“What Would Jesus Do?” How Rob Sand’s Faith Guides His Public Service

“What Would Jesus Do?” How Rob Sand’s Faith Guides His Public Service

DES MOINES, IA – Candidate for governor Rob Sand recently spoke with CNN to discuss how his faith is woven into everything he does — including in his campaign for governor.

As CNN reports, Rob’s faith isn’t just personal — it also shapes how he approaches politics and his vision for what public service is — or should be. To Rob, that means putting what’s best for Iowa ahead of politics, rejecting division and partisanship, and remaining committed to transparency and accountability.  

Read more from CNN HERE, or key quotes below:

• “Everybody out there, no matter what their ideas are, is a child of God. And I don’t think we should be conceiving of ourselves as enemies, even as we may be working for different things.”
• “A lot of this has to do with the political system that leads political leaders into temptation: the temptation to demonize their opponents; the temptation to lie about their opponents’ records; the temptation to exaggerate and make sound more dangerous the things that elected officials want or that our neighbors want,” he said. “All that leads us down a very dark path, because we have a system where that can be an effective strategy.”
• Sand, on the campaign trail, has a frequent refrain: “Jesus is for the little guy,” and the Democratic Party at its best is, too, he tells event attendees.
• Sand, the Iowa Democrat running for governor, said when he was in high school, he struggled with questions about whether he wanted to talk openly about his faith as he saw coverage of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas church known for using hateful slogans in its protests against gay people.
• “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can go around and tell people that I’m a Christian if this is what they’re going to believe about me,’” he said. “But my belief overwhelmed that, and I realized that I almost had an obligation to be outspoken about my faith, because otherwise the actual message about my faith is lost to the people that would misconstrue it to advance their own ends.”
• Sand said when he is struggling to articulate what he believes, “the easiest way for me to think about it is to ask myself — I know this might sound corny, but — ‘What would Jesus do?’”