Another ‘Talk amongst yourselves’ post

26 Replies

Sorry about the no-posts-in-three-days thing. So where have I been? Probably the same place you’ve been, judging by the paucity of recent comments: busy. Too busy to stop and comment on anything, more than what we’re putting in the paper.

But in case you do have time on your hands, and I just haven’t given you anything decent to chew on, let’s try the Linda Richman "talk amongst yourselves" thing again..

A former colleague shared this with me via e-mail this week. The headline on it was, "Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist." Well, no big news flash there. What was interesting was how the bias found by the researcher manifested itself. Some will be surprised by the prof’s findings (and some will no doubt question his methodology). Here’s a sample of some of the interesting bits:

While
the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper’s
news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge
Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public
television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream
media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left….

Only
Fox News’ "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The
Washington Times scored right of the average

U.S.

voter.

The
most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN’s "NewsNight
With Aaron Brown" and ABC’s "Good Morning America" were
a close second and third.

Anyway, if you want to read more, follow the link. That’s what it’s there for.

26 thoughts on “Another ‘Talk amongst yourselves’ post”

  1. Herb

    OK, this is a special topic, but I notice that media coverage of the Intelligent Design issue in PA has been especially bad. Of course it isn’t within the ability of TV news to get to issues (or at least it doesn’t seem to be — though I want to remember from shows like “Meet the Press” back in the 60s that there was a lot more intelligent comment). But NBC was really awful last night — portrayed the ID folks as being some Bible-thumping ignoramuses, and as usual made no distinction between macro- and microevolution. Never mind that brilliant minds like Michael Behe are giving decent explanations of ID; rather just set up a straw man with a head full of straw and proceed to blast it with a shotgun. I know — TV news is the last resource, but The Economist was no better on this one, at least as far as I could tell — http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4488706
    I’ll admit, as does Phillip Johnson — see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/12/ING92A899T1.DTL — that the Dover people chose the wrong battle, but you would think the media would at least be sympathetic. After all, if only 35% of Americans think that Darwinism explains the origin of life, then maybe there is a reason why the other 65% of us are not convinced — that maybe we are not just stupid?
    And this is really off the topic, but I fail to understand why ID is considered to be “religious” and therefore horribly out of place in the school, and yet the possibility of aliens being the origin of life on earth is “scientific” — see Francis Crick (sorry, but I’ve only got this one link on him, but this theory , admittedly one of many, is widespread — http://www.bede.org.uk/Evolution.htm)? Seems to me that a lot of media people want God to exist only as a nice crutch in the minds of people, and wipe out anything resembling objective evidence that He might be around after all. God is fine, as long as He doesn’t make any substantial difference in daily life.
    My impression is that NBC with Brian Williams has moved further in some direction — not sure which one it is (right, left, or maybe better — down) Please forgive my ranting on this one, if that’s what it is!

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  2. bill

    The terms liberal and conservative have been rendered meaningless through overuse and misuse.They are so often used as insults and invalid criticisms that I can’t take the “Media Bias..” article too seriously,nor do I take many of the media sources cited too seriously.As our society continues to read(anything)less and less,TV and Talk Radio have had a brainwashing effect upon the public that is quite scary.
    Wouldn’t it be great to continue these blogs without those words(fat chance!).Maybe
    the next time you disagree with someone on these blogs,instead of ranting about “those damn liberals”,you could go retro and call them pinko commies instead.
    And while I know this goes both ways,in this cycle of American history,the word liberal is used mostly as an insult(unless you’re reading a cookbook).

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  3. Mark Whittington

    Herb,

    This is way off the subject, but do you know of a good Baptist church that hasn’t been taken over by Fundamentalists in the Columbia area? There are those of us who long for the Baptist Church of old. I’m looking for a church that preaches from the Gospels and that means it. Thanks.

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  4. Herb

    Mark, I’m fairly new to this area, so I’m not the one to ask advice on churches. I just know there are a lot of them! I’m also probably closer to the “fundamentalists” you’re referring to, though I don’t like the label, and I don’t like a lot of the politics involved — the authority of Scripture (or better said, the authority of Christ) is accepted in theory, but it seems to me that the application of it is strictly limited to certain areas.
    Have you thought of looking outside the Baptist denomination — like there was a fellowship downtown that started a couple of years ago with Simon and Jane Whitaker from England (they’ve since turned it over to others, and I don’t remember the name of it). But it sounds like you are looking a more “traditional” Baptist church, in which case I don’t know what to tell you.
    By the way, some the Baptist “fundamentalists” you mention are doing some good thinking. I especially like Reggie McNeal, see his book “Work of Heart.”
    I’m a Baptist that served as a Lutheran minister in Germany and now I go to a Presbyterian church. I don’t care a whole lot about religion, but I do think Christ is totally great and relevant to today.

