Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri’s conservative Republican challenger against Democrat Claire McCaskill, said this during a recent interview over the NBC/Pledge of Allegiance controversy:
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Well, I think NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God. And so they’ve had a long history of not being at all favorable toward many of things that have been such a blessing to our country.These powerful works have liberals enraged.
Predictably, the progressive media had a meltdown, led by Think Progress (you know, the outfit who promoted the short-lived ‘Crash the Tea Party’ stunt wherein progs dressed up as klansmen and Nazis and attended rallies so that edited video could be used to smear the movement, even lifting other videogapher’s work).
U.S. Rep. Todd Akin is catching flak from some Missouri religious leaders for saying last week that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.”
Local media had to dig deep to find “religious leaders” to condemn Akin’s remark and apparently only spoke to far-left, social justice churches, one of which somehow managed to con its congregation into a modified religious faith that supports the dichotomy of infant genocide and Christ.
Faith Aloud, a St. Louis-based religious group that advocates for abortion rights, began an online petition drive calling on Akin to apologize.
The Rev. Krista Taves of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel in Ellisville said Akin’s comment “shows how very little he knows about liberals, and how very little he knows about God.”
“I’m a liberal because I love God and all God’s creation,” Taves said. ” I value equality, fairness and compassionate justice because my faith informs my politics.”
Rabbi Jim Bennett of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis said he was “deeply disturbed” by Akin’s statement, which he characterized as a “grotesque politicized attack.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reached out to two groups, one which is definitely far-left and another that uses left-leaning code words like “we are agents of social justice” on their “About” page. I’m unclear as to why the paper chose to have representatives of a completely different faith to comment on the faith of another when the beliefs of both faiths are quite varied, but this isn’t Big Religion – a way to drive a wedge? Diversity? But it still doesn’t answer why no other religious leaders – or expressed Christian ones, not one the describes itself as “interfaith” – were represented in this article besides two left-leaning groups. I’ve asked the article’s author, Jason Hancock, on Twitter why only these two groups were included for comment.
In a later article Hancock finally posted this of the “religious” leaders:
The “hatred for God” comment quickly made its way around the Internet after being picked up by a handful of national liberal websites, and several liberal Missouri clergy members immediately criticized Akin and called for a public apology.
Seriously?
As a Christian, I’d like an apology from Faith Aloud for peddling the falsehood that abortion and Christ can exist under the same roof. I find their support and advocacy for ending life while chastising others on their arbitrary definition of God’s law exponentially more offensive that anything Akin has said.
Do those wielding their pitchforks in Akin’s face deny that there is an orchestrated effort to remove God from the public sphere and to place dominion over the rights of man under government, not God, as described in the Declaration of Independence?
The sad thing about all of this is that Akin’s voluntary graciousness will be interpreted as yielding to the mob-driven partisan press and as a sign of weakness. His statement:
“People, who know me and my family, know that we take our faith and beliefs very seriously,” he said. “As Christians, we would never question the sincerity of anyone’s personal relationship with God. My statement during my radio interview was directed at the political movement, Liberalism, not at any specific individual. If my statement gave a different impression, I offer my apologies.”
But as people of faith, we are explicitly called to speak out and reconcile conflict amongst ourselves, which is apart from judgment:
Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil.
Romans 14:16
This has nothing to do with questioning their relationship with God; it’s about questioning their misrepresentation of God’s will by claiming that faith is OK with things such as abortion. Akin gave no such impression that his remarks were directed at an individual, but certain progressive individuals with stated beliefs antithetical to that which is taught in Scripture purposefully wanted to interpret it as such as a way to both claim Akin’s scalp and edge closer to popularly redefining tenets of Christian faith. If liberal groups like Faith Aloud find offense at the idea that progressivism seeks to eradicate God from American culture — just as they seek to do the same by fudging Christ’s approval for abortion — that’s too bad. It certainly doesn’t merit an apology.
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