Republican Senate Candidate Sam Brown’s Pastor Demands Gays ‘Repent’

Army vet and Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown has worked to lighten his past stances on abortion and other issues as he runs against incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen in a crucial battleground race in Nevada.

Last month, Brown, 40, told NewsNation he could conquer Rosen’s then-projected lead by appealing to “the independents, and even to the Democrats who are sick and tired of out-of-touch politicians.”

But the Purple Heart recipient, who in 2008 was severely burned by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, has attended churches with extremist views and controversial practices—raising questions about whether this would resonate with all voters.

Brown and his wife, Amy, are members of Calvary Chapel Reno Sparks, helmed by a pastor who pushes his flock to take their “biblical values to the ballot box” and who’s labeled “transgenderism” a Marxist plot by elites aiming to control people.

“This ideology is coming… from Satan,” lead pastor Phil McKay said on his podcast earlier this year. “I believe it’s coming from demons.”

During a New Year’s Eve service, McKay said anyone “caught up in the sin of homosexuality” must repent to Jesus or face judgment—and announced the church would host a conference titled “Coming Out Again,” a kind of conversion therapy program.

“You can’t have it both ways, guys… Either you’re going to stand on God’s word and remain true to orthodox biblical Christianity… [or] you’ll cave into the pressure from those who are separating themselves more and more from the clear teaching of scripture,” McKay continued.

“Guys, nobody said that following Jesus was easy.”

Brown’s team did not address whether he agrees with McKay’s comments but indicated that he supports gay marriage.

“Like tens of millions of faithful Americans, the Browns attend a community church where they worship God,” Brown’s communications director Kristy Wilkinson told The Daily Beast. “The greatest biblical commandments from Jesus are to love God and to love each other. These are principles that the Browns strive to live out daily.”

Wilkinson added, “Sam does not believe same sex marriage should be overturned. He believes adults involved in loving relationships should have the freedom to experience the joys of marriage.”

Brown’s position seems at odds with his role last year as chairman of the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition, an affiliate of a national organization that’s opposed to marriage equality.

And in an appearance on conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root’s radio show in 2022, Brown said he supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law and parroted a common right-wing line: “That sort of indoctrination has no place in our schools.”

For the Republican, who is in his third run for political office, faith has long been part of his personal narrative.

In February, Brown and his wife Amy opened up to NBC News about an abortion she had before meeting him. The candidate insisted he was “personally pro-life” but would oppose a federal abortion ban and leave the issue to the states. He also claimed to now support exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

Rosen has seized on Brown’s past stands on abortion, including his support in 2014 for Texas’ 20-week ban (which did not include exceptions for rape or incest) while running for state office there, and is calling him a “MAGA extremist” in TV ads and posts on X.

While Brown has avoided far-right rhetoric on the campaign trail, his pastor has a history of extreme remarks.

McKay has urged conservative Christians to take over local school and library boards, even featuring a guest on his podcast who made bogus claims that children exposed to inappropriate books were more likely to become pedophiles or sex offenders as adults.

He’s also peddled far-right conspiracy theories about COVID and vaccines; the “plandemic,” he said, was a sign of the Antichrist trying to create a “one world government.” The health care system, he added, was “elevated to an almost Godlike status in our society.”

In one Google review this year, a person who attended the church’s young adult ministry described an anti-gay bent, claiming a guest speaker urged followers to vote Republican and “actively disnouced [sic] the LGBTQ+ community and democrats.” (The church replied, “As a church, we are just trying to take a stand in our community for what we believe lines up with our biblical worldview derived from God’s Word.”)

In May 2022, just before Brown lost his first GOP Senate primary, he joined McKay on stage to share his testimony—including how he found God after a Taliban bomb nearly killed him, and how he met his future wife, Amy, while being treated at the Brooke Army Medical Center’s burn unit, where she worked as a dietician.

McKay introduced Brown as a “genuine man of God” who’d been a congregant for a year and a half, while the church’s magazine identified him as “an active member.” For his part, Brown said the Lord inspired him to run for the U.S. Senate after Biden’s 2020 election.

“President Biden and his agenda departed so far left of what I thought was a proper way for our country to go that Amy and I were having conversations at home… God just sort of independently put it on each of our hearts in different ways,” Brown said.

McKay would later pray over Brown, asking God to protect him and his family “from spiritual warfare,” grant him “supernatural wisdom” and ultimately usher him into office.

Calvary Chapel Reno Sparks is a network of charismatic evangelical churches. When House Speaker Mike Johnson made another Calvary Chapel pastor in California, Jack Hibbs, a guest chaplain, Democratic lawmakers penned a letter condemning him. (Similar to McKay, the election-denying Hibbs compared the COVID vaccine to “the mark of the beast” and called “transgenderism” an “Antichrist plan.”)

Before joining McKay’s flock, the Browns attended another controversial megachurch when they lived in Dallas from 2011 to 2018.

Watermark Community Church boasts a weekly attendance of 9,000 people—and has faced accusations of being a “cult,” which the organization addressed (and denied) on its podcast in 2019.

Caitlin Van Wagoner, a spokesperson for Watermark, told The Daily Beast that Brown “was an active and faithful member of our church family for several years.”

Asked whether Watermark would support his Senate run, she said, “Watermark does not publicly endorse any candidate for political office. Rather, we equip our church family to have a deep understanding of what God’s Word says about cultural and political issues, and we encourage our members to apply biblical thinking during election cycles.”

The church made headlines in 2006, when a man and woman accused of having an extramarital affair sued it for revealing the romance to others as part of its disciplinary process. (Members must sign papers submitting “themselves to the care and correction” of elders and “may not resign” to avoid such measures, the church’s site says.)

A decade later, Watermark was again on the defense when a gay parishioner said he was booted after trying “conversion therapy,” finding it didn’t work, and dating another man. “Like any member whose beliefs move away from the core commitments, biblical convictions, and values of Watermark,” the church said at the time, “it became appropriate to formally change his membership status.”

Founding pastor Todd Wagner—who in 2020 stepped down over the sin of pride—apparently discouraged divorce, seeking mental health counseling outside of the church, and mothers returning to work after having children. One pastoral statement on the church’s website advises couples to reconcile even in cases of abuse, saying, “it is unwise to state that physical abuse, without appropriate biblical intervention, justifies divorce.”

Ex-members have also come forward anonymously to the blog No Eden Elsewhere in recent years to claim the church exercised inordinate control over their lives, having them sign membership covenants and disclose their financial information and “sins” and family secrets. One woman compared the house of worship’s practices to Scientology.

According to the website, members who didn’t share enough stories of struggle were accused of holding back and not being “authentic.”

In response to these claims, Van Wagner said, “We do not respond publicly to accusations made in personal blogs.”