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  7. Brad Warthen

    Mark, you need to contact Marion Aldridge. He’s the coordinator of a group of Baptist churches called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina. These churches split off from the Southern Baptists several years ago, over some of the same issues that you are concerned about (or so I infer from your question).
    His e-mail address is marion@cbfofsc.org. I have other contact info if you need it.
    Here I am a Catholic, steering people to the Baptists! Oh, well, that’ll give me something to talk about at confession. Seriously, though, I have a feeling you’ll be pleased if you contact Marion. Tell him I sent you.

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  8. Tim

    Don’t sweat it, Brad. I’m a former Baptist who converted to Catholicism, I guess because my liberal guilt wasn’t enough, and I needed a bit more. My question is why aren’t steering Mark to us, dude?

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  9. Brad Warthen

    Remember, Tim — we don’t proselytize. At least, the cradle Catholics don’t. I guess we former Baptists have an excuse to do so if we are so moved — we could call it a residual spiritual reflex or something.
    But I guess when my reflex kicks in, seeing as how it’s originally a Baptist reflex, I end up steering prospects THAT way.
    I don’t know. Anyway, Mark asked for Baptist, so that’s what I gave him.

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  10. Herb

    Hey hold on, no fair steerimg Mark to Rome when he might need to stop and look in Wittenberg or Geneva first? But if Reggie McNeal is right, this whole landscape is going to look a whole lot different in 50 years time . . . .

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  11. Nathan

    To actually talk about the article, I found it a little flawed when you consider the way that it was done. The study was based on the number of times that it mentioned certain think tanks, but made no distinction between negative and positive stories that mentioned those think tanks. For instance, if I said that Howard Dean was the devil, and cited the fact that MoveOn.org loves him in my article, that would make me more liberal according to this study. By contrast, if the New York Times says that George Bush is the devil, and cites the Heritage Foundation a couple of times, they are more conservative. That simply is not a sound methodology. Political ideology is in the eye of the beholder, but nobody is going to argue that the NYT is more conservative the the WSJ. More than two-thirds of print journalists are democrats. Need I say more?

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  12. Dave

    These religious oriented blog items can get testy so please consider these thoughts with a good sense of humor:
    Baptists – They take the gospel literally and are still trying to find out if it was really Welch’s Grape juice that the Lord drank at the last supper.
    Presbyterians – This religion was founded back in the days of the industrial revolution so that management could have a place to worship on Sunday and not have to listen to a preacher whining and moaning about helping the poor coal miners and other workers of the day. OUCH on that one.
    Episcopalians – If Henry would have only been allowed to have a quickie divorce, who knows?
    Mormons – The new great “White” religion but they just have to get off the secret place in outer space called Golob where you go when you reach the pinnacle.
    Nation of Islam – Louis Farrakhan also has been transported (beamed up) to some unknown heavenly body and if they could just get rid of all these white devils life would be great.
    Methodists – What can I say, this is the religion where most Catholics go who get PO’d at their local priest. It must be because they give ashes on ash Wednesday, I think.
    Jewish – About 1% of the world’s religious and shrinking. Why, it may be those funny hats they wear but more likely its all those rules they have to memorize. Oi Vay!!
    Muslim – One of these days I will try to understand what is appealing about this gang. Is it the repression of women, or dressing in the white bathrobes all day long, or getting so frustrated with all this new science and technology, they simply forego all that and pretend we are still in the 10th century. And no beer either. Yikes…
    Catholic – I save my own for last. We can do all the little sins that others worry about, drink, smoke, gamble, dance up a storm, and then we have confession to go wipe the slate clean. Not bad. I think we also have more claiming to be Catholics than some other religions have members. Ted Kennedy and Kerry are two of note. But, even the Lord had one loser in the first 12 apostles so nobody’s perfect here.

    I may have overlooked a few hundred or so bodies of worship, lucky for them, and I know I need to work on this sense of humor thing!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  13. Herb

    My Baptist friends in Germany would take issue greatly with the “Welch’s grape juice,” except they would ask, “vhat ist a Velch?”

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  14. Herb

    Or, better said, “velch velch do you mean?” (welch means “which” in German).
    Hoping that this is also taken humorously:
    One of the popes died and went to heaven. Arriving at the pearly gates, he asked St. Peter if he might spend some time looking at the original manuscripts of the Bible. [Some Islamic theology has slipped in here, but never mind . . . .] “Certainly, my good man,” the Great Fisherman replied, “here you have all the time in the world, er, I mean heaven.”
    And so it was quiet in the heavenly library for quite a long while. St. Peter went about his gatekeeping business, when suddenly he was interrupted by his assistant. “Come quickly, your Highness” [or how is St. Peter supposed to be addressed?], there is great consternation in the LRC!”
    So St. Pete hurried over to the library, and sure enough, as he got closer, he could distinctly hear a moaning and groaning coming from amidst the heavenly scrolls. As he got closer, he could just make out the words: “Oh, there was an rrrrrrrr!” Oh, there was really an “rrrrrrrr” the whole time, and I did not see it! Ooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”
    When he arrived, St. Peter rebuked the pope [I guess only St. Pete can do that among mortals?] “My good man, this is heaven, a happy place! You cannot moan and groan here! What on earth, er, in paradise is the matter?” The pope looked up from his weeping, distraught and despairing, and only continued to moan, “THERE IS AN RRRRRRR! THERE IS AN RRRRRRR!” “What do you mean, there is an r, of course, there are lots of them in the biblical text,” replied St. Peter.
    “It says CELEBRATE!” yelled the pope.
    And now you know why I went into the Protestant ministry.

