Bias And Advocacy Journalism

Back in 1971 Edith Efron wrote “The News Twisters.” Her thesis was that the major media was distinctly liberal in its reporting. She used the coverage of the 1968 election to prove her thesis. The book was a bombshell in the Media Centers of this country and much time was subsequently spent by leftists seeking to deconstruct Efron’s thesis.

Thirty Seven years later one would have to be brain dead to not notice the advocacy journalism that exists in America. If you watch the major media market you’ll see them selling Barack Hussein Obama the way that Ivory used to sell soap. One indication of the infatuation of all things Obama one notices is that all three major news network anchors followed Obama on his recent World Tour much like Deadheads used to follow the Grateful Dead from venue to venue. Another indication of the bias for Obama by major media outlets was the recent refusal of the New York Times to print a submitted editorial by Republican Presidential candidate Juan Mequeno after Barack Hussein Obama had an editorial published.

On the other hand if you listen to talk radio you hear a constant anti-Obama drumbeat. The difference is that talk radio tends to admit their bias while the major media outlets still pretend to objectivity. Another difference seems to be that while the liberal major media bias is clearly pro-Obama, talk radio is more anti-Obama then they are pro-Mequeno.

From this we need to realize that we are now living in a time that is much like Europe has experienced for decades, which is to say that we live in a time of advocacy journalism. It is folly on any news consumer’s part to think that by listening or reading any one news outlet they can find out what the truth is, unless they have the infrequently found ability to listen and read the news looking for what has been left out or barely mentioned.

The problem with advocacy journalism is bad enough but it is compounded by the reality that for all the different journalistic advocacy that is going on, with all its supposed differences, it is pushing products that are surprisingly the same. What I mean by that is the advocacy battle by the different media outlets that is going on in the Presidential campaign is like a battle between those who favor mashed potatoes against those who favor fried potatoes. If your a person who doesn’t like potatoes at all you don’t see much difference and what you’d like to see is somebody advocating baked apples.

Christians need to realize the reality of advocacy journalism in order to practice reading for what is not present or for what is not emphasized. Christians also need to realize, as it touches the Presidential campaign, there is nobody in the major media outlets or the radio talk show outlets, who are advocating baked apples. In order to find baked apples advocacy one needs to turn to genuinely minority news outlets.

In order to find some journalism that will get one out of the rut of the majority news outlets I recommend John Lofton and the American View ( www.theamericanview.com ) as well as the covenant news and backwater report outlets ( www.covenantnews.com , www.backwaterreport.com). John Lofton of the American view is very direct and pointed in his radio interviews and some people take exception to what they consider a “ambush approach” but personally I like Lofton’s approach as it does not allow people who are being interviewed to avoid the contradictions in their views or policies.

At the very least a dedicated reading of these alternate news and opinion sites for 6 months will help one see what is often left out in the other advocacy outlets.

Don’t Miss The Comments

I hope you readers are reading the comments on this blog. There are some incredibly bright people leaving comments here. Not only are they bright but they are eloquent and passionate as well.

I do not deserve the privilege to call these people friends.

I don’t know … maybe I’ll start posting the comments on the face of the blog. These guys are making points that are far better then much of what I try to communicate.

Baxter and TRGM — How Reformed People Do Evangelism

“And so that is how Reformed people do Evangelism.”

The rousing applause snapped Baxter out of his daydreaming and he quickly joined in hand clapping accolades.

Baxter had no idea what had been said over the last 20 minutes of the presentation. He had slipped into a daydream about turkey hunting with the under 25, all blond female hunting club from Sweden. Even after coming back to reality he was amazed at the marksmen skill of those women and how good they could still look in camouflage.

The leader of the Transylvania Reformed Global Missions dismissed the class into their breakout groups in order to share with each other their thoughts on the presentation.

Baxter’s group consisted of four women (who he doubted could qualify for the all blond female hunting club) and two guys (who he thought might be able to qualify for the all blond female hunting club), and himself.

Amber, who had been elected group Facilitator started, the conversation.

