Harry Reeder, a veteran <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/evangelical" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pastor</a> at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/alabama" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alabama</a>, was unexpectedly killed in a car accident on Thursday morning at 75 years old.
Reeder served as a pastor at Christ Covenant Church from 1983 to 1999, after which he accepted a call to become senior minister at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, the influential congregation from which the Presbyterian Church in America launched in 1973.
The minister was pronounced dead on the scene after his vehicle <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/rev-harry-reeder-briarwood-senior-pastor-killed-in-shelby-county-crash.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collided</a> with a dump truck that had stopped to make a turn. He is survived by his wife, Cindy, as well as three children and several grandchildren.
“Our Lord has called Pastor Reeder home through a car accident,” Bruce Stallings, executive pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, said in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BriarwoodPCA/posts/pfbid0A99g5Fbp9kYP9fda2MnyMJBCVG8EYxcDNoZJ7AAoUhvVVfca5Q4S7PLGA3PiqbLXl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> posted on social media. “But we do not grieve without hope because we know our pastor is with his Savior and has been received by grace with ‘Well done My good and faithful servant.’”
The Presbyterian Church in America is a conservative evangelical denomination, not to be confused with the theologically liberal Presbyterian Church USA, from which the former communion split half a century ago. Reeder is broadly seen as a successor to the generation of southern ministers who led the departure from the PCUSA and the formation of the PCA.
Reeder was educated at Covenant College, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Reformed Theological Seminary. He had planned to lead a tour of Israel with Westminster students scheduled to depart next week.
Presbyterian ministers, as well as leaders in other evangelical denominations, poured out prayers for the Reeder family and fondly remembered the pastor&#8217;s life and ministry.
&#8220;Harry was a force of nature with a gregarious personality matched to theological conviction and pastoral courage. He was a man of simple piety matched to great concern about the role of the Christian in a rapidly changing culture,&#8221; Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in an <a href="https://wng.org/opinions/taken-so-suddenly-missed-so-greatly-but-safe-with-jesus-1684496417" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> for WORLD. &#8220;To know Harry Reeder was to know his infectious love for Christ and his passion to see the church reach out through evangelism and simultaneously influence the culture.&#8221;
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Alabama Republican State Senator Dan Roberts, a ruling elder at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, also offered a tribute in the article.
&#8220;I would characterize Harry as the ultimate pastor-teacher whose love for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ was obvious to all who spent time with him,&#8221; he recounted. &#8220;He loved to be a part of the presbytery and to spend time with other pastors at general assembly. Harry was committed to the regulative order of corporate worship. Harry loved the church as much as any pastor I’ve ever had the privilege to be around. He pastored Briarwood Presbyterian Church and was honored to serve this body of believers. He will be greatly missed by all those he impacted for the Kingdom.&#8221;
Reeder passed away one day before Tim Keller, another veteran PCA minister who served for decades at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tim-keller-longtime-christian-pastor-and-author-succumbs-to-cancer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">succumbed</a> to a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer at 72 years old. American Christians noted that both men, beyond their zeal for the gospel and their labors in preaching and teaching, consistently served at their churches for decades and remained faithful to their families.

Pastor Harry Reeder

Harry Reeder, Veteran Presbyterian Minister, Killed In Car Wreck

Presbyterians Mourn As Longtime Pastor Killed In Car Wreck

Christianity

Church

Evangelicals

Pastor

Religion

U.S.

Saddleback Church, the multi-site <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/christianity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">megachurch</a> founded by Rick Warren, ordained a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/woke" target="_blank" rel="noopener">woman</a> to serve as a “campus pastor” even as the congregation is expected to appeal a recent decision from the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/southern-baptists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Southern Baptist Convention</a> to disfellowship the entity over similar moves.
Officials on the denomination’s Executive Committee voted earlier this year to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/southern-baptists-disfellowship-saddleback-church-over-female-pastor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remove</a> Saddleback, one of the largest churches in the United States, because of its decision to ordain several women as pastors over the past two years. Warren, who maintains a founding pastor role at the California congregation, announced Andy Wood as his successor to serve as senior pastor last year and appointed his wife, Stacie Wood, to serve as a teaching pastor, generating controversy days later at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Anaheim.
Saddleback Church Lake Forest, one of more than a dozen Saddleback branch campuses, announced last week that Katie Edwards had been appointed as the body’s new campus pastor. Images <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CsAFXy3PGaj/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> by the church showed Andy and Stacie Wood praying over Edwards on stage.
The move comes weeks before Southern Baptists are scheduled to convene in New Orleans for the next annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, where Saddleback Church will likely contest the disfellowship decision from the Executive Committee.
Warren has defended his position on female pastors, which he adopted three years ago, in a recent <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/march-web-only/rick-warren-russell-moore-saddleback-church-women-preaching.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with Russell Moore, the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and the former president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. Warren also claimed in a floor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBsT1zFmC3E" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech</a> at last year’s annual meeting that there exists a distinction between the “gift” and the “office” of pastor.
Churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, an association of autonomous congregations which jointly fund seminaries, missionary efforts, and publications, must adhere to the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>, which affirms that “while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
Mike Law, a pastor at Arlington Baptist Church, plans to introduce an <a href="https://sbcamendment.org/home-2/frequently-asked-questions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amendment</a> to the denomination’s constitution at the upcoming meeting in New Orleans to clarify that the Southern Baptist Convention will “only deem a church to be in friendly cooperation” if the congregation does not “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” Law and other ministers have <a href="https://sbcamendment.org/home-2/why-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documented</a> cases of several hundred female pastors who currently hold positions in Southern Baptist churches.
Law said in remarks to The Daily Wire that the most recent move from Saddleback Church to ordain a female pastor “shows the continued need for our convention to be clear and committed to our doctrine,” adding that “we can begin to meet this need by taking the first step of adopting the proposed constitutional amendment this June.”
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Controversy over the appointment of female pastors at Southern Baptist churches occurs as the denomination sees the largest single-year membership <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sbc-sees-largest-one-year-membership-decline-in-a-century-churches-leave-due-to-liberal-drift" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decline</a> in at least a century. Beyond the lockdown mandates, which accelerated broader trends toward diminished church attendance in the United States, several ministers have identified the female pastor phenomenon as evidence of the denomination’s theologically liberal drift. Bart Barber, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and other leaders have faced criticism for neglecting to rebuke the dozens of churches which have installed female pastors.
Warren himself was one of several prominent evangelical ministers to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endorse</a> wearing face masks as a fulfillment of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” He also affirmed Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health who declared himself an “ally” of the LGBTQ movement and supported human fetal tissue research, as a committed Christian and a “man you can trust.”

