Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and a Baptist minister, called CNN host Don Lemon’s recent ill-informed comment about Jesus.
On a recent episode of “CNN Tonight,” Lemon talked about how Americans have learned about their history with fellow CNN host Chris Cuomo. During their discussion, Lemon said, “a lot of what you’ve been taught” in school classrooms about American history “has been propaganda,” adding that “some things you need to unlearn.
Mike Huckabee
“Jesus Christ — if you believe in, if that’s who you believe in, Jesus Christ — admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth. So why are we deifying the founders of this country, many of whom owned slaves?”
“Just when I didn’t think Don Lemon could say something any dumber than stuff he’s already said, he dons his ecclesiastical hat and declares ‘Jesus wasn’t perfect,’” Huckabee tweeted. “In the faith world, we call that kind of arrogant comment blasphemy.”
Huckabee is not the only public figure to speak on Lemon and his view of Jesus.
Pastor Robert Jeffress of the megachurch First Baptist Dallas told Fox News that he considered the words of Lemon to be heretical.
“Don Lemon’s comments are, first of all, heretical,” he said, “and it contradicts the most basic tenet of the Christian faith and demonstrates how tone-deaf the left is to faith issues. Our founding fathers, like all of us, were imperfect human beings, but Jesus Christ was different than any other man that lived, and as the founder of our faith, he had to be perfect.”
Becket Adams of the “Washington Examiner” wrote in an opinion piece that the idea of Jesus not leading a perfect human life “has not been a serious question for believers in more than 1,500 years. In the Bible, simply look to 1 Peter 2:22, ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth’; Hebrews 5:9, ‘and having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
“And just because Lemon says Christ was ‘admittedly’ not perfect, I should point out that there is no tradition that I am aware of and no scriptural citation that has him declaring, ‘Hey, I am only human!’”
In April, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released a report that found that 44 percent of Americans believed that Jesus did not lead a sinless life while on Earth.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice