Although it is the Christmas season, MSNBC doesn’t seem to have much “goodwill toward men,” as the network spent an entire segment denouncing white evangelical Christians as “the most un-Christian” segment of American society.
“We have … evangelical[s], who are supposedly ‘the most Christian people in the country,’ who practice the most un-Christian ways,” said MSNBC contributor and short-lived candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas Matthew Dowd. He claimed that conservative Christians “don’t believe in common decency, don’t believe in the common good,” and have embraced “the exact opposite of what Jesus preached in the gospels.”
“I actually think we’re in a spiritual-soul crisis in this country,” and evangelical support for President Donald Trump “is the most direct evidence of it,” said Dowd. “We have a fundamental soul problem when we have an entire segment of our society who no longer believes in the fundamental message of Jesus Christ about loving one another and respecting one another, and treating everybody as you want to be treated. They don’t believe that anymore.” Dowd did not use the same standard to evaluate MSNBC personalities who said “there’s an idiot percentage of this population that just needs to be told what to do” and compared Trump voters to Nazis.
Dowd went on to say that “every single spiritual faith in the history of the world” has taught the same ethic of selfless love, “whether it’s a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jewish person”; all religions have “taught the same fundamental thing.”
Evangelical leaders said Dowd’s criticism rang a familiar bell.
“Let’s not forget that almost every time Jesus taught, some hated Him so fiercely they wanted to kill Him. Jesus warned that same baseless hatred would be hurled at His followers, to which Mr. Dowd is a case in point,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Ben Johnson in an exclusive statement.
Dowd’s comments came during a segment of Tuesday’s “Deadline: White House” in which the host, Nicolle Wallace, made three factual errors — two within one minute. She offered no retraction on Wednesday’s program.
In the segment, Wallace highlighted an article from Peter Wehner, who also joined her.
Wallace, a former advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain, lamented that evangelical Christians now support Donald Trump when, she claims, they used to support such issues as “climate change,” fighting poverty and malaria, and pushing the U.S. “toward more aggressive action globally.”
“A lot of people who describe themselves as evangelicals have subordinated faith to politics and to partisan passions … and decided that they want to use the Bible to defend things that I think ultimately are indefensible,” said Wehner. White evangelicals’ political sensibilities are driven by an “overblown” sense of “grievances and resentments over decades of being … mocked and ridiculed by the elite [and] the Establishment,” he said without proof.
Dowd seemingly misquoted Jesus during the interview, claiming that Jesus told people to “forget about the kingdom of God, and forget about Heaven, just love one another.” In reality, Jesus told people to “seek first the kingdom of God.” The Bible mentions the terms “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of Heaven” 101 times.
“If we talk about Jesus, let’s make sure it’s the Jesus of the Bible, who said, ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments,’” said Perkins. “America’s soul problem results from its truth problem: a denial of God, His Word, and its application to our lives.”
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Ken Ham, Founder and CEO of Answers In Genesis, responded to the comments made in the MSNBC segment, stating that the media will frivolously say anything to push their “anti-Christian” agenda.
“These MSNBC reporters have no idea about true Christianity & what Jesus teaches,” he insisted. “They just quote something without context & use it for their ongoing anti-Christian agenda.”
“For a start,” Ham continued, “if they really wanted to promote what Jesus explicitly teaches, they would be adamant that there are only two genders of humans, male & female (Mark 10:6), & adamant there’s only one true marriage, that of one man & one woman (Matthew 19: 4-5).”
“Ignorance, spiritual blindness, hard depraved hearts & an ongoing anti-Christian agenda permeate media,” he maintained.
In 2 Timothy 3:12, we are told that in the last days, persecution would come upon all who “live godly in Christ.” In other words, those who live by the Biblical and godly standards outlined in God’s word, which run contrary to the world.
