{"id":12613,"date":"2013-01-02T16:22:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T21:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=12613"},"modified":"2013-01-02T16:22:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-02T21:22:49","slug":"mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Mainstream&#8217; evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Let\u2019s start with what Skye Jethani gets partly right in his push-back against the push-back against the appalling public theology of the religious right.<\/p>\n<p>In his Out of Ur essay \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.outofur.com\/archives\/2013\/01\/no_were_not_a_h.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">No, We\u2019re Not a Hate Group<\/a>,\u201d Jethani discusses the way the \u201csensationalism\u201d of the spotlight-grabbing media stars of the religious right can make them seem disproportionately influential:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the free market of the media it is not fair and accurate reporting that gets rewarded, but page views, clicks, and [Nielsen] ratings. With online and cable news outlets struggling for viewers (and revenue), there is constant pressure for these organization to not just report news but make it. Therefore, when a Christian leader is needed to comment on an event, they are more likely to invite a Crazy Uncle Christian known for shooting his mouth off and insulting minorities than the thoughtful, reflective Christian offering wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 If you\u2019re behind the editorial desk at CNN and desperate for page views, which story are you going to publish:\u00a0\u201cChristian Leader Fasts and Prays for Victims of School Shooting\u201d\u00a0or\u00a0\u201cChristian Leader Blames Shooting on School Prayer Ban\u201d[?]<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, when sensationalism sells it\u2019s going to be the crazy uncles in Christendom that get media attention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, \u201csensationalism sells.\u201d But Jethani apparently didn\u2019t watch CNN in the days and weeks following the Newtown shooting. The former story \u2014 \u201c[Christians] \u2026 Pray for Victims\u201d \u2014 was reported <em>dozens<\/em> of times covering numerous events. They reported \u2014 positively \u2014 on sermons at several area churches. They quoted from clergy who spoke at funerals. It wasn\u2019t just CNN, either \u2014 one prayer vigil was broadcast on all the major networks \u2014 with NBC interrupting Sunday Night Football to show it live. Look through <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CNN\u2019s Belief Blog<\/a> over the past month and you\u2019ll find many, many thoughtful, reflective, restrained and respectful articles commending the responsible reactions from numerous Christian leaders following the tragedy.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_12614\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12614\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2013\/01\/cookie.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12614\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2013\/01\/cookie-300x216.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12614\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Your church prayed for the victims of a tragedy without blaming them or kicking them while they\u2019re down? Bravo! Have a cookie!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sure, CNN also covered the statements by Huckabee, Dobson, Fischer and Graham, but they didn\u2019t interrupt Sunday Night Football to do so. And they <em>had<\/em> to cover those statements because they are <em>news<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the man-bites-dog principle. The old saying is that \u201cDog Bites Man\u201d is not news \u2014 that\u2019s what dogs sometimes do, and it\u2019s just a routine occurrence. But \u201cMan Bites Dog\u201d <em>is<\/em> news \u2014 it\u2019s something unusual, unexpected and noteworthy.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly \u201cPastor Provides Pastoral Care\u201d is not news. Nor is \u201cShock-jock Says Something Shocking\u201d newsworthy. But if the \u201cMorning Zoo Crew\u201d on the local radio station dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, organizing a vigil and rallying community support for the victims, that would be news \u2014 a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected.<\/p>\n<p>By the same token, when a religious leader, of all people, responds to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that\u2019s news too.<\/p>\n<p>One could, in a sense, regard the newsworthiness of Huckabee and Dobson\u2019s comments as a kind of slantwise affirmation of American Christianity. Despite a decades-long pattern of white evangelical spokespeople saying appalling things in the aftermath of tragedies, those comments are still regarded as news \u2014 meaning they are still perceived as surprisingly out-of-character, as unexpected, Man-Bites-Dog incidents.<\/p>\n<p>The larger problem with Jethani\u2019s lament about CNN supposedly ignoring that story they didn\u2019t ignore \u2014 \u201cChristians Pray for Victims\u201d \u2014 is that he seems to want media coverage of the church to be like one of those children\u2019s events where everybody gets a trophy just for showing up. His fine whine reminds me of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=B0B_ekSrsEk\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Chris Rock\u2019s most notorious routine<\/a> \u2014 the one in which he outlines the difference between black people in general and a small sub-set of the black population with whom he is sorely disappointed (I\u2019m paraphrasing). Of this latter sub-set, Rock says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0[They] always want credit for some [stuff] they\u2019re <em>supposed<\/em> to do. \u2026 [He] will brag about some [stuff] a normal man just <em>does<\/em>. [He] will say some [stuff] like \u201cI take <em>care<\/em> of my kids.