Rick Warren

Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church Ordains Woman To ‘Campus Pastor’ Role Amid Southern Baptist Female Minister Controversy

Rick Warren’s Church Appoints Woman To ‘Campus Pastor’ Role Amid Southern Baptist Female Minister Controversy

Feminism

Southern Baptists

Wokeness

Activists, journalists, and a school board official mounted pressure against a restaurant facility in Boulder, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/colorado" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Colorado</a>, for allowing a conservative <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/christianity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">evangelical</a> church to rent the company’s space for worship services.
The Well Church, a congregation in Boulder with roughly 250 members and attendees, drew the attention of the local activists for sermons which affirm the immutability of manhood and womanhood, as well as the reality of marriage between one man and one woman. Online <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/boulder/comments/127tiam/selfided_boulder_christian_nationalist_preacher/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=ioscss&amp;utm_content=2&amp;utm_term=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussion</a> surrounding the church’s doctrine bled into The Daily Camera, one of the primary local newspapers in Boulder, where a guest opinion <a href="https://www.dailycamera.com/2023/04/05/guest-opinion-doug-mckenna-lets-shine-some-public-square-light-on-christian-nationalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">piece</a> provided readers with the date and time for the church’s recent Easter egg hunt at a local courthouse lawn.
Labeling the congregation “divisive,” “misogynistic,” and a potential “hate group” for asserting that “homosexuality is a sin” and that wives should “respect and obey” their husbands, the author of the opinion piece emphasized that The Well Church meets at The Rayback Collective, a food truck park located in Boulder and initially launched by Matt Patrick, one of the pastors and elders at The Well Church. “I will not patronize the Rayback,” the author of the article wrote, contending that supporting the business would spread “forced-birtherism, homophobia, patriarchy, Genesis-based ‘complementarianism,’ animus towards faiths not their own, and Bible-inspired ignorance anathema to a more just society.”
The author also claimed that members of The Well Church are “Christian Nationalists” who desire to “merge church with state,” citing the fact that they used to meet at a public middle school. He referenced excerpts from sermons which said that “the removal of Christian morality from the public square” is responsible for “the societal disintegration we see around us.”
Chase Davis, another pastor and elder at The Well Church, said in an interview with The Daily Wire that the author and one other protester appeared at the egg hunt to pass out pamphlets claiming that Christianity is psychologically abusive. He added that the article’s assertions about his purported desire to “merge church and state” are false, noting that other sermons affirm the doctrine of sphere sovereignty, which contends that church and state are separate institutions with distinct mandates even as each remains bound by the moral principles of the Bible.
The opinion piece was nevertheless shared on social media by Lisa Sweeney-Miran, the vice president of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education, who publicly <a href="https://twitter.com/LSweeneyMiran/status/1644918033977344000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> The Rayback Collective whether they would “continue their alignment with hate groups.” She said in another <a href="https://twitter.com/LSweeneyMiran/status/1656458181147770881" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> that “if you believe that homosexuality is a sin and you preach that harmful and violent belief at your church then I have no problem reasserting that you are a hate group.”
Other journalists and activists in Boulder shared <a href="https://twitter.com/qpyoungnews/status/1656324001315307521" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complaints</a> about the association between The Well Church and The Rayback Collective, from which Patrick sold his shares five years ago. The Rayback Collective issued a <a href="https://www.therayback.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> asserting that “all people are welcome” at their facility in response to the controversy.
“When pastors speak about biblical sexual ethics in our day, it should come as no surprise that many in our culture are repulsed by it,” Davis told The Daily Wire. “Ours is a very confused age. It is imperative that pastors hold the line and that the pulpit function as a bulwark of truth in order to equip the church to stand fast.”
The pressure from local activists against The Well Church is indeed a microcosm of the various misrepresentations which often affect conservative Christians: the term “Christian Nationalism” initially emerged in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/atlantic-writer-claims-rosary-is-an-extremist-symbol-with-militaristic-meaning-for-christian-nationalists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media</a> and among theological <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/christian-college-hosts-event-blaming-evil-white-evangelicals-for-electing-the-least-christian-president-in-american-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">liberals</a> as a boogeyman for believers who desire to advance public policies which correspond to biblical morality. Those unfamiliar with historic Protestantism may therefore conclude that Christians want to force conversion through the government rather than desire a Christian culture as a natural fruit of successful evangelism.
Davis observed that officials such as Sweeney-Miran likewise have their own morality which they seek to impose on their neighbors by means of the state.
“In any culture, there will be a common cultus or shared guiding beliefs for right worship. It is not whether but which. Right now, in our culture, that ground is hotly contested. And that is precisely why pastors must be ready to offer a sufficient defense of the faith where the battle rages most fiercely,” Davis continued. “Secularists have a moral vision which they seek to advance and impose on their opponents. This makes sense because they are working out what every human is by nature: a worshiper.”
“We will worship. The question inevitably becomes who or what they worship. As Bob Dylan said, ‘You&#8217;re gonna have to serve somebody.’”

Boulder, Colorado

Left-Wing Activists, School Board Official Pressure Business To Cut Ties With Colorado Church Over Views On Biblical Sexual Ethics 

Activists, School Board Official Push Business To Cut Ties With Colorado Church Over Views On Sexual Ethics 

Cancel Culture

Colorado

After <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/hurricane-ian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hurricane Ian</a> wreaked havoc on Fort Myers, <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/florida" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Florida</a>, local pastor Tom Ascol expressed trust in Jesus Christ as his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/evangelical" target="_blank" rel="noopener">congregation</a> recovers from the damage.
Hurricane Ian <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-hurricane-ian-slams-into-florida-as-powerful-category-4-hurricane">made landfall</a> on Wednesday, tearing through western and central Florida at nearly the strength of a Category 5 storm. With winds exceeding 150 miles per hour, the system was tied for the fourth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the Sunshine State.
Ascol wrote in a social media <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0RmFEKB5JLEk8m7R3GHTuR2RNEir8PmzD9SKLHxefRjjZaUrPyBoNFWHgef7J2oVGl&amp;id=8371408">update</a> Thursday that although his family was safe, some members of Grace Baptist Church had lost their homes. He announced that efforts were underway to help each household.
“In the wake of such catastrophe it is easy to be disoriented by the traumatic experiences you have just lived through and the catastrophic loss that is evident everywhere,” he explained. “But God&#8217;s people, those who have tasted and know that He is good, who have experienced His grace in the salvation found in His crucified, risen Son, our Lord — Jesus Christ, we have many reasons to be filled with hope and even to rejoice.”
Ascol, a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-southern-baptists-nominate-tom-ascol-voddie-baucham-to-leadership-to-combat-woke-drift-in-largest-protestant-denomination">candidate</a> for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention who ran on the platform of reversing the denomination’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-theologically-liberal-drift-conservative-pastors-endure-heavy-losses-at-southern-baptist-convention">leftward drift</a>, explained that church members and their neighbors have been working together to begin the recovery process. Though he and his wife were away from Fort Myers on a previously scheduled trip, Ascol coordinated efforts to keep congregants in touch with one another.
“In and through it all I was reminded of the Lord&#8217;s mercies,” he continued. “Very often these reminders came from the people with whom we were communicating. God kept babies safe. He kept first-responders strong enough to fulfill their duties &#8230; He gave wisdom to our governor and local officials. He displayed His power over His created world in ways that are undeniable for those who have eyes to see. The greatest meteorological minds could not precisely predict the track of the storm, much less control it. Our God displayed that He, and He alone, is God.”
Nearly 90,000 people reside in Fort Myers, according to data from the Census Bureau, while Lee County is home to nearly 800,000. Roughly 85% of businesses and residences were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-were-incredibly-hard-hit-stunning-video-shows-submerged-houses-blown-out-bridges-following-hurricane-ian">without power</a> as of Friday morning.
Ascol cited the words of Lamentations, a series of poems mourning the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians: &#8220;But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
“As we start the long, arduous process of digging out, healing, and rebuilding, we will do so fully aware that we are not on our own. The Lord is with us. His mercies will sustain us. He is faithful.”
Winds had weakened to 65 miles per hour as of Thursday, rendering Hurricane Ian a tropical storm. According to a <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/291500.shtml">forecast</a> from the National Hurricane Center, however, the storm has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-now-expect-ian-to-become-a-hurricane-again-storm-is-stubbornly-veering-off-course-and-speeding-up-agency-warns">remained more powerful</a> than initial estimates, threatening South Carolina and Georgia as winds gain speed and the system becomes “a hurricane again.”

