More on that Media Matters study
8 June 2007 - 23 סיון 5767 by Huw
Here’s a follow-up to an earlier post about a study released by Media Matters on how media skews religion to the right.
Over at GetReligion, tmatt shares his more recent syndicated column on the topic. He makes a couple of good points on the study itself. The left and right parties picked in the study are not exactly representative of the left and right. More to the point, some parties are missing from the lists. One name that stands out by its absence is the new ECUSA Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. And, it must be noted, she has certainly received a lot of media attention. Would that have pitched the study the wrong way (for the organisation doing the study)? Yo no ce. But I have no trust in such organisations anyway.
But then tmatt asks,
Meanwhile, many conservative evangelicals, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox believers and others have to cringe whenever they see themselves represented in the national media by more quotes from Dobson or Robertson.
In my comments, I said that, other than himself, I wasn’t aware of any conservative voices trying to distance themselves. “Until Falwell went off on Tinky-Winky and Robertson began to entertain his dotage on the 700 Club” it was Liberal Christians saying things like “I’m a Christian, but not that kind of Christian“. After the fact, most people on the right side of the nave still seem rather happy to let the biggies speak for them. (tmatt notes the list includes “James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship, Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the late Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority.”)
On what can be called the Neocath right (eg First Things) and the neo-ecumenical side (Touchstone) they all seem rather happy to let such folks speak for them.
Maybe not?
Nobody could accuse me of being a “liberal” (whatever that is), but I’ve been cringing for years. Not only when one of these folks says something outrageously stupid, offensive, or morally reprehensible (or all three at once, which has happened, as when one of them (I forget which one) blamed 9/11 on gays); but even when they make political comments that I agree with.
The message that these guys send (whether they want to or not) is that social and political conservatism is the essence of Christianity, and that Christ offers salvation only to conservatives and Republicans. That’s not just stupid and offensive, it’s *heresy*, and that is why even though I agree with them on some political issues, they make me cringe.
Preach it, Chris!
Because the Antiochians are headquartered in New Jersey, right across the river from The City, they used to be quoted back in the times of Metropolitan Bashir. The Episcopal Presiding Bishop could also get quoted a time or two, but Bashir was much more colorful, or so I am told by those who remember him. He even got to meet a couple of Presidents.
(In fact, there are whole sets of Bashir stories floating around, told with a wonderful sense of humor by the older Arab priests.)
But, the media no longer come to seek out moderate voices anymore. If people are not speaking out enough about their views on religion, neither are the media going out of their way to listen to voices that do not give spicy 30 second sound bites either.