{"id":24364,"date":"2024-03-01T00:36:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T06:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24364"},"modified":"2024-03-01T00:36:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T06:36:49","slug":"christian-groups-demand-apology-for-politico-reporters-viral-christian-nationalist-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24364","title":{"rendered":"Christian Groups Demand Apology for Politico Reporter\u2019s Viral \u2018Christian Nationalist\u2019 Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leading Christian organizations sent<\/a> a letter to left-leaning Politico<\/em> on Wednesday, demanding an apology after one of the outlet\u2019s top reporters painted<\/a> those who believe their rights come from God as \u201cextremists\u201d and \u201cChristian nationalists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politico<\/em>\u00a0investigative reporter Heidi Przybyla\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on February 23 on MSNBC\u2019s\u00a0All In<\/em>\u00a0that Christian nationalists, not Christians, believe rights come from God, in what appears to be part of a continued crusade from the left to paint Christian values as a \u201cthreat to democracy.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The base of the Republican Party has shifted. Remember when Trump ran in 2016? A lot of the mainland Evangelicals wanted nothing to do with the divorced real estate mogul who cheated on his wife with a porn star and all of that. So what happened was he was surrounded by this more extremist element. We are going to hear words like \u201cChristian nationalism,\u201d like \u201cthe new apostolic reformation.\u201d These are groups that you should get very schooled on because they have a lot of power in Trump\u2019s circle, and the one thing that unites all of them, because there\u2019s many different groups orbiting Trump, but the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists \u2014 not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different \u2014 is that they believe that our rights, as Americans, as all human beings, don\u2019t come from any earthly authority. They don\u2019t come from Congress. They don\u2019t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with that is that they are determining \u2014 man, it is men \u2014 are determining what God is telling them. And in the past, that so-called natural law is, you know, it\u2019s a pillar of Catholicism, for instance, it\u2019s been used for good in social justice campaigns. Martin Luther King evoked it in talking about civil rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, you have an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage, and it\u2019s going much further than that, as you see, for instance, with the ruling in Alabama this week that judges connected to that Dominionist faction in talking about a lot of other issues, including surrogacy, IVF, you know, sex education in schools. There\u2019s a lot in addition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Catholic Vote President Brian Burch slammed Przybyla\u2019s comments in their letter to Politico<\/em>, calling them \u201cdeeply disturbing\u201d and accusing her of demonstrating a \u201cdisqualifying lack of knowledge of the United States of America\u2019s founding documents and a profoundly prejudicial view toward American religious groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter was addressed to\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0Editor-in-Chief John Harris,\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0CEO Goli Sheikholeslami, and its parent company, Axel Springer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a National Investigative Correspondent for Politico<\/em>, Ms. Przybyla is charged with reporting accurately on American government, politics, and law. It is deeply disturbing, therefore, that she appeared unaware of the opening of the Declaration of Independence or to its references of \u201cthe Laws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally concerning is Ms. Przybyla\u2019s smearing of the Christian faith reflected in her comments. Her statements constituted an attempt to spread misinformation about Christians by creating the perception that they hold unique beliefs that pose a distinct and, in her words \u201cextremist,\u201d threat to our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSetting aside the inaccuracy of her commentary, she was manifestly trying to demonize the Christian community and sow fear through propaganda,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burch and Perkins argued that Przybyla\u2019s statements\u201d are representative of a consistent pattern of singling out Christian organizations and individuals\u201d and linked<\/a> to an article she recently wrote about activists\u2019 efforts to publicly fund a Christian school in Oklahoma:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comments like Ms. Przybyla\u2019s can and often do have life and death consequences for faith communities. In 2023, American places of worship experienced more than double<\/a> the amount of violence than the year prior, according to a recent report on hostility against U.S. churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRhetoric like Ms. Przybyla\u2019s, which demonizes religious groups, is profoundly dangerous. It can motivate disturbed individuals who may be predisposed to commit violence against faith communities,\u201d they argued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We the undersigned believe that Ms. Przybyla\u2019s comments reflect a pervasive bias that not only prevents her from accurately and fairly covering issues related to religion and religious communities, but Politico\u2019s<\/em> silence suggests it condones these attacks on people of faith. Ms. Przybyla owes people of faith an apology, as does her employer. Politico<\/em> must confirm that such offensive comments have no place within its organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to critics on X, Przybyla claimed her comments had been taken out of context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is NOT what I said & you know it. Why don\u2019t you play the full clip?\u201d Przybyla said in reaction to a viral post of her comments. \u201cI said men are making their own policy interpretation of natural law. MLK did so w social justice. You\u2019re welcome to as well but you don\u2019t speak for all Christians & certainly not for God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile there are different wings of Christian Nationalism, they are bound by their belief that our rights come from God,\u201d she later added:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are Hindu, Jewish etc, this might help you understand the next part of my point, which is they are using this for a man-made policy agenda\u2026 which distinguishes this from other Christians who leave these God-given rights at our inherent right to \u201cLife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u201d \u2014 vs banning abortion, contraception etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politico\u00a0did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breitbart<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading Christian organizations sent a letter to left-leaning Politico on Wednesday, demanding an apology after one of the outlet\u2019s top reporters painted those who believe their rights come from God as \u201cextremists\u201d and \u201cChristian nationalists.\u201d Politico\u00a0investigative reporter Heidi Przybyla\u00a0said\u00a0on February 23 on MSNBC\u2019s\u00a0All In\u00a0that Christian nationalists, not Christians, believe rights come from God, in what appears to be part of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26941,8333,10361,3959,26942,2891],"class_list":["post-24364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-apologies","tag-christianity","tag-comments","tag-journalists","tag-nationalism","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24366,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24364\/revisions\/24366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}