Santa Fe, New Mexico

‘The Lord Is With Us’: Florida Pastor Shares Message Of Hope After Hurricane Ian Devastates His City

Florida Pastor Expresses Message Of Hope After Hurricane Ian Devastates His City

Florida

Hurricane

Hurricane Ian

Natural Disaster

American evangelicalism experienced a seismic shift toward theological and social progressivism over the past two years.
As revealed by Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research’s most recent <a href="https://thestateoftheology.com/">State of Theology Survey</a> — a biennial poll that tracks the beliefs of professing evangelicals and the overall adult population — the winds of the social justice movement appeared to sweep through the pews equally as strongly as the culture at large.
&#8220;The frightening results only reveal the fact that many who claim to be evangelical in America are not, indeed, truly evangelical,” G3 Ministries Executive Vice President Scott Aniol told The Daily Wire. “At the very least, this should cause us to think twice when we read statements in the media about what &#8216;evangelicals&#8217; do or believe, and above all, the results should motivate pastors to be sure to faithfully teach their people core biblical doctrine.&#8221;
Two years ago, for instance, only 22% of evangelicals agreed that “gender identity is a matter of choice” — a figure that has since increased to 37%. Only 11% affirmed that “the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today” — a figure that has risen to 28%.
The results correspond with a rising tolerance of homosexuality and transgenderism in the broader American culture. Toward the beginning of 2021, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/majority-of-gop-voters-support-same-sex-marriage-for-the-first-time-poll">majority of Republican voters</a> for the first time indicated that they support same-sex marriage. As officials consider the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would codify homosexual marriage into federal law, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-establishment-leaders-call-on-senate-to-enshrine-same-sex-marriage">several high-profile Republicans</a> publicly endorsed the legislation.
For a handful of issues, however, evangelicals became more conservative. 
The share of evangelicals affirming the statement “sex outside of marriage is a sin” increased from 90% to 94%. On the sanctity of life — “abortion is a sin” — evangelical support also rose from 88% to 91%. “While the reasons for this positive trend are unknown, it is encouraging to see more evangelicals affirming the personhood of human beings in the womb,” Ligonier remarked.
Cultural battle over wokeness <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-battle-over-wokeness-has-infiltrated-the-church">cascaded into evangelicalism</a> after the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. 
Many pastors and high-profile evangelicals spoke in favor of critical race theory and posited that the United States is systemically racist, requiring patently unbiblical responses such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/warnock-america-must-repent-for-its-worship-of-whiteness">repenting of whiteness</a>. As Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo became household names, evangelical volumes such as “Woke Church” by Eric Mason and “How to Fight Racism” by Jemar Tisby began circulating in many church circles.
Perhaps most concerning of all is an apparent rise in postmodern tendencies among evangelicals; agreement with the notion that “religious belief is a matter of personal opinion” rather than “objective truth” soared from 23% to 38%.
Professing evangelicals likewise folded on historic Christian teaching with respect to matters of doctrine. Two years ago, 15% said that “the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true” — a figure that increased to 26% in the most recent survey. “A rising disbelief in the Bible’s literal truth may help us understand why American evangelicals also increasingly believe that religious faith is a subjective experience rather than an objective reality,” Ligonier continued.
Rather than affirming that salvation is available through Jesus Christ alone, the share of evangelicals claiming that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam” rose from 42% to 56%. Meanwhile, the proportion of evangelicals agreeing that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God” rose from 30% to 43%.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches">closure of churches</a> as a result of government lockdowns is a possible explanation for declining affirmation of orthodox Christianity — especially since many former attendees stayed at home on Sunday mornings even after the lockdowns ended. For the first time in American history, church membership <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx">fell below half of the population</a> in 2020 — an overall decline of nearly 30% since the end of World War II.
Although evangelicals in the United States have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-dangerous-than-the-crude-tyrannies-of-the-past-a-profound-theologians-prophetic-warnings-about-government-education">long faced the temptation</a> to prioritize social activism and capitulate to theological liberalism, the turmoil of the past two years appears to have accelerated such a shift — and manifested that the sons of the present age are alive and well within the four walls of the church.
“These results convey the ongoing need for the church to be engaged in apologetics, helping unbelievers by providing a well-reasoned defense of the Christian faith, and helping believers by strengthening their clarity and conviction regarding why they believe what they do,” Ligonier concluded. “The need is great, but the power and promises of God can equip the church to bring truth and light to a deceived and dark world.”

The Del Ray Baptist church in the aftermath of the SCOTUS Roe draft leak, on May 08 in Alexandria, VA.

From The Inspiration Of Scripture To Gender Identity, Evangelicalism Sees A Massive Leftward Shift

