{"id":107963,"date":"2013-07-10T16:01:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T20:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=107963"},"modified":"2013-07-10T16:03:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T20:03:50","slug":"in-kentucky-shiite-baptists-and-the-crazy-old-uncle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/in-kentucky-shiite-baptists-and-the-crazy-old-uncle\/","title":{"rendered":"In Kentucky, ‘Shiite Baptists’ and the crazy old uncle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Thou shalt not write an inflammatory newspaper column.<\/p>\n

Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a community \u2014 or a congregation \u2014 scorned in print.<\/p>\n

One of the favorite stories I wrote for The Associated Press during the 2004 presidential campaign involved the publisher of Republican George W. Bush\u2019s hometown newspaper endorsing Democrat John Kerry:<\/a><\/p>\n

CRAWFORD, Texas\u00a0(AP)<\/strong> \u2014 Signs at the bank, the cafe and the Bottlinger Grain bins all declare Crawford \u2013 the proud home of the president\u2019s ranch \u2013 as \u201cBush Country.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when the Lone Star Iconoclast,<\/em> a tiny weekly that bills itself as Bush\u2019s hometown paper, endorsed Democrat John Kerry, there was hell to pay.<\/p>\n

Local businesses pulled their ads and banned the paper from their stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt a little betrayed,\u201d said Larry Nelson, manager of the Crawford Country Style, a downtown shop that sells \u201cLuvya Dubya\u201d trinkets and other Bush memorabilia.<\/p>\n

Most folks in Crawford (pop. 705) wholeheartedly support the re-election of the man whose \u201cWestern White House\u201d made their speck on the map famous. Eighty-two percent voted for President Bush in 2000.<\/p>\n

The paper\u2019s publisher, W. Leon Smith, said he never expected such a hostile response. He knew \u201ca person or two might pull an ad, that we might lose a subscriber or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this has turned a little more vicious,\u201d said Smith, 51, wearing a decade-old knit tie and ink pens in his white shirt pocket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought of that story when I came across an AP report today<\/a> about a Southern Baptist church seeking an assistant pastor\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n

The pastor\u2019s apparent offense? His wife wrote a less-than-flattering \u201chumor column\u201d<\/a> about Southern Baptists.<\/p>\n

The top of the AP story:<\/p>\n

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)<\/strong> \u2014 A newspaper column lampooning Southern Baptists, calling the group \u201cthe crazy old paranoid uncle of evangelical Christians,\u201d is causing quite a stir in a Kentucky city and put a pastor\u2019s job in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

The column was written by Angela Thomas, the wife of Bill Thomas, an assistant pastor at the First Baptist Church in Madisonville. Her column was done in response to the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s opposition to a new Boy Scouts of America policy that welcomes gay members.<\/p>\n

\u201cSexuality doesn\u2019t come up and isn\u2019t relative to typical scouting activities but now, thanks to Southern Baptists, the parents of little innocent scouts everywhere are having to have The Talk,\u201d she wrote June 19 in The Madisonville Messenger. She writes a weekly humor column for the community paper, which publishes daily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later, the story notes:
\n<\/p>\n

The column said Southern Baptists have become \u201craging Shiite Baptists\u201d after drifting \u201cto the right\u201d for the past four decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanta and the Easter bunny are simply the devil in disguise and cable television and the Internet are his playground. The Boy Scouts are his evil minions,\u201d she wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Undoubtedly, the reference up high to the \u201ccrazy old paranoid uncle\u201d and the later mention of \u201craging Shiite Baptists\u201d will guarantee lots of Internet attention for this piece. In fact, this is the headline on The Tennessean\u2019s<\/em> presentation<\/a> of the AP report:<\/p>\n

Baptist pastor\u2019s wife calls Southern Baptists \u2018the crazy old paranoid uncle of evangelical Christians\u2019<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a perfect world, the reporter would ask the wife to explain what she means by the \u201ccrazy old paranoid uncle\u201d statement, since a majority of evangelical Christians \u2014 as I understand it \u2014 consider homosexuality a sin. Unfortunately, both the wife and her husband declined to comment for the story.<\/p>\n

At the same time, two quotes in the story refer to \u201cShiite Baptists.\u201d Yet the AP provides no context concerning the term \u201cShiite.\u201d Help me out, kind GetReligion readers: Is some background needed here? Or will most readers understand the connotation?<\/p>\n

But in general, AP deserves kudos for presenting the story in a straightforward, evenhanded way, including seeking comment from a leading Southern Baptist commentator:<\/p>\n

The Rev. Russell Moore, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he was surprised the \u201cshockingly sarcastic tone\u201d of the column came from the spouse of a church employee. It\u2019s not clear whether Angela Thomas also attended First Baptist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t find the column to be the sort of lighthearted poking that one would typically find in satire,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI found it instead to be more of a screed from someone who\u2019s very hostile to where most Baptists stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore said the column also mischaracterized the convention\u2019s stance on the Boy Scout policy.<\/p>\n

The Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s action last month \u201cwas a very balanced resolution that didn\u2019t denounce the Boy Scouts,\u201d Moore said. \u201cWe expressed disappointment, but didn\u2019t speak in harsh terms and also did not direct churches as to how they should respond.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story ends by quoting a church member \u2014 by name \u2014 who provides behind-the-scenes details on the assistant pastor\u2019s employment situation. (Read the full story.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my journalistic question: If you were the editor, would you be comfortable with that source and the information provided? Or would you hold out for a more official source? In other words, would you consider this source credible on deadline?<\/p>\n

Image via Shutterstock<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thou shalt not write an inflammatory newspaper column. Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a community \u2014 or a congregation \u2014 scorned in print. One of the favorite stories I wrote for The Associated Press during the 2004 presidential campaign involved the publisher of Republican George W. Bush\u2019s hometown newspaper endorsing Democrat John Kerry: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,27,7,12,71,49,4],"tags":[904,242,1168,578],"class_list":["post-107963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptists","category-evangelicals","category-journalism","category-religion","category-same-sex-marriage","category-sex","category-social-issues","tag-boy-scouts-of-america","tag-gay-rights","tag-newspapers","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Kentucky, 'Shiite Baptists' and the crazy old uncle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thou shalt not write an inflammatory newspaper column. Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a community \u2014 or a congregation \u2014 scorned in print. 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