On Friday, ahead of President Trump’s announcement of the “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition, MSNBC had two contributors on with Geoff Bennett to discuss the President’s newly-created group, looking to boost Evangelical support.
The guests included NeverTrumper and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Peter Wehner, and left-wing Senior Minister at the “Middle Collegiate Church,” Rev. Jacqui Lewis.
Bennet asked Wehner about a point he brought up, asking, “It’s not so much religion. Religion isn’t the religion — it’s white identity politics. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I think some of it is that. I think what has happened, unfortunately, is faith is subordinate to politics for a lot of white Evangelical Christians. I don’t think that’s being done knowingly — I think they’re largely blind to it, but I think that’s the prism — politics is the prison through which they’re interpreting faith rather than the other way around.”
When asked a similar question, Rev. Lewis gave an answer that raised eyebrows. First, Lewis mocked the Trump campaign for having an event at the predominantly Latino El Rey Jesús church in Miami, Florida, which translates to “King Jesus.” She said the question “really need[s] to be ‘who is the King Jesus that we’re worshipping?’” Lewis continued to try and drive the point that Christians are worshipping “a poor, brown, Jewish baby by the way — Jewish Baby.”
Her comments insinuate that pro-Trump Christians are either racist or anti-Semitic, which could not be farther from the truth. Also, it’s a well-known Biblical fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem to Jewish parents, so it’s not clear where Lewis was going with that point.
Second, Lewis made blanket statements claiming white Evangelicals are supporting Trump because of white supremacy. She continued, “this is about white identity politics. There’s a way in which there is a conflation of Christianity and white nationalism that speaks to the hurt and the feeling of disenfranchisement, the feeling of being left out, ‘the American dream is no longer ours’ for many white Americans who are putting their faith in Trump.”
“But we also have to know that white Evangelicals are not a monolith and a lot of white Christians understand that this person they’re following — Trump — is not Jesus and is not God.”
The attack by these two MSNBC guests on Evangelical Christians, claiming they are “white nationalists” and unknowingly racist in some cases may de-legitimize Democrats’ chances at getting white Evangelical swing voters to their side in 2020 due to their polarizing rhetoric.