Matt Giffin, a reporter at The Tennessee Star, and Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Star, discussed Wednesday morning’s edition of Steve Bannon’s War Room where host Bannon explained how leftist Christians deceptively cherry-pick elements from the Gospel to push a socialist agenda.
Bannon specifically used Jim Wallis, founder of the non-profit, faith-based organization Sojourners and author of The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Re-founding Democracy, as an example of those using selective elements from the Gospel to paint Jesus as a social justice warrior.
In his new book, Wallis, who is championed by the likes of the World Economic Forum, failed to cite the Gospel of Mark – which, as Bannon pointed out, does not paint Jesus as a social justice warrior – in his effort to “confront the distorted gospel perpetuating white supremacy and autocracy.”
Bannon said:
“I keep talking about the Gospel of Mark and read the Gospel of Mark and they never teach that in the seminaries. This is a bleeding heart. Jesus, a social warrior from start to finish, of course, is the false white Gospel because your whiteness is an idol. Your whiteness is an idol. And by the way, at the top, to sell some books, Rejecting Christian Nationalism. Rejecting Christian Nationalism. Rejecting it. Not understanding it, debating it; rejecting it. It’s interesting, I go back here to see where he actually cites Gospel verse, and guess what, we have the Gospel according to Saint John, the one that’s so in the beginning was the Logos, or in the beginning was the Word, the one that’s very deep, philosophical, right? Beautifully written, magnificently, the thinking is magnificent. You have the Gospel of Luke, right? The Gospel of Luke is said to be Saint Paul’s Gospel, right? Or the Physician. Saint Luke, right there, Saint Luke. You got a number of citations, I think you got 20 citations here, on Saint John, 20 at least on Saint Luke, maybe more, and of course we get to the social justice warrior, the Sermon on the Mount and Saint Matthew, the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, guy goes from a tax collector to writing the social justice warrior gospel, very powerful beautiful the sermon on the mount all that..but I noticed, I go I said man, I can’t wait to see what he’s got here on Saint Mark. Oops. Nothing. Zero. Zero. Not saying I told you so…Here’s the reason: In Saint Mark, Jesus is not a social justice. Don’t take my word for it. Just read it. Don’t even read the analysis of it. Just read it. Take it from the beginning and read it. It’s quite short and it’s written like an action movie… the connective tissue is to the next scene, to the next scene, to the next scene. Not a lot of parables. Not a lot of the thinking in Saint John, the thinking in Saint Luke, the thinking in Saint Matthew; no Sermon on the Mount. Christ does not pat you on the head in Saint Mark. Christ is an exorcist in Saint Mark. The very beginning, it’s Christ versus Satan. Christ versus Satan. And in the entire gospel, there’s a third, the Holy Spirit has a pretty big role in imbuing Christ with the Spirit.”
On Wednesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Giffin said Bannon’s analysis is “100 percent correct,” adding, “It’s awesome that he’s talking about this kind of thing on his show.”
“The Gospels all present very differently. They’re different, but the same pictures of Jesus. Mark is very, like [Bannon] said, Mark is very action-heavy. Jesus is powerful. He’s an exorcist. He’s doing miracles. Not a whole lot of talking like in Matthew and Luke and John. He pointed out that [Wallis] didn’t make any citations to Mark, even though he cited a lot from Matthew and all these other places,” Giffin added.
Going off of Leahy’s point of how social justice warriors use the Gospel of Matthew to justify their social justice agenda, Giffin said the Left has reduced the Gospel to “demonic ideology of socialism.”
“Matthew is all about Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament Jewish prophecies of being this conquering King, the Son of David, he’s going to be reigning over the Kingdom of God. This is very powerful stuff and to reduce it all down to this, I would call, demonic ideology of socialism. That’s blasphemy to me,” Giffin said.
“They’re taking scripture and they’re using it the way Satan does to advance their own agenda, to twist it, to tempt people, to make them believe things that are not true. Like, for instance, that our creator endowed us with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Giffin added.
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Jesus Two Dads Poster” by Chris. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
