By james art 
BATON ROUGE — As the embattled presidential campaign season accelerates toward Election Day, some Baton Rouge religious leaders are decrying how others are handling politics from the pulpit.
Two weeks after Donnie Swaggart’s sermon at the Family Worship Center included inflammatory remarks criticizing black churches that endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, his YouTube video has been viewed tens of thousands of times.
“When the greatest African-American Pentecostal leader, when that leader stood up and said I support this woman, he was saying I support murder, I support homosexuality, I support lesbianism, I support transgenderism, I support every evil,” Swaggart said.
He was referring to John Drew Sheard, the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, which describes itself as one of the largest black Pentecostal denominations in the United States.
“Somebody needs to stand up and talk to the Black Church,” Swaggart said in the taped sermon.
Angry posts with excerpts from the sermon began to circulate on social media.
On Friday, several black pastors involved with the interfaith social justice coalition Prophetic Voices held a news conference to publicly respond with their own criticisms of Swaggart’s remarks.
Domingue, speaking on behalf of the group Prophetic Voices, said Swaggart didn’t know what he was talking about.
“His ignorance and racism is shown in the way he thinks he has the power from his place of privilege and prejudice to lecture the black church about what it means to be black and Christian today,” Domingue said.
Swaggart did not respond Friday to requests for comment.
In the taped sermon, Swaggart said the Democratic Party is opposed to Christian values.
“The black church mostly votes for the party that is against God. What’s going on here?” he said.
Domingue said Swaggart was pushing his own political beliefs and using Christianity as a smokescreen.
Swaggart posted on social media platforms last week that he and his father, Jimmy Swaggart, attended a National Faith Summit in Georgia where former President Donald Trump spoke.
“I was privileged to attend the inaugural Faith Summit with President Trump today. I didn’t expect President Trump to recognize Dad and me at the event. What an honor,” his Facebook post said.
Domingue said Swaggart’s warning about politics in the Black Church falls apart “when this bigot says that black people’s theology and philosophy is calling demons from hell, because we’re not going to vote for this lying, xenophobic, vagina-grabbing condemned a criminal.”