by The news today is full of stories of James Lee’s take-over of the Discovery Channel headquarters. The stories including earlier pictures of him carrying signs that say: “Discover Channel: Save the Planet.” My question is, why isn’t the news media calling in Al Gore and other leaders of the environmental movement, demanding that they condemn this attack and chastening them for their “intemperate” and “inflammatory” language? That is certainly what the media would do with pro-life leaders if this was an abortion clinic bombing. The media’s coverage shows who they like and who they don’t like. They are selective in who they want to silence. In my view, advocates should not be responsible for the actions of the kooks in their midst.
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Maybe you’re right Bob. But if there’s such a dynamic at work, isn’t it also because of the role religion, particularly Christianity, plays in the pro-life movement? Christians who are pro-life are, after all, supposed to be following the teachings of Jesus, so when violence is done in the name of the pro-life cause, the question of hypocrisy properly looms large. And there is unfortunately the long and sordid history of violence being done in the name of Jesus throughout history (I’m mid-way through Thomas Asbridge’s excellent new history of the crusades, and was reading about the seige of Acre last night — gruesome). So maybe we pro-life Christians really do have more to answer for than non-religious or new-agey environmentalists.
David suggests a logically possible reason that the media is harder on Christian pro-lifers: a desire to hold Christians accountable for their pacifistic theological principles.
I doubt he’s serious. As he knows pefectly well, Christianity is not pacifistic in most of its theological varieties. Therefore, it would be very odd if journalists devoted so much energy to expose the “hypocrisy” of the vanishingly small number of pacifistic Christians.
Similarly, very few Americans believe that the history of Christianity is one long and sordid tale of violence. In a more balanced way, most see the preponderating progress that Christianity has brought in its wake — never through pacifisim — but through responsible limitations of warfare. Since almost everyone — outside university seminar rooms — rejects the idea that the siege of Acre is a paradigmatic moment in the history of Christianity, journalists know that they can’t score many “hypocrisy” points on this ground.
There is a more probable explanation for the conduct Prof. Cochran mentions: the media generally views Christian pro-lifers disfavorably and environmentalists favorably. I think we all know which thesis is more likely.
Eric — first, whether or not Christianity is “pacifist” doesn’t answer for all the violence I’ve mentioned. (I’ll sidestep, for the moment, the “No True Scotsman” question of whether any “Christianity” that doesn’t at least wrestle with the question of pacifism justly deserves to be called “Christian”).
Second, I never said “the history of Christianity is one long and sordid tale of violence.” There is, indeed, lots of sordid violence in the history of Christianity — that is simply truth. There is also lots of redemption — that is truth as well.
Finally, you’ve missed my point. You’re probably right about the journalists’ motivations. The question, however, is how should we as Christians respond? We can whine and complain and point fingers at the “mainstream media” and create our own, equally (or more extremely) biased news outlets. We can make fun of Al Gore and suggest that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Or, we can reflect on our own historical propensity to twist the cross into a symbol of violence (you really can’t sidestep the Crusades here, Eric), and redouble our efforts to follow Jesus in another direction. For myself, I’m exhausted of Christian mainstream media finger pointing and want nothing to do with it.
Prof. Cochran did not “whine and complain and point fingers.” He did not “make fun of Al Gore.” He demonstrated the media’s bias against pro-lifers.
You responded that the media was also motivated by a proper response to Christian hypocrisy. I argued that you didn’t really believe this. You admit you don’t.
Your real agenda, you now explain, was to show us how to respond to media bias. Instead of the whining, complaining and finger pointing you accuse others of, you advise Christians to “reflect on our own historical propensity to twist the cross into a symbol of violence and redouble our efforts to follow Jesus in another direction.”
Well, Christians don’t tend toward violence, and telling the truth about error isn’t opposed to following Jesus. But since you seem to believe this, David, perhaps you can tell us how you respond without belligerence and error correction to those whom you regard as erring. . . like those damned war-mongering, America-loving, Fox-watching, property-owning, Yoder-and-Hauerwas-ignoring, Wal-mart shopping Evangelicals with whose “finger pointing” and crusade-sidestepping you are so exhausted? How do you maintain such a pacific tone of gentle and fair correction when dealing with such erring people?
For example, like you, I am exhausted … with self-hating Catholics and evangelicals who are constantly excoriating their brothers to outsiders for holding today the positions they held yesterday. I find it very difficult to deal with them without complaining and pointing fingers. I find it infuriating that they seem to spend so much more time attacking their old co-religionists for their hateful errors rather than lovingly expounding their bright new wisdom.
But, perhaps, I misunderstand. Maybe you don’t mean that there is something violent and unchristian about vigorously correcting errors, like those of the media that concern Prof. Cochran.
Eric, you seem to know quite a bit about my “agenda.” And in your own angry backlash, you didn’t even read what I originally wrote: “if there’s such a dynamic at work, isn’t it also…” So, I never denied that some reporters might be biased against pro-lifers, and contrary to your implicit accusation of dishonesty, I didn’t say one thing in order to promote a hidden agenda. Moreover, I am not, as you seem to assume, a former fundamentalist who has recently converted to the church of Yoder and Hauerwas. I’ve been thinking about these things for at least 20 years.
I imaging, Eric, that the original hearers of what we Christians now call “scripture” felt exactly the way you do now. The religious leaders who first heard Jeremiah’s words, or Jesus’ — they weren’t too happy about it either. Maybe, just maybe, instead of getting your back up, you should take a look at what the kind of stuff people like me criticize has wrought in our culture.
A bit sensitive?
Maybe, “instead of getting YOUR back up, YOU should take a look at what the kind of stuff people like PROF. COCHRAN criticize has wrought in our culture.”
And, for the record, I stipulate to your honesty (I didn’t mischaracterize you), guilelessness and longstanding liberalism, but not to your sensitivity to being satirized nor to any awareness of your own capacity for self-parody (though I confess that comparing your own argument to the Gospel and me to a Pharisee was an amusing rebuttal to my jesting at your overly self-assured fingerpointing at fingerpointing).
Pax Tecum
Your post was satirical?? Really??? You were “jesting???” C’mon, you were mad at something you found “infuriating.”
But then again you think I’m a “liberal” and that we liberals are all just parodies of ourselves. Sticks and stones, brother.
Shalom.
You know what Eric — I regret that last comment. Yup — mea culpa. The long habit of speaking ungraciously dies hard. You and I would be better off having this discussion over a coffee. We’d still disagree, but we’d be much more charitable towards each other.
I certainly don’t disagree with Bob’s concern about opposition to abortion not being painted as some kind of craziness. (I’m pro-life, and resolutely so, which I suppose makes me an odd sort of “liberal…” And I have no personal beef with Bob, whom I consider a valued colleague and friend).
Nevertheless, I really do believe that the Church’s witness to the Gospel has been gravely compromised by the political witness of many evangelical conservatives in recent decades; and I really do believe that many evangelical conservatives use “the media” as a scapegoat for their own failures to articulate a compelling political theology. In this, I am a sort of inconsistent disciple of Hauerwas and Yoder — and if that makes me a liberal, then that’s what I am. For me, this is indeed about the Gospel, the mission of the Church.