A Fox News host is drawing criticism after weighing in on whether the United States is, in her view, a Christian nation.
Carley Shimkus, a co-host of “Fox & Friends First,” defended Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders after Sanders issued a proclamation making Friday—the day after Christmas—a holiday for state employees, “in order that state employees may spend this holiday with their families giving thanks for Christ’s birth.”
In an official state email last week, Sanders framed the holiday explicitly around Christian doctrine. “More than two millennia ago in the little town of Bethlehem,” she wrote, “far from the centers of power in first-century Rome, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in a humble manger.”
She continued by describing core elements of Christian belief, writing that Jesus “was the Messiah and became a teacher and leader,” and that he would be crucified, “suffer for the sins of all mankind,” die, be buried, and then “rise again on the third day to sit at the right hand of the Father.”
The proclamation drew a rebuke from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued that Sanders had crossed a line by using state authority to promote religious doctrine. “State offices are not churches, and gubernatorial proclamations are not sermons,” Chris Line, an attorney with the group wrote in a press release, adding that while the governor may practice her faith privately, she “may not use the authority of the state to promote Christian doctrine as official government speech.”
During a segment on Fox News’ “Outnumbered” on Tuesday, Shimkus said the criticism was misplaced. “The bottom line here is that, yes, we are a secular republic when it comes to our government, but we are a Christian nation,” she told viewers.
Shimkus also suggested the timing of the complaint was notable, saying Sanders received the critical letter “as she was leaving a menorah lighting ceremony,” and described that as “the irony of the timing of that.” She added that Sanders is “the daughter of … the ambassador to Israel.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation pushed back publicly after the broadcast. “We’re a secular nation where you’re free to believe whatever you want,” the organization wrote. “So you can believe that we’re a Christian nation… But you’re wrong.”
