A video of Republican Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw has gone viral after a girl appeared to question his faith.
The interaction took place at a Montgomery County Tea Party PAC meeting on Monday night. The unidentified girl quoted a statement Mr Crenshaw made on the Jocko Podcast.
Speaking about the importance of role models, Mr Crenshaw said on the podcast: “The important thing is that we have societal hero archetypes that we look up to. Jesus is a hero archetype. Superman is a hero archetype. Real characters too, you know, I could name a thousand.”
“You know, Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan, all of these people embody certain attributes that the American people think ‘This is good’,” he added.
“I’ve seen you claim to be a Christian,” the girl said at the meeting. “You’ve talked about God, but when you claim Jesus to be a hero archetype, you not only lied about Jesus not being real, but you lied about being a Christian.”
She read the Crenshaw quote from the podcast and added: “I can’t wrap my head around this.”
“Well, I’ll help you,” Mr Crenshaw said. “Put a period after the word ‘Jesus.’ And don’t question my faith,” he told the girl in the video, which had garnered almost 785,000 views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Members of the audience can be heard booing and telling Mr Crenshaw not to speak to her that way.
“Don’t talk to a kid like that, jerk,” one man in the crowd said with another calling Mr Crenshaw a “moron”.
“You guys can ask questions about all of these things and I will answer them, but don’t question my faith,” Mr Crenshaw added.
“I can question your faith if this is what you said,” the girl said.
“Nowhere in that quote am I saying Jesus isn’t real. That is a ridiculous statement,” Mr Crenshaw responded as the heckling from the crowd continued.
“Of course he’s is the son of God,” Mr Crenshaw said of Jesus after being questioned by a member of the audience.
Members of the crowd began yelling “Let’s go Brandon” – Republican code for “f** Joe Biden”.
“You can say two different things. You can say that on a podcast, and you can say this here,” the girl added.
“On the podcast, nobody would have understood it that way. I think you’re twisting it that way, which is not very Christ-like, which is not very Christian. It’s not. It’s not, and I’m not going to have my faith questioned,” Mr Crenshaw said.
Scott Parkinson from the conservative Club for Growth posted the video, tweeting: “I don’t think Dan Crenshaw is gonna raise a lot of money off *this* video.”
“The thing about Dan Crenshaw’s tough guy superhero campaign ad persona is that in real life, he’s a thin-skinned narcissist who will snap at a ... girl,” Brian Tyler Cohen wrote.
“Dan Crenshaw lost his temper at a ... girl for reading his own quote to him but please tell us more about how liberals are snowflakes and women are too emotional,” @OhNoSheTwitnt added. “Crenshaw talks about his military service yet gets intimated by a little girl lol it’s too perfect.”
The Independent has reached out to Mr Crenshaw for comment.
