{"id":22941,"date":"2016-01-05T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=22941"},"modified":"2016-01-04T18:49:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T23:49:41","slug":"when-journalists-try-to-be-theologians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/01\/when-journalists-try-to-be-theologians\/","title":{"rendered":"When journalists try to be theologians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

G. Shane Morris has a great piece in the Federalist<\/a> about how journalists have been lecturing us on theological questions while knowing nothing about what they are talking about.\u00a0 (The article includes a definitive discussion of why Christians do not, in fact, worship the same deity as Muslims, contrary to what the media has been saying in the Wheaton case.)<\/p>\n

From G. Shane Morris, Dear Media: Stop Trying To Teach Christianity, in The Federalist<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Every journalist in America has been secretly attending seminary, and now understands Christianity better than most Christians do. This is the only conclusion I can draw after months of theology lectures from reporters whose most recent encounter with religious terminology was Hozier\u2019s \u201cTake Me to Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

To those of us for whom church isn\u2019t a metaphor for sex, it\u2019s been a frustrating few months. First, the chattering class endlessly assured Christian bakers, restaurant-owners, photographers, and florists that Jesus would be totally down with making same-sex nuptials fabulous (and presumably, with paying the $135,000 fine for those who felt differently).<\/p>\n

Then, in the wake of June\u2019s gay \u201cmarriage\u201d decision at the Supreme Court, we got an earful about how mean and un-Christian it would be not to attend same-sex \u201cweddings.\u201d (Wouldn\u2019t you know it, we\u2019ve been reading the Bible wrong all these centuries!) Then the Kim-pocalypse struck, and we were treated to smug editorials on how the Kentucky clerk\u2019s faith represents the dark side of Christianity, while those who ignore tertiary topics like\u2014say\u2014God\u2019s design for human sexuality in favor of social justice issues, are the good Christians. (I once was blind, but now I see!) But this month, the media got an opportunity to bestow their theological insights on us like never before. Did they ever.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G. Shane Morris has a great piece in the Federalist about how journalists have been lecturing us on theological questions while knowing nothing about what they are talking about.\u00a0 (The article includes a definitive discussion of why Christians do not, in fact, worship the same deity as Muslims, contrary to what the media has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,39,47],"tags":[1208,4224],"class_list":["post-22941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-religions","category-theology","tag-journalism","tag-theological-ignorance"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen journalists try to be theologians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"G. 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