David French just can’t help himself. Weeks after having his panel on polarization yanked from the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) General Assembly over his well-documented character assassinations of faithful Christians, French wrote a New York Times op-ed bemoaning that his “old church canceled” him and made him “sad.”
Then he went on MSNBC and specifically “Morning Joe,” a network that routinely mocks Christians, to double down on his smear campaign and legitimize a bunch of republic-destroying lawfare because the target is Donald Trump.
So to recap, David French voluntarily and very publicly left the PCA because it was teeming with racists. But he wasn’t so bothered by it that he could resist returning to the denomination’s primary meeting to lecture on “polarization.” Then he was uninvited thanks to astute Christians quoting French’s own polarizing words.
But David French is the victim? OK.
He “canceled” the PCA and its evil white members long before they “canceled” him.
Dissecting French’s Latest Delusion
French doesn’t name me in his self-obsessed screed, but I’m clearly the subject of his ire. The “professional polarizer” links to my article on the subject twice, once calling it “misleading” but without naming anything I got wrong — probably because he can’t. Every nasty thing he’s ever written about white evangelicals is public.
In his latest installment, French recaps how “apolitical” the PCA was when he and his wife joined it in 2004 through 2007 when he deployed (he can’t help himself). Then everything changed. This is the crux of his piece:
Two things happened that changed our lives, however, and in hindsight they’re related. First, in 2010, we adopted a 2-year-old girl from Ethiopia. Second, in 2015, Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign.
In other words, the religious and political landscape changed when “Trump’s rise” drew racists out of the evangelical woodwork, and principled David French, who just so happened to detest Donald Trump and made his living demonizing Trump’s supporters, couldn’t abide it.
This is absurd.
First, it’s either intellectually dishonest or completely delusional to ignore the actual catalyst that changed American politics during the period French identifies — and, in fact, birthed the Trump years. And no, it’s not the French family’s skin color nor sleeper racists inside the church who were just waiting for a “Celebrity Apprentice” president to make their move.
It was the Barack Obama years — a Rubicon-crossing era masked by smooth rhetoric, disdain for marriage, promotion of on-demand abortion, attacks on Christian consciences, the targeting of conservative political groups and their donors, the demonization of firearms, illegal power grabs to advance unlawful immigration, the introduction of campus kangaroo courts, the regular embrace of racism and antisemitism, and much, much more.
Besides Obama’s slick celebration of immorality and gaslighting of anyone who “bitterly clung” to social norms and biblical tradition, there was no going back after his egregious weaponization of the federal government against his political opponents, including secret spying on Republicans. Trump was the equal and opposite reaction to all of that, no matter what French says.
Second, French demonstrates he is so absorbed with his own personal melodrama and accolades that he can’t possibly understand any other perspective.
It’s been this way for years — always and everywhere only about David French. The courtroom and political magazines have always been the proper venue for culture war issues because that’s where French operates. Neutrality should always be our legal and political preference because neutrality is the natural state of the courtroom, which — if you haven’t heard — is where David French worked. The Iraq War couldn’t have been a mistake because David French was such an integral part of it. And Trump can’t be credited with any victory because French deemed the former president beneath contempt.
Now he’s doing the same thing in tarnishing the church’s reputation, emphasizing that he’s “been the target of intense attacks online and in real life.”
Now, lest French or anyone else accuse me of racism, it should go without saying that any attacks on a person’s Imago Dei child, including those based on skin color or heritage, are despicable. It’s wrong for trolls to exploit children and deploy threats, whether via direct message or in person.
But French is insane if he thinks he’s the subject of unique threats, that these threats originate from the church, or that they’re a defining characteristic of Trumpers. For just one example, look at who attacked another white mother of a black adopted child, Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Most people don’t feel the need to compulsively victimize themselves as French does, but since he went there, I guess I’ll bite: I don’t have half David French’s platform, but my life has still been threatened by left-wing nutjobs, something nearly all my colleagues can say as well. Threats and hate mail are an occupational hazard of public figures.
Additionally, I receive assaults on my faith, vulgar comments on my posts, and trolling of unsuspecting family and friends. And of course, some confrontations happen in real life or from people you know personally. It’s ridiculous, however, to view political and religious metanarratives through the lens of a few cynical anecdotes or DMs — especially when most people don’t live and breathe your Twitter feed, as French knows.
After earlier writing, “When I deployed to Iraq in 2007, the entire church rallied to support my family and to support the men I served with,” French writes this near the end of his piece:
I do not want to paint with too broad a brush. Our pastors and close friends continued to stand with us. Our church disciplined the man who confronted me about Trump during communion. And most church members didn’t follow politics closely and had no idea about any of the attacks we faced.
You don’t say. You mean more people offered support when you publicly deployed than when you privately received nasty social media messages and one-on-one attacks? Does this guy have an editor?
Pure Projection
It’s even clearer now than when French’s PCA panel was announced that my diagnosis was correct. French is a turncoat and a party apparatchik whose alleged principles seem to line up perfectly with his paychecks.
It’s not my job to judge the authenticity of French’s faith. But when, of the PCA’s General Assemby, he says he’s “now deemed too divisive to speak to a gathering of Christians who share [his] faith,” I wonder whether he means those nonwhite, enlightened parishioners who share his hatred for Trump or the untouchables he thinks are neo-Confederates.
“If you dissent [from particular pro-Trump arguments], yeah, there will be people in the church who still love you and support you and respect you, but there will be people who come after you,” French told Mika Brzezinski and race-baiter Al Sharpton on MSNBC Monday morning.
Never forget he went after them first.