Bible

Leftism

Readers Pass

Michael Gerson, former George W. Bush speechwriter and angry Never Trumper, penned a viral <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/01/michael-gerson-evangelical-christian-maga-democracy/">op-ed for the Washington Post</a> wrongly labeling white evangelical Christian supporters of Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda as anti-Christian.
The essay was the most popular piece on the Post&#8217;s website for days, setting hearts aflutter of leftists who believe Christianity is a mere sociological construct and the Bible a mythology. But Gerson’s dishonest piece is really nothing new, simply a regurgitation of the same Beltway screeds and talking points we’ve witnessed since Trump’s 2015 escalator moment. Gerson’s 4,300 words are snarky, judgmental, and myopic.
His main thesis boils down to MAGA as “a serious, unfolding threat to liberal democracy.” He ignores that Trump was democratically elected in 2016, and that violence around the Jan. 6 Capitol riots by a group of violent people was universally condemned by tens of millions of MAGA supporters. Gerson is silent about how if Democrats actually believed MAGA was a true democratic threat, they wouldn’t pump tens of millions of dollars to support MAGA primary candidates and pray for big general election wins.
While listing a series of easily-debunked, straw-man claims, Gerson asserts “Conservative evangelicalism has, in many ways, become the kind of religious tradition against which followers of Jesus were initially called to rebel.”
In truth, Gerson ironically misses that just like Jesus of backwater, rural Nazareth (e.g. not from a wealthy or religiously elite, urban Jerusalem family) the America First Movement did not arise from elite Beltway think tanks and university temples. It arose from We The People, including those from rural, working class backwaters. Just like the early Christians scattered throughout the dominant Roman empire, today’s conservative evangelical base is counterculture in a liberal Hollywood, media and academia-led culture that embraces abortion-on-demand, destruction of poor families through an expansive welfare state, and rogue (semi-facist?) executive powers like President Biden’s various regulatory overreaches.
Gerson is a modern-day Pharisee casting stones at unsophisticated Trump supporters, ignoring the plank in his own eye while screeching about MAGA’s mote. Take one of his ridiculous and non-enlightening phrases: “It is difficult for me to understand why so many believers have turned down a wedding feast to graze in political dumpsters.” Labeling a significant political movement of his fellow Americans, headed by a former leader of the Free World, a “dumpster” is unserious, childish, and unpersuasive.
Even Gerson’s framing headline, “Trump should fill Christians with rage,” is anti-Christian. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%204%3A31&amp;version=NIV">Ephesians</a> says the polar opposite: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger.” The Bible says a fruit of the spirit is “<a href="https://www.gcu.edu/blog/spiritual-life/weekly-devotional-fruit-spirit-self-control">self-control</a>,”&#8211; the opposite of rage.
Jesus repeatedly said His kingdom is not on earth, so we Christians need caution around mixing political and religious fervor. Urging Christian rage against Trump is a toxic cocktail of church and state. Trump doesn’t claim to be a spiritual leader. American voters choose a commander-in-chief, not a pastor-in-chief.
In his falsehoods about Trump voters backing “white authoritarian populism,” Gerson ignores Trump fared better than various GOP predecessors (including Gerson’s former boss, Bush, who Gerson wouldn’t dare label a “white nationalist”) among non-white voters and Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54972389">grew his margins</a> with black, Latino and Asian voters in 2020 over 2016. In 2020, for example, Trump gained 6% among black men, 5% among Hispanic women, and 4% among <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-americans-voted-biden-63-31-reality-more-complex-n1247171">Asian-Americans</a>.
Gerson also ignores white working-class, two-time Barack Obama voters who voted for Trump. Not racially aggrieved, they&#8217;re philosophically aggrieved with Obama’s fruit: dividing the country, enacting a far-left agenda. They&#8217;d be thrilled to vote for Ben Carson as second African-American POTUS.
Just like Carson was revered as Black Royalty (portrayed in hagiographic book and film for his groundbreaking surgeon career) before becoming an outspoken conservative, Trump was embraced by African-American leaders like Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Al Sharpton. Immediately after both became Republican leaders, they were transparently attacked by liberal “journalists.” That’s why it’s hard to believe media lies about MAGA and race thrown around by people like Gerson.
Gerson says of Jesus: “Defying most historical practice and precedent, He sought to reform human affairs in ways that privilege the poor, the prisoner, the blind, the oppressed. He wanted to put the joy, freedom and healing of outcasts at the center of a new era.”
In many ways, that’s what Trump did, reorienting the GOP toward the working class and embracing social outcasts – the forgotten man and woman. Before COVID, women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans made record income gains and saw historic <a href="https://justthenews.com/nation/economy/trump-touts-record-low-poverty-rate-all-us-households-including-african-american-and">low poverty</a> under Trump.
Trump first employed a female manager of a successful presidential campaign, first working mother as White House spokeswoman, and first openly gay Director of National Intelligence and cabinet member (Ric Grennell). Worldwide, Trump’s administration fought to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/opinions/trump-admin-lgbti-opinion-sheffield">decriminalize</a> LGBTI people.
Trump signed into law a significant prison reform law, The Next Step Act, giving prisoners mercy. By appointing pro-life judges, Trump protected the oppressed unborn. Defying China, Trump designated Muslim Uyghurs oppression as genocide. Though Gerson falsely claims MAGA supports anti-Semitism, Trump stood strongly with the oppressed Jewish people of Israel and against the far left, Democrat-led, anti-Semitic <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/state-treasurers-take-on-anti-israel-financial-ratings-firm-catering-to-activists/">BDS movement</a>. He did it while ushering in historic peace with Arab nations, and (breaking from presidential tradition) symbolically made his first overseas state visit to a Muslim nation, Saudi Arabia.
It’s laughable for Gerson to claim progressives embrace “boundless tolerance” when some <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/evidence-conservative-students-really-do-self-censor/606559/">92% of conservatives</a> would befriend a liberal and just 3% would not. Among liberals, nearly a quarter refuse to befriend a conservative. <a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/12/08/poll-political-polarization-students">Axios found</a> just 5 percent of GOP college students wouldn’t befriend someone from the opposing party — vs. 37 percent of Democrats. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050092&amp;mod=article_inline">Research</a> led by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt illustrates that conservatives better comprehend liberal beliefs than the reverse.
Our universities, media and popular culture are run by hard leftists who want to destroy Western civilization, deeming America hopelessly &#8220;irredeemable.” Notable example: ahistorical, anti-American 1619 Project wins vaunted Pulitzer Prize and is used as school curriculum nationwide. It’s a travesty against truth, history and intellectual honesty. Contrastingly, Trump empowers Americans to be proud of the values that built this wonderful country instead of cowering in shame.
I admire Gerson’s lyrical conclusion praising the purpose and meaning Christ brings to our lives. It’s sad Gerson’s not committed to Truth.
<a href="https://carriesheffield.com/">Carrie Sheffield</a> is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice, a Fellow at The State Financial Officers Foundation and a contributor to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire">Morning Wire</a> at The Daily Wire. She earned a master’s in public policy from Harvard University.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.

