Blinded By Bias: FOX News and Naming Our Prejudice

Yesterday, FOX News posted an article and interview about a Tweet that the progressive UCC Minister, Rev. Al Sharpton, tweeted out over the weekend that critiqued Trump’s refugee ban, saying:

“Before you head to church today, remember to thank God for his son, Jesus a refugee who fled to Egypt.”

Apparently, a number of conservative Christians responded to Rev. Sharpton on Twitter, claiming that he didn’t know the Bible and was making a wild, inaccurate claim about Jesus. Thus, FOX News picked up on these Tweets and turned it into a TV segment on Fox and Friends, where the hosts jeer Rev. Al for being a “fake minister” and misquoting the Bible.

When my dad sent me this story, I had to stop and scratch my head for a second. As someone who has a degree in the Bible from one of the worlds leading evangelical Bible colleges, I know that Jesus was in fact a refugee. The Gospel of Matthew records the account:

“Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’”– Matthew 2: 13-14

In this account, Herod puts out a decree for his men to go around the reign and kill any firstborn son of Jewish people in order to ensure that this newborn “King of the Jews” would be taken out before he was a threat to Herod’s power. Then, apparently, an angel warns Mary and Joseph and commands them to take Jesus and flee to Egypt to avoid his untimely death, so they do just that.

Now, the word “refugee” is defined in the following way:

A person forced to leave their country to escape persecution is exactly what Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had to do in this account. They had to flee to avoid Jesus being unjustly killed by Herod’s soldiers, and they were forced to live in a land that was not their own- Egypt.

How could it be that so many so-called Bible-believing Christians somehow forgot this story was in the Bible? How could they fail to realize that the God who they worship was a middle eastern refugee, fleeing from persecution?

I want to suggest that what Fox and Friends and the dozens who tweeted critically at Rev. Sharpton were not actually biblically illiterate, but instead, were blinded by their own bias. You see, it doesn’t fit the conservative narrative right now to have Jesus, the “center piece” of the conservatives faith be a refugee, since the policy of the far-right is to ban all refugees from entering the country. Does that mean they’d ban Jesus? It’s a scary and uncomfortable thought for many, so they chose to forget or reinterpret the plain truth in order to justify their own political position.

But this isn’t only about their opposition to refugees. No, it’s also likely about an imbedded racism and anti-liberal bias that has been used by white, Christian, conservatives for decades to discredit Rev. Al Sharpton as an illegitimate minister of the Gospel. In this Fox news piece, they unashamedly attack his credentials, his education, and his authority to be speaking about Christ. Why? Because in the privileged paradigm of conservative Christianity, folks like Rev. Sharpton: black, educated, and liberal, shouldn’t exist. It messes with the ordering of the world that privileges white Christians at the expense of the marginalized.

The piece reveals how the bias of conservatives blinded them to the truth about what’s in the Bible: Jesus was a refugee. It also revealed underlying prejudices against people of color, and in particular, Rev. Al Sharpton. The blindness, arrogance, and ignorance that emerges from this situation is stunning and proves, once and for all, the FOX News is certainly not “fair and balanced” as their tagline suggests.

But as I thought about this, I also was convicted to think about my own biases against folks I disagree with. In what ways do I demonize, marginalize, and present “alternative facts” about folks that I disagree with? How have I allowed my preconceived ideas about conservatives, republicans, and evangelicals to propel me in a less than nobel direction?

You see, in this pivotal moment of our nations history, it is important that we all take time to check ourselves. Examine our biases and prejudice. And work hard to overcome the era of demonization and “alternative facts”. This is a time for us to swallow our pride and to make room at the table for those who we perceive as our enemies, so that we might see them face to face, hear their experiences, and gain a better understanding of the complex reality of who they really are. It’s easy to demonize from a distance, but almost impossible to demonize the real, flesh and blood human before your face.

This doesn’t me that we “tolerate” ideologies and policies that we believe are harmful. It doesn’t mean we don’t call out injustice and falsehood. But it just means that we are aware of our underlying prejudice, and realize that until we are willing to do the hard work of actually listening to and empathizing with the people we disagree with the most, progress can not be achieved. Instead, we will stay in our corners, throwing rocks across the border, and never accomplishing any true and lasting heart and mind change.

Our biases can blind us. But when we acknowledge them and work to overcome them and get to know our “other”, then the light can truly shine, dispelling darkness, and paving the way for a more just and generous future.

May we all- FOX News included- examine, identity, name, and overcome our desire to demonize from a distance. The world needs it now more than ever.

Oh yeah…and Jesus was a refugee.