The evangelical brother-in-law of Pete Buttigieg called on him to "repent" for using the Bible to justify late-term abortion and claimed the presidential candidate is "weaponizing" Christian teachings to promote a false religion.

Rhyan Glezman. (Rob Crilly/Washington Examiner)

Pastor Rhyan Glezman, 34, who serves a church in small-town Michigan, told the Washington Examiner that he was very alarmed by Buttigieg's claim that the Bible teaches life does not begin until a baby first draws breath.

During a wide-ranging Friday interview on the radio show The Breakfast Club, Buttigieg, 37, scolded Republicans for their views on abortion, saying, "Right now, they hold everybody in line with this one piece of doctrine about abortion, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally. Then again, there's a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. So even that is something we can interpret differently."

"I feel a sense of responsibility and stewardship of my faith to stand up and say something, to say, 'No, that's not true,'" Glezman explained. "God places a very high value on all human life. Everyone is created fearfully and wonderfully in the image of God with intrinsic value. That doesn't start at the first breath, it starts when we enter our mother's womb."

Glezman asserted that Buttigieg's use of Scripture to defend abortion up to the point of birth was "outrageous," adding, "If we're going to say we're for all people and we love all people, but we don't value human life in the womb, that's being a hypocrite. You're hypocritical if you don't stand up for all life. So that's why I'm speaking out."

My brother in law needs to repent from this radical false teaching. God does not endorse this nonsense, only false religion does. — Rhyan Glezman (@rhyanglezman) September 6, 2019

Glezman, who is the elder brother of the South Bend, Indiana, mayor's husband, Chasten, 30, believes Buttigieg's continual use of Christian terminology to defend his liberal policies is an attempt "to seem appealing to the evangelical community," while also falling in line with the dictates of the Democratic Party. "I think he's just going along with the agenda of the Democratic Party: that if you want to be a Democrat, you have to be pro-choice."

Reflecting on the 2020 Democratic candidates, Glezman said, "When I look at every single one of them, their policies, their beliefs, it's very anti-American. It's very anti-life. It's very anti-God. They all have the same rhetoric, and that's the path they're deciding to go down. You see it right down the board. I don't understand why a Democrat can't come out and say, 'I believe life in the womb is valuable.'"

Glezman said he believes Buttigieg is creeping into dangerous territory when he uses the Bible to buttress his radical positions on things such as late-term abortion. "This isn't a little issue, especially when we're talking about life," he said. "This is not just a political conversation. We're talking about human life. These are human beings." Glezman maintains that his brother-in-law has "manipulated" and "weaponized" the Bible to appeal to a wider demographic of liberal Democrats, which makes him "a false teacher," as far he's concerned.

"What we see is a modern-day Pharisee," said Glezman, referencing the 1st-century Jewish sect that was notorious for demanding its followers adhere to an exhaustive list of trivial laws to earn God's favor. "Buttigieg is a person who's making up their own rules and regulations and, basically, if we don't celebrate and endorse their interpretation of Scripture, our religion is fallible. And that's just not true."



Bad theology often leads to bad morality and that is what you see with Pete. He is a modern day pharisee inventing new laws and regulations and in his opinion we must abide to his standards to have our faith confirmed. — Rhyan Glezman (@rhyanglezman) September 6, 2019

Glezman sees Buttigieg as indicative of a growing trend within the Democratic Party to silence dissent with all the fervor of a religion. "I can love someone who disagrees with me. I love my brother, I love Pete, I love all people, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to change my beliefs. In their eyes, if we don't celebrate or endorse their marriage views or their abortion views, then all of a sudden we become the homophobic bigots, which is just not true. You can love people and have a disagreement."

"And that's what I'm seeing with this false religion," Glezman clarified. "That's why I compared them to the Pharisees of today, with their new laws that they're trying to instill. And they're saying, 'If you don't believe the way I do, then you're a hateful, bigoted person; you're homophobic, you're anti-woman.' It becomes this hostile division."

Glezman has been very open about the hostile division he has seen within his own family. He reflected sadly that his relationships with his family are "very broken" and that "everything went downhill" with them when he became a Christian; since he became a national figure, Chasten and his brother do not speak at all. The few interactions he has had with Pete himself have nevertheless been cordial, and Glezman says "this isn't a personal thing. He's treated me fairly, he's been nice to me." Buttigieg's campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.

Still, Glezman hopes for Buttigieg that "he'd repent from teaching these false claims of Christianity; that he would just have an absolute encounter with God." Offering one's opinion, he said, is quite different than outright claiming that God supports things such as late-term abortion. "Anyone who makes those claims, anyone who's going to weaponize the [Bible] in that way, I would say to anyone that you need to repent. This is leading people astray and it's very, very dangerous."