{"id":570176,"date":"2021-06-22T10:21:39","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570176"},"modified":"2021-06-22T10:21:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T14:21:43","slug":"it-is-a-moral-freak-show-msnbc-says-evangelical-movement-is-anti-intellectual-anti-science-moral-freak-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/it-is-a-moral-freak-show-msnbc-says-evangelical-movement-is-anti-intellectual-anti-science-moral-freak-show\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It Is A Moral Freak Show\u2019: MSNBC Says Evangelical Movement Is \u2018Anti-Intellectual,\u2019 \u2018Anti-Science\u2019 \u2018Moral Freak Show\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fit-is-a-moral-freak-show-msnbc-says-evangelical-movement-is-anti-intellectual-anti-science-moral-freak-show%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570176&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-2758614-1-1.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Motivated by irrational fear and anger, Christians have embraced an all-out antipathy toward education and science, turned their churches into a \u201cmoral freak show,\u201d and taught that \u201cDonald Trump is the second coming of Jesus Christ,\u201d according to a seven-member panel on MSNBC\u2019s \u201cMorning Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During an extended discussion on Monday regarding the cultural currents rippling through American churches, former Bush family speechwriter Peter Wehner blamed Christians\u2019 rejection of secular-progressive <em>zeitgeist <\/em>on their anger, resentment, and collective inferiority complex.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people of the Christian faith \u2014 not all of them, but enough to be concerning \u2014 they\u2019ve been roiled by grievances, in anger, feelings of dishonor by the elite culture. Some of that has been warranted, much of it has not,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s been around and brewing and growing for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an almost existential fear among many people on the Christian Right about \u2026 progressivism and the Left,\u201d Wehner told MSNBC. The problem stems from \u201ca fusion between fundamentalism and evangelicalism,\u201d which he called \u201ctwo very distinct and different things\u201d before conflating them with each other and virtually all Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFundamentalism is characterized by, kind of, legalistic spirit, by an anti-intellectual approach, an anti-science approach, and a Manichean view, a view that the world is divided between children of light children of darkness. That altogether has created a dangerous mix, or cocktail, in the evangelical world, and they have so wandered away from the core message of Christ and the Gospel,\u201d he said without evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Citing Jesus\u2019 words condemning one of the churches in the Book of Revelation, Wehner said Christians\u2019 unjustified \u201canger\u201d caused them to \u201cwander away from what the Bible calls their \u2018first love,\u2019 from Christ\u201d and use their faith \u201cas a cudgel.\u201d He also asserted that the influential Southern Baptist <a href=\"https:\/\/ptv.org\/\">Pastor Robert Jeffress<\/a> of Dallas \u201cdisregarded the Sermon on the Mount\u201d when he supported Donald Trump in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Wehner concluded that, because of evangelicals\u2019 \u201cawful witness,\u201d young people are \u201cwandering away from the faith \u2014 because they see this moral freak show, and they don\u2019t want anything to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a freak show,\u201d repeated host Joe Scarborough, before grousing that Christians read stories from \u201cChinese cults that run conspiracy websites,\u201d presumably a reference to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/\">The Epoch Times<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s not fall to the stereotypes that these are people who live in shacks like off at the end of some dirt road.\u201d The list includes \u201cpeople with advanced degrees that I\u2019ve known my entire life,\u201d who have \u201cfallen in, and they believe that Donald Trump is the second coming of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He went on to say that evangelicals have become deeply embedded in \u201clegalism\u201d concerning \u201cabortion. The legalism is around gay marriage. The legalism is around Critical Race Theory. \u2026 That is not the definition of the Gospels.\u201d He failed to mention that <a href=\"https:\/\/preachersinstitute.com\/2017\/02\/08\/fathers-orthodox-church-abortion\/\">each of these issues<\/a> constitutes an <a href=\"https:\/\/downloads.frc.org\/EF\/EF05K11.pdf\">ancient Christian biblical teaching<\/a> and an inseparable component of the Christian moral code.<\/p>\n<p>The panel \u2014 which also included Matt Lewis of The Daily Beast, MSNBC\u2019s Al Sharpton, and David French of the Never-Trump website The Dispatch \u2014 came as battles within religious denominations increasingly center around how Christians should respond to politicians who violate 2,000-year-old Christian teachings yet claim to be \u201cdevout\u201d members of the faith. The nation\u2019s largest Protestant church, the Southern Baptist Convention, last week concluded an annual meeting that highlighted conservative themes, and the U.S. Catholic bishops are considering whether to excommunicate politicians like President Joe Biden who enable the abortion of unborn babies.<\/p>\n<p>The legacy media\u2019s caricature of evangelical Christians as oafish na\u00effs and hayseeds dates back decades. The media swooned over former President Jimmy Carter after he wrote in his 2005 book <a href=\"https:\/\/therightswriter.com\/2005\/11\/our-endangered-patience\/\">Our Endangered Values<\/a> that \u201cfundamentalists\u201d are \u201cauthoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others\u201d and \u201chave an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women.\u201d They believe \u201cthey are right and that anyone who contradicts them is ignorant and possibly evil \u2026 They are often angry and sometimes resort to\u00a0verbal\u00a0or\u00a0even physical abuse\u00a0against those who interfere with the implementation of their agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, The Washington Post has dismissed evangelicals as unthinking armies controlled by pulpit-pounding puppet masters. \u201cThe strength of fundamentalist leaders lies in their flocks,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/politics\/1993\/02\/01\/energized-by-pulpit-or-passion-the-public-is-calling\/f747ded3-b7c5-4578-ad3b-2f500dbaeacf\/\">wrote<\/a> Michael Weisskopf in February 1993. \u201cTheir followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To its credit, the Post retracted the statement the next day, adding, \u201cThere is no factual basis for that statement.\u201d We\u2019ll see how long it takes until \u201cMorning Joe\u201d follows suit.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch the first part of the segment below:<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How QAnon Conspiracies Impact American Christianity | MSNBC\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PHWEhGeCXaM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motivated by irrational fear and anger, Christians have embraced an all-out antipathy toward education and science, turned their churches into a \u201cmoral freak show,\u201d and taught that \u201cDonald Trump is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280941,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-2758614-1-1.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018It Is A Moral Freak Show\u2019: MSNBC Says Evangelical Movement Is \u2018Anti-Intellectual,\u2019 \u2018Anti-Science\u2019 \u2018Moral Freak Show\u2019","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-2758614-1-1.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018It Is A Moral Freak Show\u2019: MSNBC Says Evangelical Movement Is \u2018Anti-Intellectual,\u2019 \u2018Anti-Science\u2019 \u2018Moral Freak Show\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}