Evangelical Reformation

Truth is a scarce commodity in our society. This dark reality reveals itself graphically in our current financial crisis. One can listen to television, the major source of “truth” in our society, 24/7 and learn practically nothing about the realities of our financial crisis. Though we hear a lot about Wall Street greed, this accusation seems to be aimed at taking the attention off of the culpability of Congress. One thing is for sure. You won’t get to the bottom of it watching television.

Why has truth fallen? Several forces in our society work hard to knock it down and prevent it from getting back up. One is communication by sound-bite. Whether a newscast or presidential debate, you only get at most a two minute treatment of any subject. In the Bill O’Reilly type format, you might get four minutes comprised of two people yelling over each other. We get no thoughtful, factual development of a topic. The Vice Presidential “debate” last night consisted largely of accusations being made and denied and countercharges being leveled. Just by listening you could learn practically nothing, and to make matters worse you would probably come away believing errors.

For this reason such an event has deteriorated into a “gotcha” game, the highest hope being to hurl a one-liner that will zap the opponent such as the memorable, “and you’re no John F. Kennedy.” Substance comprises a small part of the exercise. We all remember the downfall of Richard Nixon in one of the early television debates. His makeup was not done well. Then there is the issue of style over substance. I recall hearing an announcement at church indicating that the speaker for an upcoming men’s retreat was “one of the great communicators of our day.” It struck me at the time that the concern was not over his content by how well he could communicate it.

This preference for delivery over data hits at the heart of our current election. Barack Obama communicates well. The facts related to his background, platform, and tactics mean little to a majority of the American public. We would rather hear lies said well than truths said poorly. At the heart of the problem resides the difficulty in discovering truth. Truth does not come easy, especially in a world in which people profit from distorting and hiding it. Even in studying the Bible, a book containing pure truth, we have to work hard to grasp the truth. Many have drawn erroneous conclusions from Scripture.

Therefore, in a culture that implements strategies that serve to muddy the waters rather than expose the truth, we have little hope of finding it. Our culture reflects that of Isaiah’s day. “Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” (Isaiah 59:14) Note the bitter byproducts that accompany the fall of truth.  The recovery of our society from its economic, political, moral, and other woes must begin with a thirst for truth that will lead us to adopt methodologies that will reveal it.

In my previous post I referenced Newt Gingrich’s eleven initiatives that he calls the Republican Congress to pass in order to survive the mid-term elections.

These initiatives would be good for the country and are supported by the American people. Why, then, haven’t the Republicans passed them already?

The reason seems to be that any time the Republicans advance a conservative agenda, the media beat them up. Therefore, they tend to pay the price only for issues of the highest priority such as Supreme Court justices.

The capacity of the media to make Republicans pay dearly for even good decisions is manifested in President Bush’s loss of popularity over the war.

The fact that the battle with the terrorists is taking place in Iraq rather than New York City or Los Angeles should boost the President’s stock. Five years without a sequel to 9/11, or even a minor success by terrorists on our shores, is quite an astounding accomplishment. 

However, the media, especially the television media, have the capacity to spin the war as a failure rather than a success, as evidenced in the President’s plummet in the polls.

It must be remembered that even with the advent of Fox News and the decline in the viewership of the mainline networks, the old liberal news sources still have overwhelming preponderance of market share.

This power of the television media is found in its many weapons.

One of its big guns resides in the power of pictures. Neil Postman, in his 1986 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, made the point the pictures have power because the viewer does not tend to process them rationally. While, reading an account encourages rational analysis, viewing pictures does not. Regular pictures of flag-draped coffins erode public support for the war, even if the sacrifice of those soldiers prevents an even greater number of coffins of men, women, and children somewhere in the United States.

Another weapon of the television media is selectivity. In their nightly news, they tend to select a handful of stories that they want to promote. This means that they can sell their slant on the world.

The power of pictures linked with the capacity for selectivity constitutes a lethal propaganda duo. The decision of the media not to show the events of 9/11 but to show the flag-draped coffins creates a significant bias among viewers. Imagine the difference in impact if the media constantly showing the fall of the Twin Towers and not the flag-draped coffins.

This power of this capacity to select is boosted by the trust many Americans have in the media, even those believe they are biased. This can be seen in the tendency of Americans to believe that what the media does not cover is not important—is not part of reality. For example, a major reason that most American evangelicals express little concern over the plight of persecuted Christians is that the media do not cover it, thus giving the impression that either it does not really exist, or it is not a major problem.

I could list a host of other tactics used by the media to promote its propaganda power, ones that can cast the most atrocious issues in a favorable light and commendable issues as negatives.

For example, one would have thought that the spread of AIDS would have resulted in condemnation of homosexuality. Rather, the media were able to use the AIDS epidemic to boost public acceptance of homosexuality.

Consequently, arousing the ire of the media tends to be politically costly. This is evidenced by the struggle Rick Santorum, one of the most conservative Republicans, is having in holding on to his Senate seat.

For this reason, Republicans tend to keep a low profile, especially when it comes to promoting conservative causes. Therefore, even though Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, little of the conservative agenda is advanced.

How is this failure of Republicans to advance conservative causes linked to pathology in the evangelical community. I plan to discuss that issue in the next post.

Do you have answers to the following question? If so, I would like to hear from you.

With a host of serious problems facing our nation, why are the top stories covered by Fox News (which I consider to be the best television news option) the Natalee Holloway case and the Duke lacrosse team? Here are some concerns that may have somewhat more national and international significance:

• The illegal immigration issue has the potential for creating serious upheaval in our nation, and yet it gets little rational coverage.

• The Chinese military buildup represents a major threat, and yet we hardly ever hear about it.

• The prospect of Iran having nuclear capability coupled with its position on the annihilation of Israel is ominous to say the least, and yet I hear little substantive discussion on that issue.

• The takeover of Venezuela by Hugo Chavez, the radical policies he has implemented, his spreading of his approach to Bolivia, and his intent to continue to influence the rest of South America could have devastating implications for the United States. Yet this is a non-issue for Fox and other news outlets.

• Higher gas prices are now getting some attention, but I have yet to hear much on why we are not drilling in Alaska.

• Then there are North Korea, Belarus (one of the latest on the list of rogue states), the step-up persecution of Christians in Indonesia, India, and Nigeria, which should be of concern to us, the increasing influence of China in South America, etc.

Granted, I am not a news junkie. Maybe if I listened long enough I would hear these issues discussed intelligently. However, the little I do listen I hear plenty about scandals and murders but little on these issues and virtually nothing of substance. Occasionally I hear two people yelling at each other at the same time on Hannity & Colmes. That doesn’t help much.

Fox is sounding more and more like the National Enquirer. Any day I am expecting to hear about an Elvis sighting or see a picture of a little green man taken at Roswell, New Mexico. The other day I got tired of hearing about the Duke lacrosse team on Fox so I switched to MSNBC. You guessed it, they were talking about the Duke lacrosse team.

Talk shows are little better. Again, I do not have much time to listen, but the time I do tune in has not given me much grist for the mill on the topics above.

I can think of a dozen significant questions I would like to ask about each of these topics—information I need to know to meet my responsibility as a citizen. Yet, I sense that I could spend a substantial amount of time listening to news outlets without getting answers.

Could it be that our education level is so low that people cannot process substantive information? Could it be that the feelings orientation introduced in the sixties has left us, like the occupants of the Brave New World, only interested in that which stimulates our senses?

In any case, if the evangelical community, instead of following the culture, would lead it by doing serious Bible study and developing a thoughtful biblical worldview, we might become a population not satisfied with entertainment as news. The development of an evangelical community of that quality would require an evangelical reformation.