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Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Focus on the Family's Jim Daly rejects SPLC ‘hate group' label: ‘This isn't hate, it's the love of Christ'
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly responded to the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) recent decision to classify his organization as a "hate group," calling the label "discouraging," "dangerous," and a reflection of "what's wrong with the culture right now." Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based nonprofit founded in 1977 by Dr. James Dobson, is one of the most visible Christian ministries in the United States, offering counseling, crisis intervention, parenting resources, foster care support, and to Daly, the group reaches six million radio listeners and several million digital viewers, with a mission of "helping parents to be the best parents they could be, all with the undertone of a Christian understanding." But now, the nonprofit finds itself added to a controversial SPLC list typically associated with white supremacists and violent ALLEGES FBI USED BIASED SOURCES IN ANTI-TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC MEMOS UNDER BIDEN ADMINISTRATION "Southern Poverty Law Center made the decision in some kind of criteria that they, and only they know, and that is to put us on the hate list," Daly said. "I think, again, it exemplifies what's wrong with the culture right now—that we can't have differing opinions on things." At the core of the SPLC's issue is Focus's belief in traditional marriage. Daly was direct: "Our Christian tradition is marriage between one man and one woman, and that's what we believe and we believe we can advocate for that." While Daly acknowledged that society is shifting, he said Focus will not abandon its scriptural roots to satisfy cultural trends. "For us, we can't relent on changing what we believed to be scriptural truth for the current place of where the culture is at." "For some reason that then deems us as a hate group," he said. "It's very discouraging really, because I think the SPLC started in a good place… but they have turned that muscle now on the Christian community."CONCERNED PARENTS OF TRANS KIDS COMPARED TO 'HATE GROUPS' BY COLORADO DEM: WOULDN'T 'ASK THE KKK' FOR OPINION The implications, Daly warned, are not just reputational. He recalled the 2012 shooting at Family Research Council (FRC), another Christian nonprofit SPLC labeled as hateful. A gunman entered the FRC office with the intent to kill, and was later quoted saying he was inspired by the SPLC's "hate map." "He said… his motivation was aroused because Family Research Council had been placed on the SPLC hate list," Daly said. "They are dancing on very dangerous territory when they put these labels out." That danger isn't theoretical. According to Daly, Focus had protestors at its doorstep within 24 hours of the SPLC's announcement. "We had protesters harassing our employees coming into the door here… so we had to get and pay for extra police presence on our campus," Daly said. "It raises danger for everybody. I don't know if that's their motivation, but it is a consequence." But even in the face of hostility, Daly says Focus remains committed to "doing the work that the Lord has called us to do." That includes extensive work in foster care and pregnancy resource services. "My wife and I both have been foster parents for 15 years," he shared. "We support pregnancy resource centers with ultrasound machines." He also pointed to Focus's measurable impact. "Last year we helped 140,000 couples get through a marital crisis, 540,000 couples to strengthen their marriage," he said. "That's a good thing." And he asked a pointed question to the SPLC directly: "Why would you go after an organization doing that much good and label us a hate group? It just, it makes no sense." Daly was clear that the mission isn't about political gain or culture war bravado, but the gospel. "This is not hate," Daly said. "This is the love of Christ trying to show people God's design for marriage and parenting and people." That message, however, is increasingly misunderstood in a culture that Daly says punishes theological conviction. He referenced a meeting with the late Pastor Tim Keller and gay rights activists in New York City as a model. "Tim Keller said it so well. He said, 'New York City works because we don't go out of our way to put our finger in the other group's eye'," Daly recounted. "We need to accept where we're at together and then be at the table of pluralism and say, how do we coexist?" He continued: "Creating a hate list because of your views, your theology, your ideology, just isn't helpful." Asked whether Focus planned a legal response, Daly said it's under serious consideration. "There has to be a line where an organization that creates a hate list has to be responsible for that," he said. "If we were to go to court, I think they would be hard-pressed to win that defamation lawsuit." Still, Daly struck a hopeful note. He said the biggest response they've received wasn't fear or funding loss, but support. "People that do know us, people that have experienced us helping them through a crisis in their marriage or a crisis with their teenager, they know us," Daly said. "This isn't who you are, and they get it." Above all, Daly urged believers to respond to cultural hostility with character. "Romans 2:4 says it's God's kindness that leads one to repentance—and I believe in that," he said. "You can have the most crusty person who hates out for a reason you may not even know, and you start to dialog with them… and then you find a hurt, a pain that occurred in their life." And for churches wondering how to speak into culture without compromising biblical convictions, Daly offered a closing challenge: don't just preach orthodoxy: live HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "We know truth. We know orthodoxy, the spoken word. We need more orthopraxy, the doing of the word," Daly said. "We could literally wipe out the foster care list if we just got engaged—one family per church." That vision, he said, is what keeps him going. "Wouldn't it be nice if Fox News and the New York Times ran a headline that said: 'Christian Church wipes out waiting foster care list'? I'm looking forward to that headline. And that's what I work for every day."
