Politico national investigative correspondent Heidi Przybyla got roasted on social media Friday for saying Christian nationalists in power believe Americans’ rights “come from God.”
Przybyla said an “extremist element” of Christian nationalists in former President Donald Trump’s orbit are united in the belief that rights “come from God” rather than government and cite this belief to justify their opposition to abortion, gay marriage and in vitro fertilization (IVF), among other issues.
“And the one thing that unites all of them — because there’s many different groups orbiting Trump — but the thing that unties 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,” Przybyla said during her appearance on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes.”
“The problem is that … men — and it is men — are determining what God is telling them,” she added.
Wade Miller, the executive director for Citizens for Renewing America, tweeted that Przybyla had shown “disdain” for Christians.
“Here @MSNBC helpfully makes it clear their disdain for Christians in America,” Miller wrote. “She says that if you believe that your rights come from God, you aren’t a Christian, you are a Christian nationalist. Somehow they seem to not mention that our own founding documents make this proclamation, as have most Americans throughout our history. The radical Atheist Globalists are coming to try to crush ordinary American citizens.”
Here @MSNBC helpfully makes it clear their disdain for Christians in America.
She says that if you believe that your rights come from God, you aren’t a Christian, you are a Christian nationalist.
Somehow they seem to not mention that our own founding documents make this… pic.twitter.com/WTLMqcqTzg
— Wade Miller (@WadeMiller_USMC) February 23, 2024
LOL: MSNBC says if you believe your rights come from God (and not Congress), you are a Christian nationalist,” conservative personality Liz Wheeler wrote.
LOL: MSNBC says if you believe your rights come from God (and not Congress), you are a Christian nationalist.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) February 23, 2024
“Guess I’m a Christian nationalist now,” The Spectator World’s Washington editor Amber Duke tweeted.
Guess I’m a Christian nationalist now https://t.co/5xjakOS9Up
— Amber Duke (Athey) (@ambermarieduke) February 23, 2024
“Here’s MSNBC saying ‘anyone’ who believes our rights come from God, not the government, is automatically a ‘Christian nationalist,'” Heritage Action communications director Cody Sargent posted. “That belief is central to the founding of our country. It’s in the Declaration. How embarrassing for @HeidiReports.” (RELATED: ‘It’s Not An Unreasonable Question’: Reporters Roast KJP For Dodging Hunter Text Message Questions)
Here’s MSNBC saying *anyone* who believes our rights come from God, not the government, is automatically a “Christian nationalist.”
That belief is central to the founding of our country. It’s in the Declaration. How embarrassing for @HeidiReports.
pic.twitter.com/6uhQHPPdPs— Cody Sargent (@codydsargent) February 23, 2024
“Absolutely devastated to learn that my personal hero Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian Nationalist,” John Shelton of American Freedom tweeted.
Absolutely devastated to learn that my personal hero Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian Nationalist. pic.twitter.com/Wk0J5rH44v
— John Shelton (@jayshelt) February 23, 2024
“The fact that someone who thinks like this could ever even be allowed on TV, let alone treated as a serious journalist, says something extremely dark about the state of our national media,” former DeSantis speechwriter Nate Hochman tweeted. “Yes, they’ve always had a left-wing bias. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here — not anymore, at least. It’s the fact that they no longer feel obligated to even try to conceal their unmitigated hostility to the most fundamental features of the American heritage.”
“This is the basic, Schoolhouse Rock stuff,” he continued. “The idea that it would be controversial at all — let alone partisan — would have struck every generation up until this one as absurd. By this standard, every major political figure in American history was a ‘Christian nationalist.'”
Yes, they’ve always had a left-wing bias. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here — not anymore, at least. It’s the fact that they no longer feel obligated to even try to conceal their unmitigated hostility to the most fundamental features of the American heritage.
— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) February 23, 2024
Przybyla later attempted to walk back the claim.
“That is NOT what I said & you know it,” she tweeted in response to Miller. “Why don’t you play the full clip? 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. Natural Law has been invoked throughout our history as a nation. It is a core pillar of Catholicism and, particularly among the Jesuit priests from my childhood it was applied to social justice and the inherent rights all humans have for dignity ‘life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.'”
Natural Law has been invoked throughout our history as a nation. It is a core pillar of Catholicism and, particularly among the Jesuit priests from my childhood it was applied to social justice and the inherent rights all humans have for dignity “life, liberty & the pursuit of /
— Heidi Przybyla 🌺 (@HeidiReports) February 23, 2024
“MLK, likewise, invoked natural law when he spoke of social justice & the civil rights movement. In the full clip I say men are making their own interpretations. Finally, peace be with you,” she concluded. She also posted a picture of what appeared to be her first communion, presumably to establish her bona fides as a Catholic theologian.
The Declaration of Independence holds that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” It goes on to explain that the purpose of government is to protect those God-given rights, and that citizens have the right to overthrow any government that fails to do so.
