Several Christian organizations demanded an apology from Politico and its reporter Heidi Przybyla over allegedly prejudicial and factually inaccurate comments about Christians on MSNBC.
Przybyla stated that “Christian nationalists, not Christians” believe rights come from God and labeled certain groups as “extremist.”
“The base of the Republican Party has shifted. Remember when Trump ran in 2016? A lot of the mainland Evangelicals wanted nothing to do with the divorced real estate mogul who cheated on his wife with a porn star and all of that. So what happened was he was surrounded by this more extremist element,” Przybyla said.
I joined @BrianBurchCV with @CatholicVote in calling on @Politico to apologize for the comments of its national reporter — Heidi Przybyla.
In a recent MSNBC appearance, she showed a disqualifying lack of knowledge of the United States of America’s founding documents and a… pic.twitter.com/3K1SU5pMna
— Tony Perkins (@tperkins) February 29, 2024
The organizations argued this mischaracterized the founding principles of the US and Christians, endangering faith communities.
“We are going to hear words like ‘Christian nationalism,’ like ‘the new apostolic reformation.’ These are groups that you should get very schooled on because they have a lot of power in Trump’s circle, and the one thing that unites all of them, because there’s many different groups orbiting Trump, but the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists — not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different — is that they believe that our rights, as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress. They don’t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God,” she said.
“The problem with that is that they are determining — man, it is men — are determining what God is telling them. And in the past, that so-called natural law is, you know, it’s a pillar of Catholicism, for instance, it’s been used for good in social justice campaigns. Martin Luther King evoked it in talking about civil rights,” she said.
“But now, you have an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage, and it’s going much further than that, as you see, for instance, with the ruling in Alabama this week that judges connected to that Dominionist faction in talking about a lot of other issues, including surrogacy, IVF, you know, sex education in schools. There’s a lot in addition,” Przybyla said.
They said Przybyla was unaware of the Declaration of Independence referring to God-given natural rights.
Politico’s silence suggested condoning attacks on people of faith.
“As a National Investigative Correspondent for Politico, Ms. Przybyla is charged with reporting accurately on American government, politics, and law. It is deeply disturbing, therefore, that she appeared unaware of the opening of the Declaration of Independence or to its references of ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,'” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Catholic Vote President Brian Burch wrote in a letter.
“Equally concerning is Ms. Przybyla’s smearing of the Christian faith reflected in her comments. Her statements constituted an attempt to spread misinformation about Christians by creating the perception that they hold unique beliefs that pose a distinct and, in her words “extremist,” threat to our country.”
“Setting aside the inaccuracy of her commentary, she was manifestly trying to demonize the Christian community and sow fear through propaganda,” they added.
“Comments like Ms. Przybyla’s can and often do have life and death consequences for faith communities. In 2023, American places of worship experienced more than double the amount of violence than the year prior, according to a recent report on hostility against U.S. churches,” they wrote.
“Rhetoric like Ms. Przybyla’s, which demonizes religious groups, is profoundly dangerous. It can motivate disturbed individuals who may be predisposed to commit violence against faith communities,” they said.
“We the undersigned believe that Ms. Przybyla’s comments reflect a pervasive bias that not only prevents her from accurately and fairly covering issues related to religion and religious communities, but Politico’s silence suggests it condones these attacks on people of faith. Ms. Przybyla owes people of faith an apology, as does her employer. Politico must confirm that such offensive comments have no place within its organization.”
While Przybyla claimed her comments were taken out of context, the letter asserted her rhetoric could motivate violence and demanded an apology for the bias preventing fair coverage of religious issues.
“That is NOT what I said & you know it. Why don’t you play the full clip?” Przybyla said. “I said men are making their own policy interpretation of natural law. MLK did so w social justice. You’re welcome to as well but you don’t speak for all Christians & certainly not for God.”
“While there are different wings of Christian Nationalism, they are bound by their belief that our rights come from God,” she later added.
Politico was asked to confirm such comments have no place at the organization.
