Milei's speech at an evangelical church sparked a heated debate among pastors.

President Javier Milei's fiery speech at an evangelical church in Resistencia over the weekend, marked by political overtones and controversial statements about social justice and the role of the state, sparked intense debate in the country's evangelical churches and a strong condemnation from one of its most renowned pastors, Norberto Saracco.

In a statement posted online, Pastor Saracco called Milei's presence "regrettable" because "the sacred place of the pulpit was used by the president, in a clearly partisan act, to conduct his tirade riddled with false arguments, malicious distortions, and statements completely contrary to the teachings of the Gospel."

Sacarro—who has led the Buenas Nuevas church in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Parque Avellaneda for nearly four decades—was a co-founder of the Council of Pastors of the City of Buenos Aires and the FIET Theological Institute, and a member of the board of directors of the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of the Argentine Republic (ACIERA).

Milei called the state “evil,” maintaining that “there should be nothing more anti-Judeo-Christian than the idea of ​​social justice (because) it is basically robbing one person of the fruits of their labor to give it to another,” and pointing out that in the country “whoever distributes gets the best part, but fortunately, people are starting to go to jail.”

The president attended in response to an invitation from a pastor he highly values, Jorge Ledesma, of the Portal del Cielo church, which built a mega-church for 15,000 people on the outskirts of the Chaco capital, inaugurated on Thursday. He spoke at an annual colloquium organized by that community called "Invasion of God's Love."

Sacarro begins by saying that "last Saturday we witnessed the unfortunate presence of President Javier Milei at the inauguration of an evangelical church, the largest in the country."

"It's regrettable, not because of the presence itself; the event organizers have the right to invite anyone they want to such an important celebration, including the president," he clarifies.

He explains that it was "regrettable because the sacred place of the pulpit was used as a platform for the president, in a clearly partisan act, to conduct his diatribe riddled with false arguments, malicious distortions, and statements completely contrary to the teachings of the gospel."

"To the hate speech and disqualification of the adversary that the president proudly raises as his most precious banner, we must add what he repeated tirelessly in his sacred speech on Saturday: the disqualification of the State, which must be fought until it is eliminated, and the absolute freedom of human beings so that each person can achieve whatever their strength and abilities allow," he says.

He admits that "for millions of Argentines, this sounds like a siren's call, since we come from a state that left no space unplundered, that stole from the poorest and left 52% of the population below the poverty line. Of course, no one wants that state, and it's a manifestation of evil."

"In his argument in the context of an evangelical church, the president found no better way than to link capitalism with Protestantism (Max Weber's thesis), as if that link alone were sufficient," he added.

However, he believes that "the president, or those who write his speeches, forget or ignore that it was in capitalist and Protestant societies, such as the United States and England, that slavery and racism developed and were sustained, and have not yet been overcome."

"What the president forgets or ignores is that the countries with the best standard of living for everyone, not just a select few, are the Scandinavian countries, based on Protestant principles, but—and here's the difference—applied by a very present state," he adds.

Then he says, referring to the role of the State: "God teaches us in his Word that the human heart is essentially inclined toward evil. In our theology, we call it 'original sin.'"

"Therefore, leaving people's fate to their own abilities and capabilities in a jungle of every man for himself is the most anti-evangelical thing we can do," he emphasizes.

In that sense, he believes that "giving such a perverse heresy the sacred space of a church is regrettable. Seeing people applaud and say amen to something they neither understand nor know breaks the heart."

“To tarnish the testimony of the evangelical church, which in its thousands of places of worship serves the Lord sacrificially, with scarce resources, being salt and light in the most forgotten corners of society, is an undeserved sin,” he believes.

And he concludes: “It's true, it was the first time a president occupied an evangelical pulpit. What a shame!”