Watch Sarah Pulliam Bailey Destroy The Atlantic

Watch Sarah Pulliam Bailey Destroy The Atlantic April 16, 2012

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Sarah Pulliam Bailey, writer for Christianity Today, is one of my more favorite writers in the evangelical-journalist community. Like me, she was emailed a downright absurd article posted on the Atlantic‘s website last week, linking KONY2012 to the emergent church movement.

In our world, the Atlantic is supposed to represent good, serious reporting. And Christianity Today is supposed to represent slanted, non-objective reporting.

Well, read Sarah’s piece if you’re ready for your categories to be upended. She completely pwns the Atlantic at Get Religion:

Earlier this week, a reader sent us a “slightly alarmist” piece from The Atlantic on a Christian sect driving Africa. Can you guess what might be “The Upstart Christian Sect Driving Invisible Children”? Wait for it: the emerging church. That’s right. The movement that no one is talking about anymore.

I asked Tony Jones what he thought of the piece, given that he has been one of the leaders of the Emergent Church Village, and he had some strong words.

I read the Atlantic piece on KONY and the emerging church, and I was dumbfounded. Firstly, I found the article nearly indecipherable. But even more troubling was the supposed connection between Invisible Children and the emergent church movement is ludicrous. But then, when the reporter referred to Mark Driscoll as a liberal, we all knew that he had no idea what he was writing about. That should be enough for the Atlantic to take the article off their website, and fire the editor who greenlighted it.

Why does Jones feel so strongly about this piece? Walk with me through bits and pieces to find out why it’s such bad journalism.

Please read the rest of Sarah’s paragraph-by-paragraph deconstruction of the Atlantic article here: Correction please on The Atlantic’s lol Kony report » GetReligion.


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