Jennings: Are you saying I'm not a Christian?
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 11, 2024
Cornish: It's a values based comment.
Jennings: Are you saying I don't have any values?
Cornish: He needs a clip for the internet. pic.twitter.com/et1yCs9IN4
As best as I can make out, the exchange went as follows:
Audie Cornish (to Jennings): You go after people all the time for a variety of things.
Scott Jennings (to Cornish); You keep referring to Neely as the victime. I think Penny is the victim in this case and I think people on that tain thing he's the victim.
A.C.: I call the people who die a victim. But we have different ideas bout that. Um, but to my mind someone who lost a child and I'm always going to feel for that person. That' just how I'm built. It's a Christian thing. But the reason I'm asking is-
S.J.: Are you saying that I'm not a Christian?
A.C. I'm not at all. I just want to make sure you uderstand it's a value-based comment, not a political one.
S.J. Are you saying I don't have any values about.... (not easily understood)?
(Someone off-camera): She's not saying that.
Of course, Cornish, of whom I'm a fan, was saying that. Or she was saying that Jennings is not a Christian. And it's more a human thing than a "christian" thing to sympathize with someone who lost a child.
Still, Cornish understood that Neely was the individual who was the object of an alleged crime. (His death may have been the first clue.) If there were any doubt that Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely, Penny would not have been charged. Perhaps Jennings meant that the ex-Marine was the victim because he was prosecuted- but he did not say that.
But more interesiting is Cornish's suggestion that the only legitimate Christian perspective is empathizing with Neely rather than Penny. This seemingly contrasts with the sentiment of a minister from St. Joseph, Missouri quoted by author and journalist Tim Alberta in The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory (emphasis Alberta's). Of wrapping oneself in the politics of being Christian
There's this fale assumption of action we're called to take. The task of the Church is simply to be the Church. All of this high-blown rhetoric abouit changing the world- we don't need to change the world. We're not called to change the world. We're called to be the world already changed by Christ. That's how we're salt; that's how we're light.
I talk about Jesus in the context of His kingdom. The idea that Jesus is some mascot for the donkeys or the elephants- it's a catastrophe for the gospel.
For the Church, and for helpful political dialogue, which this was not.
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