President Donald Trump Holds Michigan Rally

Grazing In ‘Political Dumpsters’: Why Gerson’s Attack On Trump Evangelicals Is All Wrong

Donald Trump

President Trump

It is one thing to vote Democrat because you believe a woman has a right to an abortion, because you are a Left-leaning progressive, or because you support the Green New Deal. It is another to vote Democrat because you are pro-life. That is a fundamental contradiction in terms. All the more is this the case when you fashion yourself to be a “pro-life evangelical for Biden.” Seriously?
This was an oxymoron right from the beginning when these evangelical leaders announced their support of candidate Biden in 2020. It has become a terrible embarrassment ever since, as Biden has become one of the most aggressively pro-abortion presidents in our nation’s history.
The only surprise was when these leaders, some of whom are highly respected as pastors, authors and professors, expressed their surprise and disappointment when President Biden began to do exactly what he said he would do as a candidate, namely, everything he could to support and uphold abortion.
That’s why, in September 2021, I <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2021/09/04/once-again-a-word-to-prolife-evangelicals-who-voted-for-biden-n2595315">asked</a> these leaders, “At the risk of pummeling an already, very dead horse, allow me to ask you once again: so, how is your pro-life vote for Joe Biden looking right now?”
I continued, “During the elections, I <a href="https://stream.org/my-message-to-pro-life-evangelicals-for-biden/">strongly challenged</a> your rationale in casting a ‘pro-life’ vote for a strongly, pro-abortion candidate. And I was incredulous when you expressed shock and disappointment when President Biden lived up to his promises and strongly reiterated his pro-abortion sentiments, <a href="https://stream.org/to-christians-who-voted-for-biden-did-you-not-see-this-coming/">asking</a> this on February 1, 2021: ‘Did you not see the radical, destructive, anti-Christian policy decisions he would make?’”
How could anyone not see what Biden, if elected, would do? He even promised that, if Roe was overturned, he would do his best to make Roe federal law. To this moment, he still wants that to happen.
That’s why I <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2021/03/10/how-utterly-absurd-that-socalled-prolife-evangelicals-for-biden-now-feel-betrayed-and-used-n2585930">wrote</a> in March 2021, “To be totally candid, it was hard for me to believe the <a href="https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/pro-life-evangelicals-biden-not-happy-president-biden-or-coronavirus-relief-bill">headline</a> was real. ‘Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden: “We feel used and betrayed.”’
Seriously? They ‘feel used and betrayed’ because the pro-abortion president they helped put in office did exactly what he said he would do? They ‘feel used and betrayed’ because he carried out his campaign promises? They ‘feel used and betrayed’ because he stayed true to the Democratic platform?
I could understand feeling embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated at their extreme naivety. But ‘used and betrayed’?”
I wonder how these leaders are feeling in the aftermath of the Court’s overturning of Roe, as President Biden has declared war on the pro-life movement and made clear that he will do whatever he can to give women across America access to abortion.
These evangelical Democrats said former President Trump demonstrated unchristian behavior, yet he proved to be a pro-life president of historical merit, appointing the three justices who made the overturning of Roe a reality and the only sitting president to speak at the annual March for Life.
In massive, extremely stark contrast, on July 8, the official White House website <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-protecting-access-to-reproductive-health-care-services/">announced</a> that, “President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law. Until then, he has committed to doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion.”
How does that comport with being a pro-life evangelical for Biden?
The statement continued, “Today, President Biden will sign an Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services. This Executive Order builds on the actions his Administration has already taken to defend reproductive rights by:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Safeguarding access to reproductive health care services, including abortion and contraception;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Protecting the privacy of patients and their access to accurate information;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Promoting the safety and security of patients, providers, and clinics; and</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Coordinating the implementation of Federal efforts to protect reproductive rights and access to health care.”</li>
</ul>
Could you imagine anything less “pro-life” from the president’s office? This is a declaration of war against the unborn.
This is why so many evangelicals chose to vote for Trump, despite their misgivings. Abortion was a major issue for them – really, a life and death issue – and Trump was as clearly pro-life as Biden was pro-abortion. The passage of time has only underscored the depth of differences between Trump and Biden when it comes to the removal of babies’ lives in the womb. It is the difference between life and death.
In short, the Joe Biden who sits in the White House is not the same Joe Biden who was elected to the Senate in 1973.
As <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/bidens-evolving-views-on-abortion/">noted</a> by Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, in 1974, Biden stated that Roe went “too far,” adding, that a woman seeking an abortion should not have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.” And in 1982, he voted for a “constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
And while it is true he opposed Judge Robert Bork in 1987, he still said in 1994 that, “Those of us who are opposed to abortions should not be compelled to pay for them.” (Notice that word “us”!)
He voted three times to ban partial-birth abortion (in 1995, 1999, and 2003) but then in 2007 he criticized the Supreme Court’s rationale in upholding of the ban as &#8220;paternalistic.”
He then reversed his stance on the Hyde Amendment in 2019 – in the midst of a live, TV debate – and said in 2020 that he supports abortion “under any circumstance.”
As Donohue concluded, “There is no one in public life who has undergone such a dramatic transformation. He did not change because of the Catholic Church: it did not change its position on abortion. He did not change because of science: it did not change its position on when life begins. It was Biden who changed, and he did so for totally political reasons.”
And this is the man that these “pro-life evangelicals for Biden” helped put into office, the man who has now issued the most militant, pro-abortion executive order in our nation’s history.
As I have said repeatedly, it would have been one thing if these leaders had said, “Before God, we cannot vote for Donald Trump, as we see him doing him more harm than good. Therefore, with reluctance, we are voting for Joe Biden.” (Or, “Therefore, we are not casting a vote for president.”)
But it is another thing entirely when, as leaders in the Body of Christ with a reputation for morality and godliness, you cast a vote for a pro-abortion candidate in the name of pro-life.
Little wonder that, 10 months ago, it was <a href="https://protestia.com/2021/09/08/pro-life-evangelicals-for-biden-has-died/">reported</a> that, “Within months of that open letter [saying that they felt ‘used and betrayed’] ‘Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden’ died as surely as the babies sucked out of the womb.
“All their social media was deleted and their website was taken down. Everything is defunct. <a href="https://www.prolifeevangelicalsforbiden.com/">https://www.prolifeevangelicalsforbiden.com</a>/ was no more, replaced with a sad testament to their great shame. They didn’t even last a year.
“None of the founding signees have spoken publicly about the implosion of their organization, or repented of their naivety and stupidity, as far as we can tell.”
Now would be a great time to hear from some of these leaders, in humility and contrition. My brothers and sisters, what do you have to say?
Dr. Michael Brown (<a href="http://www.askdrbrown.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.askdrbrown.org</a>) is the host of the nationally syndicated <a href="http://www.lineoffireradio.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Line of Fire</a> radio program. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and is the author of 40 books. Connect with him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AskDrBrown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/DrMichaelLBrown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbINn3x-intLp88Zrf8acpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Readers-Pass—Brown—New-Gallup-Poll,-Less-and-Less-Believe-in-God-(esp-liberals)_2 (1)

What Are The ‘Pro-Life Evangelicals For Biden’ Thinking Now?