“I especially liked it when Rev. Goforth said that there may be situations where we deal with people groups who couldn’t make any sense why someone would ask Jesus into their hearts but who could make sense that someone might ask Jesus into their throats.”

Jason chimed in enthusiastically,

“Yes, it just goes to show how flexible we need to be in presenting the Gospel.”

The rest of the group nodded in four part harmony.

Baxter asked,

“I was wondering if any of you could help me out here. Where do we see in Scripture the warrant that conversion consists of asking Jesus into any of our anatomical body parts?”

Malika offered,

“Well the bible does say if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts, that God has raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.”

“Sure,” Baxter offered, “but that is communicating that we must believe with our whole being or person. I would have no problem saying to people who believed that the throat stood for the center of their being that they must believe in their throats. Still, I don’t find that to be a warrant to say to them that if they ask Jesus into their throats they shall be saved.”

Jason piped up, “Baxter, why must you be such a knit picker about these things?”

“Well Jason,” Baxter answered, “I surely have better things to do then pick knits but I think there is something underlying this that isn’t particularly Reformed.”

“We’re a captive audience to your wisdom,” Jason quipped.

“You’re too generous Jason,” Baxter replied.

“It is just that I think we need to be careful about making the asking of Jesus into our hearts, throats, pancreases, livers or whatever into a new sacrament or some kind of formula for salvation. Certainly we need to communicate the eagerness of God to forgive those turn to Christ but we also need to communicate that “salvation is of the Lord.”

Beth Ann pushed Baxter to explain himself more thoroughly.

“Here is my concern,” Baxter offered obligingly, “if we push the whole idea of conversion as people doing something, such as asking Jesus into some part of their anatomy, we run the risk of having them base their salvation on some action on their part or on some experience they had. It seems to me Reformed evangelism has always offered instead how God does the the working in Salvation. This is why I think Baptism should be the point of conversion that we should point people to look back to since Baptism proclaims Jesus and is the initiatory sign into the covenant.

What we have had emphasized today in the lecture on Reformed Evangelism is the penultimate side of the conversion coin. It is true that it is absolutely necessary that we must confess with our mouths and believe with our hearts that God has raised Jesus from the dead but that is really only the penultimate part of the equation. The ultimate part of the equation is that God does the work of salvation and the promise that he has done that work is not found in our confession but in our Baptism.”

Malika brightened and responded,

“So what you’re saying Baxter is that though our response to God’s graciousness is necessary, that response is not itself the Gospel.”

Baxter beamed back and hollered “precisely.” “When we zero in on asking Jesus into our colons the emphasis in evangelism falls on our response and though our response is necessary the emphasis should fall on how God does all the saving.”

Amber, seeing that their time in the breakout groups was winnowing away, insisted that the group spend some time on other matters brought up in the lecture on how Reformed people do Evangelism.

On that score she queried, “What did you all think of that new thing we learned from Rev. Goforth called TULIP?”

There was a good deal of exciting chattering beginning but Baxter felt himself being pulled back into his daydream. He began to smell the kill cooking from the morning hunt. Not only could those Swedish girls shoot but they could cook as well.

From The Mailbag — Dr. Darryl Asks The Pastor

Mr. Bret: One thing I forgot to ask? Do you really think preaching against ideology is more important that preaching forgiveness of sins?

I think when forgiveness of sins is preached it should also be preached that people must repent, (it’s been my experience that those two always go together) and always what they must repent from is their sinful wrong thinking about God (their ideology if you please) that drives their aberrant behavior. Preaching the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus is preaching that God will forgive man for being ideologically opposed to God and His Christ in all of his thinking. Now, certainly some people are more epistemologically self conscious about their god hating ideology and hence it is far more formalized, but in the end all men who desire the forgiveness of sins must repent of an ideology that has them seeking to de-god God, in the interest of investing themselves with godhood.

So, Mr. Darryl, in the end I don’t draw a dichotomy between preaching against ideology and preaching forgiveness of sins. I figure that people need to be aware that their sinful thinking is standing between themselves and God’s abundant and gracious forgiveness.

So, could you lend some insights in how it is you preach forgiveness sins apart from repenting for hostile thinking against God?

