Okay, here's a duct tape moment - you know, the kind of thing that makes you want to wrap your head in duct tape so it doesn't explode? Yesterday evening Diane Sawyer and ABC's World News Tonight ran a "story" about two supposed pastors of Christian churches who say they have lost their faith and no longer believe in God.
They teased the story from the beginning of their so-called news broadcast with lines such as, "Does your pastor have a deep dark secret? No, it's not what you think...". Who were these two "pastors"? We don't know. They were shown only in darkened silhouette and their voices were altered. Their names were not given. For all we know, they are not real people. Their stories went like this:
"I was a Christian for 30 years but then I started reading Bertrand Russel and others. I figured God was big enough to withstand criticism, and I wanted to see what these folks had to say. Well, I no longer believe, but this is my job and with the economy like it is I still go through the motions of being a pastor of a church because I need a paycheck."
That's not a quote, but a general paraphrase of the message. What I question is ABC's motive in running this broadside hit piece against Christianity. Are there pastors who lose their faith? I don't really know. Did these men ever have actual faith, or were they the types who grew up in church, maybe influenced by a youth pastor or other man in their church that they looked up to with respect, and decided maybe the ministry was a great vocation for them. Whether they had ever actually experienced God personally might not even have entered into the matter. They accepted what was familiar.
But the way ABC portrayed the story was interesting. Once they looked at the matter with an open mind, ABC indicated, well, they realized how stupid they had been blindly accepting this God that people more intelligent than themselves had already realized was a myth. The unspoken message was that pretty much anyone who takes a look objectively and intelligently will also come to the same conclusion. So all those clergy people you look up to? Ha, most of them probably don't believe all that God malarkey.
Was this story "news"? By no means. It was a piece designed with one purpose, to damage the faith of weak Christians who have not personally experienced God and only hold a general belief based on their upbringing. Pull them away and then you debase the traditional values that support our social institutions like marriage, country, and culture that our leftist media seem to hate so much.
Unfortunately, a lot of folks (and especially younger people) don't question where these "stories" come from, what they are designed to do, and the affect they have on society in general. Please, teach your children to think critically. Teach them to question authority - yours, and the media. Yes, God can withstand scrutiny. But the media doesn't scrutinize, it twists and manipulates. More than ever, we must be diligent to look beneath the covers at what is really going on.
First: Welcome to the world of blogging!
ReplyDeleteNow to the point of your post. I agree with you for the most part. The story would be worth investigating, because it is interesting. However, true unbiased journalism would show various points of view. That could include a pastor who came through a similar situation with his/her faith intact. Or how about an leader of an atheist group who read some Christian literature and converted to Christianity? These are actual situations that have happened and True journalism would have shown a few more points of view. How about the basic fact that their 'expose' isn't really anything new because the Bible plainly teaches that there would be such ministers: those only in it for the paycheck.
Happy posting, brother. :)