Telegraph
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pope Leo shows you don't need to be woke to stay relevant
What is the secret of Pope Leo's popularity? In less than a month, he seems to have brought something fresh to this most ancient of offices. He has reminded us that the timeless is always timely. In other words, you do not have to be woke to be relevant. Might other churches, in particular the Church of England, follow his example? Catholics ought not to lecture other denominations; heaven knows, there are more than enough motes and beams to go round. But Leo XIV does teach us a useful lesson about Christian ministry in the 21st century. The key to contemporary evangelism is not to tell people what they want to hear, still less to imitate the high priests of the secular world, but to speak with the voice of Jesus to Pontius Pilate: 'To this end was I born, for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.' No sooner had Leo been elected than he gave notice to the Caesars of our time. His clear-eyed support for 'martyred Ukraine' (in contrast to Francis's equivocation) was demonstrated by giving Zelensky priority over Trump's delegation in a private audience after his Inauguration Mass last Sunday. No less urgent is a new policy on China, where the Communist Party is appointing new state 'bishops' without consultation. Leo knows that if he abrogates the disgraceful concordat agreed by Cardinal Parolin under Pope Francis, Xi Jinping is ruthless enough to incarcerate Chinese Catholics en masse, as he has already done to their episcopate and to the Muslim Uyghurs. But St John Paul II showed how to handle one-party states and Leo has already echoed the Polish Pope's signature message: 'Be not afraid.' The BBC and others who take the obsolescence of a 2,000-year-old institution as axiomatic have been claiming that the new Pope will be 'continuity Francis'. Leo is an Augustinian friar who, having spent much of his life in Peru, will be no less zealous on behalf of the poor than the Argentinian Jesuit. His choice of name reminds us that the 'option for the poor' goes back to Leo XIII's social teaching and ultimately, of course, to the Sermon on the Mount. Yet Leo is cast in a different mould from Francis. As a mathematician, a canon lawyer and an intellectual, he believes in resolving disputes, not reopening them. He has fully absorbed the legacy of Benedict XVI, whose recognition as a Doctor of the Church he will doubtless champion. In one of his first homilies, he quoted Benedict: 'God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful.' For Leo, the mystery and beauty of the Catholic liturgy are integral to faith. That includes both forms of the Latin Mass and the various rites of the Eastern Churches. Anglicans should likewise treasure the Book of Common Prayer. Leo's inauguration Mass opened with the Sistine choir chanting the Laudes Regiae, the royal acclamations whose origins go back to Roman antiquity. The refrain – Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat! ('Christ conquers! Christ reigns! Christ commands!') – proclaims the ultimate triumph of Christ. Leo XIV exudes American confidence. His promises to be a long, significant and surprising pontificate. The Leonine revolution has only just begun.