Biden Administration

Pro-Life Movement

Televangelist Pat Robertson&#8217;s wife, Adelia &#8220;Dede&#8221; Robertson, died at the age of 94 on Tuesday in her Virginia Beach home, according to an obituary posted on the Christian Broadcasting Network&#8217;s website.
The <a href="https://www.cbn.com/dederobertson/">obit</a> did not provide any details as to the cause of her death, but did share touching tributes from her children, calling her the &#8220;rock&#8221; of their family and the one who &#8220;held&#8221; their family together.
&#8220;Dede Robertson was a woman of great faith, a champion of the Gospel, and a remarkable servant of Christ who has left an indelible print on all that she set her hand to during her extraordinary life,&#8221; her husband, the famed televangelist shared in a statement.
&#8220;My mom was a rock,&#8221; daughter, Ann LeBlanc, shared. &#8220;She was a rock throughout our childhood. Dad had to travel a lot, but Mom was always there for us kids … that gives great security to children.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Dede Robertson, Wife of Televangelist Pat Robertson, Dead at 94: &#39;A Woman of Great Faith&#39; <a href="https://t.co/f075wVrW4w">https://t.co/f075wVrW4w</a>
&mdash; People (@people) <a href="https://twitter.com/people/status/1516801898787090442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I think the thing that&#8217;s been wonderful for all of us children to see was the extraordinary growth in my parents … as they got older, it seems like they were getting closer together … there was a sweetness and a gentleness in both of them,&#8221; son, Tim Robertson, wrote. &#8220;That was a great example for us kids to see.&#8221;
&#8220;Mom was the glue that held the Robertson family together,&#8221; son, Gordon Robertson, shared. &#8220;She was always working behind the scenes. If it weren&#8217;t for Mom, there wouldn’t be a CBN …&#8221;
&#8220;My mother had so many virtues … I&#8217;ve never heard her complain or want to give up… she was steadfast,&#8221; daughter, Elizabeth Robinson, wrote. &#8220;That&#8217;s what Dad needed beside him all these years; a steadfast partner who continually read the Bible and studied the Bible. She was not too concerned about herself. She was selfless. I always saw that growing up. She would make sure we had before she had.&#8221;
Dede was born on December 3, 1927, in Columbus, Ohio. She would later graduate &#8220;from Ohio State University where she earned a bachelor&#8217;s degree in Social Administration,&#8221; the statement read. She also was a beauty queen in the Miss Ohio State contest and worked as a fashion model.
She later earned a Master of Nursing Degree from Yale University School of Nursing. It was while she was at Yale, she met her husband, M.G. &#8220;Pat&#8221; Robertson, a student in the Yale Law School, the statement added.
She is survived by her husband of more than 60 years, their four children, Timothy Robertson, Elizabeth Robinson, Gordon Robertson, and Ann LeBlanc, as well as the couple&#8217;s 14 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, the CBN statement read.
Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.

Pat Robertson-2

Televangelist Pat Robertson’s Wife, Dede, Dead At 94

Faith

Television

Yale

(Rush-Priority)-Readers-Pass—Basham—How-Elite-Evangelical-Leaders-Helped-Spread-The-Government’s-Covid-Propaganda-To-Churches_2

How The Federal Government Used Evangelical Leaders To Spread Covid Propaganda To Churches

Culture

In a stunning lack of self-awareness, MSNBC host Joy Reid and her guests on Monday night suggested that “white, so-called Christian conservatives” are “selfish” people.
“They’re white, so-called Christian conservatives who feel like this country was built by them, for them. Their party, the Republicans,” is merely “a party of selfish people who cannot play well with others,” said Reid in her opening monologue. “They even have their own cable networks.”
She then compared Christian conservatives to a classic “Star Trek” character named Charlie, whom she described as an “annoying alien <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incel">incel</a> who destroys everything around him when he doesn’t get his way.”
Reid claimed that white, Christian conservatives wrongly believe the country is being taken away from them. “A certain percentage of Americans feel like the country used to focus on them and fixate on them, and they were the main character. And now that they feel that they’re not the main character, and they don’t always win, and they don’t get to do what they want, and they don’t get to have their way, it’s all an outrage. It’s all a crime. Everything must be overturned. so it goes back to the way they thought it should be,” she said in a stream-of-consciousness.
After Reid laid the blame at Christian conservatives, Tom Nichols of The Atlantic followed up on Reid&#8217;s comments, saying, &#8220;We take offense at everything&#8221; and embrace a “culture of narcissism.” He said this was to fill “this yawning gaping hole where spirituality used to be for a lot of people, that this has become a religion of the self.”
“The idea that previous generations took pleasure, a civic pride, a pleasure in civic virtue by serving others, by being selfless, by being stoic, by not constantly talking about your sense of grievance and your sense of anger and outrage — that is completely alien to multiple generations now of Americans, who are all about vocalizing a sense of loss, even though they haven’t lost anything,” Nichols said. “The irony is that a lot of the people storming these barricades have had nothing taken away from them. They’ve been told they’ve had things taken away from them, and their acceptance, their embracing of that notion, has given their lives some kind of meaning.”
“That [Star Trek] character that you referenced is an eternal adolescent, which is what we have become in this country. We are eternally adolescent. We take offense at everything. We look for reasons to take offense … We take no pleasure in adulthood any more,” said Nichols, as Joy Reid and Michael Eric Dyson nodded knowingly.
Reid found Nichols’ words so insightful that she tweeted them and a video of the panel hours later. “This is such a solid point by @RadioFreeTom. We are a bored country full of people seeking some form of meaning, which folks used to get from religion or from the simple joy of doing the right thing and contributing to the community. And the biggest complainers have lost nothing,” she wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is such a solid point by <a href="https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RadioFreeTom</a>. We are a bored country full of people seeking some form of meaning, which folks used to get from religion or from the simple joy of doing the right thing and contributing to the community. And the biggest complainers have lost nothing. <a href="https://t.co/oSKF3Sx4Wl">https://t.co/oSKF3Sx4Wl</a>
&mdash; Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1478199945605881860?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Critics say that Reid and her fellow panelists appear unable to hear themselves. Reid so frequently reduces her political rivals’ motives to racism that Tucker Carlson calls her “the race lady.”
Dyson accused other conservatives of telling minorities, “‘No, you’ve got too much already. You shouldn’t have had what you already had. You used to work for us; now you don’t do that any more, so let’s figure out a way to rejigger the system to make you subservient again.’ Yes, that’s where we are,” Dyson asserted without proof. “And the denial of it — the denial of it is especially tragic.”
In reality, the United States has spent more than <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/whats-missing-war-poverty">$23 trillion</a> on the War on Poverty since 1965. Government entities and many private businesses and universities instituted affirmative action programs to favor minorities, which continue to this day, although the Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/443/193/#tab-opinion-1953274">authorized</a> only “temporary, voluntary, affirmative action measures undertaken to eliminate manifest racial imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories.” Justices <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZO.html">ruled</a> 19 years ago that “we expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
The United States invested so much taxpayer funding in a war on poverty designed to lift minorities out of poverty that English professor and scholar John McWhorter said, “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/reparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon">Reparations for black America already happened</a>, starting in the late ‘60s.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/reparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon">‘Reparations For Black America Already Happened,’ Black Scholar Tells Don Lemon</a>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

33rd Gloria Awards: A Salute to Women of Vision – VIRTUAL EVENT

MSNBC’s Joy Reid Says Conservatives Are ‘A Party Of Selfish People Who Cannot Play Well With Others’