Mr. Darryl wrote,

In your search for an oppositional church, I guess you’d also pass by the churches established by Christ and the apostles. There was, as you well know, lots of bad theology informing the civil order of first-century Palestine. For some reason, Christ and the apostles decided not to oppose Rome’s civil religion but instead taught submission to the powers that be. Of course, the one power to which they took exception was the theocracy of Israel, which also separated powers among the priests, the elders and the king, but did not separate the kingdom of grace from the kingdom of justice.”

Mr. Bret responds,

I could only hope I would be brave enough to be a member of those early Churches where many were martyred for treason and sedition. You do recall those early Martyrs right? Those early martyrs understood all the bad theology informing their civil order of the first century and they went to the nub of it by refusing to burn a pinch of incense to the Emperor and saying “Caesar is Lord.” You see Mr. Darryl they were being ideologically driven by their commitment to Jesus as Lord, and they understood that Lordship to have implications in your “common realm.”

St. Paul understood well the necessity of not allowing the bad theology informing the civil order to infect the Church. This is why he could write, “Be not conformed to this World,” and also, “We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.”

As only God is absolute, only our submission to God is absolute. Nowhere in Scripture is absolute submission taught to be extended to anybody but God in heaven above. Our general principle is to honor those in authority but the submission that comes with that is not absolute.

Finally, as I’ve said now countless times, I’m all for distinguishing the Kingdom of Grace from the Kingdom of justice. I’m just not for divorcing and compartmentalizing them. That’s far to radical and its not Biblical.

Thanks for the follow up question Mr. Darryl.

From Chit Chat to Conversation — Dr. Darryl & Pastor Bret

Mr. Bret,

I’m not sure what you should expect from a church other than to preach the word of God. If you can find a text to oppose historicism or taxation, then I suppose you can preach it or argue with your minister about preaching it. Since you seem to have connections to MARS, I wonder how the Dutch-American faculty there feel about socialism back in the old country. In fact, it is curious to me that European evangelicals are far more comfortable with big government than American evangelicals are (consider the lefty at WTS, Carl Trueman). Could it be that the biblical warrant against a big government is not as clear as you think?

I’d also recommend that you spend some time with J. Gresham Machen on politics and faith, just to see someone who generally enjoys good press among Reformed types but whose politics might be a tad different from yours.

But in the end, I don’t know how you can live with yourself living in this land where bad theology haunts every corner. Shouldn’t you move somewhere for pyschological relief?

Mr. Darryl,

First, I have absolutely positively no connection to MARS beyond thinking it a decent Seminary. I have no idea what they at MARS think about socialism in the old country, though I think it might explain a good deal how, in about a century, the Netherlands went from Kuyper as Prime Minister to where they are now. Presuppositions matter and bad ideas have consequences.

Second, I am glad that you concede that “if you can find a text … than I suppose you can preach it.” Now is that a first class conditional “if” or some other kind of “if”? As someone who has been around the Scriptures much of your life you certainly have an opinion on whether or not such texts exist.

Third, as whether constrained government is a Scripturally warranted as I might think, instead of getting into a long and extended explanation here I will refer those interested to Charles McCoy’s “Fountainhead Of Federalism,” or John Witte’s The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism, or Lex Rex by Rutherford or something similar. Unlike big government types like Carl Truman Calvinism has a long history of finding texts that warrant teaching that government should be constrained and shouldn’t be allowed to take up prerogatives of God.

Certainly a text against Centralized government that takes up the prerogatives of God and seeks to be God walking on the earth would be “Thou Shalt have no other gods before me.”

Ever wonder if the fact that there remain so few European Evangelicals is explained by the fact that they are comfortable with socialism?

I’ll make a deal with you Darryl. I’ll work on finding psychological relief if you’ll work on finding something that will give you psychological turmoil.

Still, in the end, I find my relief in a Sovereign God who is sustaining and governing all that comes to pass and who does all things well. Since that remains true everywhere why would I have to move to find some psychological relief?

Nice chatting with you Dr. Hart.

God grant Reformation to the Church.