On Friday's Velshi and Ruhle show on MSNBC, host Ali Velshi joined in the liberal news network's recent spate of Bible-thumping to justify left-wing policy as he actually took out a large Christian Bible and read from it on camera. He also voiced agreement with his guest, Father James Martin, as the Jesuit priest declared that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is "weaponizing the Gospels and the Bible" against illegal immigrants.
As he bemoaned the fact that he was resorting to quoting from the Bible to justify his liberal views on immigration, blaming Sessions for discussing the scripture, the MSNBC host did not mention that Sessions was explicit in stating that the reason he chose to quote from the Bible was because he was responding to churches who were already doing so as they made a liberal argument against the enforcement of immigration laws.
Near the beginning of the segment, introducing clips of Sessions and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders discussing the issue of what the Bible says about obeying the law, Velshi bemoaned:
And this is why we are talking about this today. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump's press secretary are now using the Bible to justify ripping children from their parents at the border as part of the current zero-tolerance immigration policy.
After the clips of Sessions and Sanders, Velshi was seen on screen holding a large Bible with the words "What would Jesus do?" displayed on screen behind him. The MSNBC host continued:
Some of you don't know this perhaps about me, but I have a bachelor's degree in religion, not in business. This is important to say because we're about to go to church. Sticking with the spirit of "What would Jesus do?" we actually did dig through the Bible to find passages that led themselves to the current border practice of separating migrant children from their parents.
After reading a number of biblical passages, he brought aboard Father Martin as a guest and soon fretted:
The administration has forced this discussion upon us because they have said it's the biblical thing to do. I don't think there is a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew in this country who can find me in their holy book references to suggest that that is appropriate.
The MSNBC host never mentioned that -- as stated by Attorney General Sessions 16 minutes into his recent speech -- his decision to quote from biblical scripture was in response to criticism from some churches. The Attorney General also notably pointed out that, after the Obama administration announced that it would give softer treatment to illegals who arrive with children, the number of illegals arriving with children -- sometimes not even their own children -- increased substantially.
Father Martin -- editor-at-large for America Magazine -- accused the Trump administration of "weaponizing" the Bible, complaining: "I think what they're doing is, it's called 'proof-texting,' which is you take a verse of the Gospels or the Old Testament out of context and just sort of throw it at people, almost weaponizing the Gospels and the Bible."
Velshi soon voiced agreement that, "If you are going to take a holy book and weaponize it, then you've got to be prepared to have the other side of that argument," and argued that Attorney General Sessions had taken the Bible out of context.
His guest accused Trump administration members of being "deeply un-Christian" as he declared that "I cannot imagine anyone in his or her right mind thinking that Jesus would approve of ripping children from their parents," adding that "It goes pretty much against the entire Bible and ethos of Jesus, and it's deeply un-Christian."
He then invoked slavery and Nazi Germany as he concluded:
Attorney General Sessions' reference to Romans 13, we should be clear, in terms of following the law, has been used to support slavery, and also was used by the Nazis as well. And so you cannot take these Bible verses out of context and just throw them about like that. It's very dangerous.