Affirmative Action

Joy Reid

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 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dallas-democrat-mayor-rips-matthew-dowd-over-remarks-on-ending-campaign-democrats-have-racism-problem">short-lived candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas</a> 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 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/msnbc-idiot-percentage-of-this-population-that-just-needs-to-be-told-what-to-do">an idiot percentage of this population</a> that just needs to be told what to do” and compared Trump voters to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/prager-donny-deutsch-michael-hayden-and-moral-dennis-prager">Nazis</a>.
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”; <a href="https://www.djameskennedy.org/devotional-detail/20200527-the-uniqueness-of-christ">all religions</a> have “<a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/islamic-state-jesus-is-a-slave-to-allah-who-will-wage-jihad-once-he-returns-to-earth">taught the same fundamental thing</a>.”
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,&#8221; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told me in an exclusive statement.
Dowd’s comments came during a segment of Tuesday’s “Deadline: White House” in which the host, Nicolle Wallace, made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/msnbc-host-repeats-3-discredited-claims-2-in-less-than-a-minute">three factual errors — two within one minute</a>. 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.
Christian scholars said it is Dowd and Wehner who have conflated their politics with the Gospel.
“The suggestion that American evangelicals don’t believe in ‘common decency’ or ‘the common good’ reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about the concept of ‘the common good’ and of Christianity,” said Trey Dimsdale, J.D., executive director of the <a href="https://crcd.net/">Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy</a>, a think tank that focuses on religion’s positive contribution to society. “From the very earliest days of the American republic, American Christians have strived to make our culture one that is open, free, and one of mutual support and affection in which non-Christians and non-Americans can flourish.”
Conservative Christians reject sweeping, top-down, government-centered policies precisely because they believe those policies do not contribute to the common good, which is better served by private philanthropy. The fact that conservative evangelicals hold “a different vision based on different conceptions of ‘the good’ is not something that should be surprising or even scandalous, but a byproduct of a plural society and should be welcomed,” Dimsdale, who is an evangelical Christian, told The Daily Wire exclusively. “Christians of different persuasions and those of other religious commitments are welcomed to participate in our common civic life and pursue the good that is common to all of us.”
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 “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A33&amp;version=NKJV">seek first the kingdom of God</a>.” The Bible mentions the terms “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of Heaven” 101 times.
&#8220;If we talk about Jesus, let’s make sure it’s the Jesus of the Bible, who said, ‘<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A15-21&amp;version=NKJV">If you love Me, keep My commandments</a>,’” said Perkins. “America’s soul problem results from its truth problem: a denial of God, His Word, and its application to our lives.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Today – Season 64

‘We Have’ Evangelicals ‘Who Practice The Most Un-Christian Ways’: MSNBC Contributor

