Remember all those op-eds about Muslim crimes and violent fanaticism that NBC ran to coincide with Ramadan? Neither do we.
No, that’s the kind of insult the network reserves for Christians at Easter. Like the Easter Sunday piece from one Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove on the NBC News site. In it, he told the story of the Colfax County murders from 1873 and linked that massacre to the 2016 election, since both apparently involved white evangelicals.
Wilson-Hartgrove decided that the one awful thing about those awful white evangelicals was that they were out for power. He wrote, “As in Colfax County 145 years ago, faith didn’t moderate white evangelicals’ desire to hold onto political power in 2016; it fueled their resolve to maintain control by any means necessary.”
Since the people involved in the Colfax County massacre were white evangelicals and some Trump supporters were also white evangelicals, the link remains and for Wilson-Hartgrove, the “redemption movement” is still alive and well.
In fact, he seems to think the link is not even a coincidence. “Easter Sunday, when Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is also —and not accidentally — a tragic anniversary in American history.” It was no accident, apparently, and therefore Christianity must be synonymous with “white nationalism and bigotry.”
He’s not the only one that wants to smear Christianity in the modern world. At George Washington University, a training session will teach students and faculty this week that “the event will teach that Christians enjoy a privileged, easier life than their non-Christian counterparts, and that Christians possess “built-in advantages” today.”
Even though Wilson-Hartgrove admits that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian and “Like, Jesus, King too was murdered,” apparently that’s not enough redemption for the author of the book, Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom From Slaveholder Religion.
Easter must have been an uncomfortable reminder for the secular culture and media that Christianity is still alive and well.
