Tony Perkins: “In a speech that I can only describe as surreal, the President [at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast] went on to liken Christians to the monsters behind ISIS and American racism. … First of all, the crusades were almost a thousand years ago. ISIS is killing today. What’s more, every true follower of Christ condemns the acts of barbarism committed under the mask of religion – in medieval or American history. The teachings of Christianity do not call for, nor do they condone, brutality or bigotry. Can the same be said of Islam? Are Muslims around the world denouncing the ruthless and inhumane actions of ISIS? … Let’s be clear: ‘faith’ isn’t being used as a ‘weapon,’ as he suggested. Islamists are using weapons to kill innocent women and children. And many of those innocent women and children happen to be Christians – the same victims the President conveniently glosses over when he talks about persecution of other religious groups. Unfortunately, theirs is a plight that continues to be a footnote in the administration’s long chapter of religious liberty failures. … In the end, this event was about prayer. And if anything demonstrated America’s need for it, this breakfast did.”

Jonah Goldberg: “When Obama alludes to the evils of medieval Christianity, he fails to acknowledge the key word: ‘medieval.’ What made medieval Christianity backward wasn’t Christianity but medievalism. It is perverse that Obama feels compelled to lecture the West about not getting too judgmental on our ‘high horse’ about radical Islam’s medieval barbarism in 2015 because of Christianity’s medieval barbarism in 1215. It’s also insipidly hypocritical. President Obama can’t bring himself to call the Islamic State ‘Islamic,’ but he’s happy to offer a sermon about Christianity’s alleged crimes at the beginning of the last millennium. We are all descended from cavemen who broke the skulls of their enemies with rocks for fun or profit. But that hardly mitigates the crimes of a man who does the same thing today. I see no problem judging the behavior of the Islamic State and its apologists from the vantage point of the West’s high horse, because we’ve earned the right to sit in that saddle.”