{"id":835635,"date":"2021-10-01T15:14:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T19:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=835635"},"modified":"2021-10-01T15:14:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T19:14:12","slug":"evangelical-leaders-joy-reid-committed-slander-against-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/evangelical-leaders-joy-reid-committed-slander-against-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelical Leaders: Joy Reid Committed \u2018Slander\u2019 Against Christians"},"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\">16<\/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%2Fevangelical-leaders-joy-reid-committed-slander-against-christians%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=835635&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\/09\/Joy-Reid.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>One of the nation\u2019s most prominent evangelical leaders told The Daily Wire exclusively that MSNBC host Joy Reid committed \u201cslander against evangelical Christianity\u201d by claiming evangelical Christians teach that they \u201cdon\u2019t have to really worry about my fellow man, the poor, the immigrant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Multiple evangelical leaders told the Daily Wire that Reid\u2019s comments wrongly demonized evangelicals over political policy differences.<\/p>\n<p>Joy Reid\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/nicki-minaj-says-shes-locked-out-of-twitter-invited-to-white-house-twitter-and-white-house-respond\">latest<\/a> controversial comments came during an exchange with Robert P. Jones, the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, on Thursday\u2019s episode of \u201cThe ReidOut.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Joy Reid <a href=\"https:\/\/ok.ru\/video\/2890898737876\">said<\/a> that evangelical Christianity is \u201call about personal morality, which, in your view, sort of crowded out having to care about other people.\u201d Reid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/transcripts\/transcript-reidout-9-29-21-n1280424\">asked<\/a> if evangelical Christians teach \u201ca religious construct that says all that matters is, if I sin, I personally seek salvation, and it\u2019s just about that \u2014 and I don\u2019t have to really worry about my fellow man, the poor, the immigrant?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d replied Jones. \u201cI describe it as a kind of holding a light too close to your face, where the background just recedes from being visible.\u201d He said the evangelical Christian\u2019s \u201chyperfocus on personal morality, personal sin \u2026 really does occlude any sense of social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on his childhood in the South, Jones said that evangelical Christianity allegedly excludes social concerns \u201cby design \u2014 and that\u2019s the important thing to say here. It was no accident, right? They all just constructed \u2026 a worldview that can be simultaneously so concerned with personal sin and so indifferent to, and even actively working against, equal rights for black and brown Americans at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones is a longtime critic of evangelical Christianity. The claim that left-wing policies violate the faithful Christian of Jew\u2019s \u201creligious liberty was originally developed as a political sleight-of-hand tactic to cover a white supremacist agenda,\u201d Jones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.au.org\/church-state\/april-2021-church-state-magazine\/featured\/a-troubling-legacy-revealing-the-white\">wrote<\/a> in an article for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. And, as Daily Wire\u2019s Hank Berrien <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/nyt-op-ed-white-parents-using-learning-pods-for-children-perpetuate-white-supremacy\">reported<\/a>, \u201cJones authored a book titled <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/White-Too-Long-Supremacy-Christianity\/dp\/1982122862\/\">White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity<\/a>, and another titled <a href=\"http:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/End-White-Christian-America\/dp\/1501122290\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1452200902&amp;sr=8-1\">The End of White Christian America<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But, according to some of the nation\u2019s foremost evangelical scholars, Jones\u2019 and Reid\u2019s summary of evangelical Christian beliefs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblestudytools.com\/lexicons\/greek\/nas\/hamartia.html\">misses the mark<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/albertmohler.com\/\">Dr. Albert Mohler<\/a>, one of the nation\u2019s most respected evangelical scholars and the president of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbts.edu\/\">The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary<\/a>, called Reid and Jones\u2019 comments \u201cslander against evangelical Christianity on the part of those who want to transform Christianity into nothing more than a social justice movement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe face a concerted effort in the larger society and in so many in the mainstream media to depict Christianity as nothing more than social justice and evangelical Christians as missing the mark. That agenda is laid bare in the exchange between Joy Reid of MSNBC and her guest Robert P. Jones,\u201d Dr. Mohler told me. \u201cAll the Christian worldview is based upon the two imperatives that we are to love God and to love our neighbor. That love of neighbor takes tangible shape\u201d in evangelicals\u2019 acts of charity and generosity to others.<\/p>\n<p>To further complicate matters, Reid used the term evangelical in \u201ca sloppy, imprecise way \u2026 to describe a political rather than religious class of people,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/team\/trey-dimsdale\/\">Trey Dimsdale<\/a>, J.D., the executive director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/crcd.net\/\">Center for Religion, Culture &amp; Democracy<\/a>, a think tank that that <a href=\"https:\/\/crcd.net\/about\/\">affirms<\/a> \u201cthe importance of religion as public good for strengthening social bonds and reinforcing foundational freedoms.