Christians

Matthew Dowd

Media Bias

MSNBC

Nicolle Wallace

On November 17, Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Dallas-Fort Worth did something rarely seen in the world of evangelical leadership. He publicly criticized another Baptist institution, <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamGreenway/status/1461035803421945858?s=20">tweeting</a> out a letter he’d sent to Michael Spradlin, president of Memphis’ Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary (MABTS).
“I write to you with extreme disappointment that the institution you lead has plans to host a ‘film premiere’ of Enemies Within the Church,&#8221; Greenway began, placing scare quotes around film premiere as if to suggest there was some doubt over whether the movie in question was actually a film.
“The film&#8217;s trailer,” he went on, “contains campus footage of the institution I am privileged to lead overlaid with narrative insinuations of &#8216;Marxism’ &#8230; I take strong umbrage to such scandalous and scurrilous slander, particularly when it is apparently condoned by an institution such as yours.”
Greenway finished by asking Spradlin to reconsider his decision to show the movie.
This post was shared and cheered by hundreds of Christian leaders, journalists, and authors — many with blue-checks by their names and Washington Post bylines in their bios. But Spradlin was not to be deterred.
His office fired back with a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/seminary-president-protests-screening-film-examining-wokeness-within-church-1651155#slideshow/1936752">statement</a> saying that the school was “very concerned” about the evidence of creeping liberalism the film presents. “We believe Southern Baptists, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are wise and able to arrive at the conclusion that glorifies our Lord and advances the gospel. Documented information and concerns should be considered instead of suppressed.”
Spradlin finished by quoting the late, great Southern Baptist pastor and author Adrian Rogers: “It is better to be divided by truth than united in error.” The film screening went on as planned.
Neither Greenway nor anyone else applauding his calls to cancel the showing of <a href="https://enemieswithinthechurch.com/">Enemies Within The Church</a> (EWTC) offered counter explanations to the detailed and extensive evidence the film presents that individuals motivated to promote a leftist agenda have taken up influential posts within evangelical institutions.
From the outset, it must be noted that this is a documentary that wears its agenda on its sleeve. It doesn’t pretend to be a neutral, journalistic investigation, but rather, is something more like a carefully argued court case that comes complete with a detailed bibliography. And the case, in the words of one of the interview subjects, is that some of America’s foremost evangelical leaders have gone from “communicating the Bible to souls to transforming social structures.”
Nothing New Under the Sun
The best service “Enemies Within The Church” renders viewers is the historical context it offers for the ideological shifts people in the pews are seeing today. It broadens the scope of the discussion beyond current headlines on Critical Race Theory and white privilege to their foundational philosophies of socialism and communism, of which these buzzwords are only the latest costume.
The film persuasively traces how, in the 1930s, communists like labor union activist Bella Dodd subverted Catholic ministries, particularly among the more education-oriented Jesuits, and turned them from teaching the gospel to teaching social engineering. Dodd described bringing 1100 young communists into the Catholic church over decades. “By the time she got out [of communism] 20 or 30 years later,” Michael Hichborn, president of the Catholic Levanto Institute explains, “she had seen many of those young men raised to the rank of bishop and even cardinal.”
From there, the film moves on to the 1970s and how a who’s who of progressive Christian intellectuals and professors came together to draft the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicago_Declaration_of_Evangelical_Social_Concern">Chicago Declaration</a>, a document that argues for “attacking” American “materialism” and “the maldistribution of the nation’s wealth and services.” In full, the declaration reads like a primer for the social justice lingo we hear from an increasing number of pulpits today, particularly its focus on redistribution of wealth: “[Christians] must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living,&#8221; it asserts, &#8220;and promote a more just acquisition and distribution of the world’s resources.”
The same playbook, the film argues, is playing out now in evangelical educational institutions under the guise of identity politics. We see how deeply seminaries like Fuller and Wheaton have already been compromised by the priorities of social justice over biblical justice and how leaders educated at those schools are carrying what they learned to once-conservative universities like Baylor and Biola. There, we see invited speakers discuss how white people need to abstain from their privilege like “vegetarians” abstain from meat.
The message today, narrator Cary Gordon, a pastor himself, explains, “is not that you need to receive Christ and repent of your sins, it’s that you’re under the weight of sexism, racism, and homophobia.”
Real Victims
If you follow the various evangelical camps on Twitter or other social media, it’s easy to come away thinking that all of this is just so much academic infighting that has little impact on regular folks in real churches. EWTC illustrates how mistaken this assumption is.
Its most disturbing example is how members of First Baptist Church Naples were treated when they voted against a black candidate to take over as senior pastor.
Though his application came with the strong support of national Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders, many church members were concerned that Marcus Hayes had recommended progressive books like “Woke Church,” tweeted praise for Vice President Kamala Harris, and endorsed ideas like reparations. He also did not meet the requirements the pastoral search committee had originally laid out for a new senior pastor.
A group of 30 to 40 longtime church members circulated a petition that received 800 signatures calling for a meeting to discuss those issues, as well as their concern that their 27-year former head pastor had been pushed out and maligned in order to make way for Hayes. They never got the meeting, but nonetheless Hayes failed to meet the vote threshold to win the job. In response, the church’s leadership <a href="https://julieroys.com/excommunicated-baptists-say-megachurch-smeared-them-as-racists-and-so-did-sbc-leaders/">excommunicated</a> 18 people who led the vote against him. They then released a <a href="https://sbcthisweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/FBC-Naples-Response.pdf">statement</a> blaming racism on Hayes’ inability to secure 85 percent of the ballots.
“A portion of the 19% that voted against Marcus Hayes did so out of racial prejudice,” the executive pastor proclaimed, adding, “it exposed a sickness in what we characterize as a cancer in our fellowship.”
The biggest names and most influential national leaders in the SBC bolstered this version of events. Then-SBC president J.D. Greear <a href="https://twitter.com/jdgreear/status/1190084002188795904?s=20">called</a> the statement a “bold, Gospel-faithful response” to “sinful prejudice.” Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, <a href="https://twitter.com/DannyAkin/status/1190071849717321728?s=20">described</a> the racism charge as a “strong and redemptive word.” One of the foremost black voices in the SBC, mega-church pastor Dwight McKissic, <a href="https://twitter.com/pastordmack/status/1190113316997337089?s=20">said</a>, “You cannot cure racism with an antibiotic, it takes amputations. Grateful that [First Baptist Church Naples] is moving toward amputating the racists.”
Except, there was never an iota of real evidence that any of the church members who voted against Hayes were motivated by racial animus. Yet their motives and character were maligned in major newspapers across the country with the help of the biggest megaphones in the nation’s largest protestant denomination.
One of the excommunicated deacons, Bob Caudill — who had been a member of the church for 50 years — begged Greear and Akin to retract their implicit accusations of bigotry. Neither deigned to respond to him.
Nor were they willing to answer questions from independent religious news outlet <a href="https://julieroys.com/excommunicated-baptists-say-megachurch-smeared-them-as-racists-and-so-did-sbc-leaders/">The Roys Report</a>. “We reached out to leaders at FBC Naples about a dozen times, seeking evidence for the racism charge, as well as comment on other issues at the church, but no one responded,” TRR reported. “We likewise contacted SBC President J.D. Greear, SEBTS President Danny Akin, and Rev. Dwight McKissic for comment, but none responded.”
At least The Roys Report tried. Few established evangelical news outlets even attempted to cite support for the accusation — which would have been hard, because, to this day, none has been brought forward.
Questions That Demand Answers
That brings us to the main problem the very existence of the film highlights — the unwillingness of the biggest Christian news publications, religion reporters, and ministry leaders to investigate and demand answers on issues that might discomfit high-profile, institutional figures. Thus, everyday people, worried about what they’re hearing in their churches, are flocking to independent voices who will ask tough questions no one else will.
These voices are often labeled as fringe dividers by organizational representatives, as we see happening to the filmmakers behind EWTC. In some cases, it may be deserved. But what those who occupy the upper echelons of the evangelical world fail to recognize as they send each other &#8220;thankful for your ministry/leadership&#8221; tweets is that the “fringe” discernment bloggers and rogue filmmakers are increasingly speaking for millions. They represent the concerns of average Christians who are sincerely unnerved to show up to church on Sunday and suddenly hear they’ve been unknowingly raising their kids in dens of racism and patriarchal oppression.
Is “enemies” too strong a word for some of the individuals highlighted in this film? Probably, and it certainly isn’t one Christians should use of each other carelessly without seeking explanation. But the longtime, faithful members of First Baptist Naples were also treated like enemies when they wouldn’t fall in line. Where is the leadership condemning that slander? Where are those seeking a charitable understanding of their concerns?
Unlike those accusations, EWTC has presented evidence. A lot of it. Is it lacking context? Is it misleading? Then it should be answered rather than censored.
Long before this film premiered at MABTS, everyday Christians wanted to know why they’re hearing major pastors using the language of Critical Race Theory and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TGaMBqaCE4">speaking of</a> a “bag of privileges” white people carry around with them, as mega-church pastor, Matt Chandler did. They want to know why J.D. Greear <a href="https://twitter.com/jdgreear/status/1190084002188795904?s=20">tacitly endorsed</a> the idea that the members of First Baptist Naples were racist without any clear evidence for the charge. They want to know why Southern Seminary New Testament professor Jarvis Williams <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Agu-ULu4E">seemed to suggest</a> that theological textbooks must meet diversity requirements when he called for “decolonizing” seminary curriculum from “whiteness.”
Again, that’s not to say there might not be additional background that would cast these slices of speeches and comments in a different light. Perhaps Greear spoke too cavalierly about a situation about which he didn’t possess enough information. (Show me the man or woman who hasn’t sinned on that count.) Williams has given <a href="https://youtu.be/8PLGpETG69w">other interviews</a> where he expressly disavows CRT. But it must be said that the disavowal would certainly seem to conflict with his earlier statements, and the sympathetic interviewer did not explicitly ask him about those comments.
That reticence to face hard interrogators is another element contributing to distrust and division. Institutional leaders hear the worries that they are drifting left and believe, with the applause of echo chambers ringing in their ears, that they are addressing them their with vague, dissembling responses to friendly, in-house interviews. That is not the path of transparency or allaying fears. Instead, they should be talking to real journalists who will ask real adversarial questions or, even, have actual discourse with their critics.
That said, one failing EWTC has is that it doesn’t explore other possible motivations that can account for creeping liberalism in ministries. While I came away convinced that there certainly are actors subtly and not-so-subtly working to introduce the “different gospel” of social justice into evangelical institutions, more common failings than being wolves in sheep&#8217;s clothing could account for why some pastors, presidents, and ministry leaders don’t do more to stop it.
The great sin of Adam — passivity — comes foremost to mind. There’s also simply the desire to hang on to hard-won positions. Men who have spent lifetimes building up institutional respect aren’t often eager to risk it by stirring up hornets’ nests with angry and energetic social justice warriors in their twenties and thirties.
But whatever the cause, concerns over wokeness in the church, even if overblown, will not be dispelled by ignoring or suppressing them. Like so many things in American life, the solution is not less speech, but more. It isn’t in demanding that films screenings be cancelled but that the issues they bring up be forthrightly answered.
I don&#8217;t know the truthfulness of every allegation “Enemies Within the Church” presents — it would take weeks to fully flesh out every point. But I know they have presented more than enough to warrant a hearing.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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