\u201d You\u2019re <em>supposed<\/em> to, you dumb $@%#. \u2026 What are you <em>bragging<\/em> about? What kind of ignorant [stuff] is that?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ain\u2019t <em>never<\/em> been to jail.\u201d What you want, a <em>cookie?<\/em> You\u2019re not <em>supposed<\/em> to go to jail, you low-expectation-having $@%#.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This seems to be the gist of Jethani\u2019s complaint about Cheshire\u2019s complaint, of his criticism of Cheshire\u2019s criticism. He wants reporters to ignore religious leaders who behave badly. And when religious leaders do <em>not<\/em> behave badly \u2014 when they do [stuff] they\u2019re simply <em>supposed<\/em> to do \u2014 he wants a cookie.<\/p>\n<p>Cable news is certainly often guilty of \u201csensationalism.\u201d CNN has an infamous tendency to go into histrionics over stories of missing white women. But the correction to that would be for CNN to cover such stories in a more restrained and proportionate manner. It would not be for CNN to ignore such stories completely while covering, instead, the stories of the many millions of white women who are <em>not<\/em> missing.<\/p>\n<p>The news media may be suckers for sensational claims, and the Crazy Uncles of the religious right may be virtuosos at exploiting that weakness, but cable news did not <em>create<\/em> the religious right. Nor did the critics of the religious right create it.<\/p>\n<p>The religious right arose from within white evangelical Christianity. And it continues to thrive and to be enormously <em>popular<\/em> within white evangelical Christianity. That\u2019s not something that we can blame on CNN, or on me, or on Michael Cheshire.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Pastor Provides Pastoral Care&#8221; is not news. Nor is &#8220;Shock-jock Says Something Shocking&#8221; newsworthy. But if the &#8220;Morning Zoo Crew&#8221; dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, rallying community support for the victims, that would be news &#8212; a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected. By the same token, when religious leaders respond to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that&#8217;s news too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-12613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-religious-right"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Mainstream&#039; evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;Pastor Provides Pastoral Care&quot; is not news. Nor is &quot;Shock-jock Says Something Shocking&quot; newsworthy. But if the &quot;Morning Zoo Crew&quot; dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, rallying community support for the victims, that would be news -- a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected. By the same token, when religious leaders respond to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that&#039;s news too.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Mainstream&#039; evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Pastor Provides Pastoral Care&quot; is not news. Nor is &quot;Shock-jock Says Something Shocking&quot; newsworthy. But if the &quot;Morning Zoo Crew&quot; dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, rallying community support for the victims, that would be news -- a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected. By the same token, when religious leaders respond to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that&#039;s news too.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-02T21:22:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2013\/01\/cookie-300x216.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/\",\"name\":\"'Mainstream' evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-02T21:22:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-02T21:22:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Pastor Provides Pastoral Care\\\" is not news. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Mainstream' evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)","description":"\"Pastor Provides Pastoral Care\" is not news. Nor is \"Shock-jock Says Something Shocking\" newsworthy. But if the \"Morning Zoo Crew\" dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, rallying community support for the victims, that would be news -- a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected. By the same token, when religious leaders respond to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that's news too.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'Mainstream' evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)","og_description":"\"Pastor Provides Pastoral Care\" is not news. Nor is \"Shock-jock Says Something Shocking\" newsworthy. 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Nor is \"Shock-jock Says Something Shocking\" newsworthy. But if the \"Morning Zoo Crew\" dispenses with its usual crude antics in the wake of a tragedy, rallying community support for the victims, that would be news -- a reversal of the usual roles, something surprising and unexpected. By the same token, when religious leaders respond to tragedy by making the sort of shocking statements one usually expects to hear from Zoo-Crew shock-jocks, that's news too.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/02\/mainstream-evangelicals-criticize-critics-of-the-religious-right-part-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8216;Mainstream&#8217; evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right (part 2)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":"&quot;Test everything; hold fast to what is good.&quot;","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}