(LifeSiteNews) — A mainstream media reporter who maligned mainstream religious conservative views as “Christian Nationalism” has now apologized for the slight after an outpouring of criticism.
Last week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla said during an appearance on MSNBC that there “are a lot of groups orbiting (former president and presumptive GOP 2024 nominee Donald) Trump, but the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists — not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalists 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.”
“The problem is that… men are determining what God is telling them,” she went on, attributing opposition to abortion, same-sex “marriage,” and in vitro fertilization to an “extremist element of Christian conservatives.”
“Christian Nationalism” is a label used predominantly as a pejorative to denote a range of socially conservative views and is generally intended to paint those views as a broader effort to impose theocratic rule on the United States.
In fact, however, the belief that individual rights come from God is one of America’s foundational concepts. The Declaration of Independence states that all human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” America’s Founding Fathers overwhelmingly agreed that a religious culture was a vital component to America’s success as a free society.
On Thursday, Przybyla penned a mea culpa in which she acknowledged that “in principle,” spiritual faith and the public square are “not merely compatible” but “mutually dependent — one ideal is impossible to sustain without the other,” while maintaining that “practice… these two foundational values jostle against each other in the political arena.”
“Due to some clumsy words, I was interpreted by some people as making arguments that are quite different from what I believe,” she wrote. “The confusion from my words was compounded when they were wrested from the full context of my appearance. Excerpts of what I said were promoted widely in some political circles by some activists whose primary objection, I feel sure, was not my television appearance but my coverage in POLITICO about the tactics and agenda of political activists who subscribe to a philosophy they call ‘Christian Nationalism.’”
“Reporters have a responsibility to use words and convey meaning with precision, and I am sorry I fell short of this in my appearance,” she went on, admitting that her words on MSNBC were “not a good definition of Christian Nationalism” and affirming the Declaration’s connection of God with unalienable rights.
But while conceding the concept she labeled “Christian Nationalist” was anything but, Przybyla maintained that Christian Nationalism itself remained worthy of scrutiny in the form of two questions.
“One, are they respecting the American principle of separation of church and state?” she asked. “One cannot paint every individual in a movement with the same brush. Some Christian nationalists, however, have made plain in their public rhetoric that their aim is to blur or even erase this line.”
“Two, are they ready to play by the same rules that everyone in a democracy must as they try to influence our laws,” she added. “In other words, making arguments and presenting evidence in a truthful and transparent way is part of the process of winning democratic consent.”
Przybyla’s column did not include examples of individuals violating the lines she identified.