong.”
The 9Marks president then emphasized, “These days I would say, ‘I think you’re sinning by doing that,’ at least in most circumstances.”
“You’re giving the sword of state to somebody who’s going to kill babies with it,” Leeman added. “I never have personally voted in that direction, but I wanted to create a little space for it, and I think that was wrong. I don’t want to create that space anymore. I want to say, ‘You should not do that, Christian.’”
Jonathan Leeman on Why 9Marks Addressed the Death of George Floyd but Not That of Charlie Kirk
Leeman also addressed why 9Marks chose not to say anything regarding the death of Charlie Kirk despite saying something about the death of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think I’ve learned to try to, in many ways I’m working harder, just staying in our lane,” said Leeman. “We don’t need to be political commentators.”