\u201d A 2019 Barna poll shows that a quarter of Americans define evangelicals&nbsp;by their political conservatism. In a highly charged political environment, that opens evangelicals to unique levels of hatred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a popular sport now to mock and stereotype evangelicals in ways that rightly are not acceptable for other religious groups,\u201d said Mark D. Tooley, the president of the <a href=\"https:\/\/theird.org\/person\/mark-tooley\/\">Institute on Religion and Democracy<\/a>, in an email to this author. \u201cSupposedly white evangelicals are uniformly racist, selfish, chauvinistically nationalist, and xenophobic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tooley, a self-described \u201clifelong Methodist,\u201d pointed out that \u201csurveys show evangelicals actually are generous to charity and to their communities.\u201d The Philanthropy Roundtable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philanthropyroundtable.org\/philanthropy-magazine\/less-god-less-giving\">found<\/a> that evangelical Christians have the second-highest level of charitable giving, behind members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but ahead of mainline Protestants, Catholics, and secularists. \u201cReligious practice is the behavioral variable most consistently associated with generous giving,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philanthropyroundtable.org\/almanac\/statistics\/who-gives\">said<\/a> the Almanac of American Philanthropy. The faithful \u201care also much more likely to give to secular causes than the non-religious.\u201d Two-thirds of people who attend church at least every other week donate their own money to charity, compared with only half of Americans who \u201cnever\u201d attend religious services. Nonetheless, 39% of Americans under the age of 65 think \u201creligion does more harm than good,\u201d as do 49% of people in that age group globally, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/sites\/default\/files\/ct\/news\/documents\/2017-10\/GlobalAdvisor-Religion-2017.pdf\">according<\/a> to a 2017 Ipsos poll.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Mohler said that his fellow evangelical Christians\u2019 generous, charitable concern for the less well-off grows naturally out of the biblical teachings they hear every Sunday morning (and Wednesday night). \u201cEvangelical theology begins and ends with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that Gospel is about saving sinners. That Gospel also includes implications of love of neighbor. How Christians can best love our neighbor is a matter for ongoing conversation, but it is a slander against evangelicals to suggest that we do not take that responsibility seriously as a matter of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<p>Dimsdale agreed that the true nub of the argument is whether Jesus\u2019 teachings about caring for the poor should be carried out by individuals and private charity or sweeping, top-down government programs. \u201cNo matter the policy preferences of any evangelical, there is an intrinsic part of his or her theology that drives service to others and the dedication of resources to efforts that cultivate human flourishing as widely as possible. What is at issue here is not really questions of theology, but prudential questions of policy,\u201d he said. \u201cThese disagreements are policy disagreements and not theological ones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What Reid and Jones are really attacking is not evangelical Christianity but evangelicals\u2019 rejection of expanding government programs, evangelicals say. \u201cIt is true that most evangelicals who are on the Right politically, like all of those who are on the political Right, prefer public policies that enable local, voluntary efforts that are rooted in civil society rather than government. There <em>are<\/em> theological reasons for preferring this, but there are also political, sociological, and economic ones, too, so such preferences are not unique to evangelicals or even primarily driven by evangelical theology,\u201d Dimsdale, who is a Baptist, told me.<\/p>\n<p>The evangelical leaders were quick to note that their fellow believers do not reflexively reject all criticism, whatever its origins. \u201cAll religious subcultures have their failures, quirks and virtues. Evangelicalism like all religious groups can be constructively critiqued,\u201d said Tooley. \u201cBut it does not merit slapdash demonization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Evangelical thought leaders agreed that political policy differences should in no way besmirch the motivations of evangelical Christians, who are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/religious-landscape-study\/\">America\u2019s largest religious group<\/a>, according to the Pew Research Center\u2019s Religious Landscape Study. Dimsdale said that \u201cevangelical theology \u2014 which affirms the dignity and worth of every human being created in the image of God \u2014 takes seriously the plight of those who suffer and motivates generations of believers to intervene in effective, prudential ways that affirm this dignity and provide relief in the most effective, sustainable ways we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire<\/em>.<\/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&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the nation\u2019s most prominent evangelical leaders told The Daily Wire exclusively that MSNBC host Joy Reid committed \u201cslander against evangelical Christianity\u201d by claiming evangelical Christians teach that they &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-835635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835635","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=835635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}