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  15. Dave

    Herb, That’s a good one, and here’s another for my Baptist friends. Two theologians were having a discussion. One asked the other if he knew what three things will always be true regarding religious principles.
    1. The Jews will never recognize Jesus as the Son of God.
    2. The Muslims will never recognize the Jews as God’s Chosen people.
    .
    .
    .
    ..
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    ..
    .
    .
    ..
    .
    .
    3. Two Baptists will never recognize each other in a liquor store!!!!!!!!!!!

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  16. Herb

    OK Dave, here’s another one:
    Osama Bin Laden dies and goes to heaven (yep, that’s a stretch, I know, but let’s presuppose Unitarian/Universalist theology this time). He has hardly arrived, when George Washington comes up to him. SWAT across the face, and Osama is rather surprised, red-faced, and of course, humiliated. “What was that for?”, he asks the venerable George. “Do you realize what effort I put into building the United States, and there you go trying to tear it down? Shame on you!” says George.
    George is hardly gone, and up walks Thomas Jefferson, who rears his fist back, and uncharacteristically (for mild old Thomas) throws one towards Osama’s left jaw. He’s quite a bit shorter than skinny old Sami, but he manages to reach his chin, none the less, though it doesn’t hurt too much. Still, Osama is taken by surprise. “Al-Hamddillalah, Allahu-Akbar, but why did you hit me?” he yells. “Because,” says Thomas, “look what you did to the country I took so much effort to help build. I was an architect, and taught these guys the first things they needed to know. They couldn’t have built the WTC without my initial creativity!” (Thomas was creative in more than one way, but we won’t go there.)
    Osama is deep in thought, and doesn’t see Patrick Henry, a rather passionate man, walk up behind him. Patrick delivers one knock out blow in the back that flattens Osama to the ground. It takes awhile for him to recover, but Patrick doesn’t wait – “THAT’S FOR YOUR CONFOUNDED WICKEDNESS IN KILLING MY PEOPLE!”, shouts Patrick, and storms off.
    Osama gradually comes back to his senses. Bewildered, he looks up just in time to see a figure walking back with keys on the belt of his dazzling white robe. It dawns on him who that is. “Hey, St. Peter,” he groans: “What’s going on here!?? Where are the 70 virgins I was supposed to get in Paradise!???”
    “Ooohhhhhh!” replies St. Peter. “You got that all wrong! It’s 70 Virginians!”
    Merry Christmas, er oops, Happy Holidays, everybody!

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  17. Dave

    Herb et. al. — Merry Christmas. I liked that last one but remember Brad told us the Founding Fathers were centrists!!!!!!!!!! haaaaaaaaa

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  18. Capital A

    Awesome joke, Herb. Nitpicking here, but wasn’t Jefferson 6’2″ and about 180 lbs. or so? I think he and Osama compare favorably by the tale of the tape…especially if it was Nick Nolte-Jefferson in Paris. Just one rabbit-shot to the afflicted kidney, and Osama goes down like Glass Joe in Mike Tyson’s Punchout!
    Aside from that, why have the former Baptists here turned to Catholicism which, in my mind, represents more ritual and needless formality thereby moving the individual farther away from the simplicity that should exist in worshiping the Creator? Just asking, not criticizing…
    Merry Christmas to all!

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  19. Herb

    Oops – messed up my history, I guess. Somehow I came away from Monticello with the idea that J. wasn’t very tall, but I probably need to revise that.

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  21. Mark Whittington

    Herb,

    This post is somewhat dated, but Brad hasn’t started another topic yet, and I do want to clarify something. When I say “fundamentalist”, I mean interpreting the bible literally, and then so only concentrating on certain subjects and themes. Also, on another level, I define this term as there only being one way to interpret the bible. I don’t mean that I necessarily advocate the philosophies of John Shelby Spong, Elaine Pagels, or John Dominic Crossan either. These folks all have valid points in my view, but then again so do the fundamentalists. My problem has been the near ubiquitous fundamentalist takeover of the Baptist church with their de-emphasis of the Gospels, and their thoroughgoing, and in my opinion, often overreaching exegesis based on literal interpretation. I love to read the KJB, but I certainly do not think that it is inerrant for a host of reasons.

    Years ago, when I dabbled with such considerations (although with more than a dilettante’s efforts), I started learning Koine Greek, and I soon came to the conclusion that the Gospels were based on the Aramaic language, and that a fair number of Aramaic idioms were literally translated into Greek. One of the most interesting endeavors that I ever attempted was based on an old idea: to arrange the Gospels in order. I completed this task (only to my own satisfaction) during three months of careful study. I don’t believe that a “Q” document ever existed. I think that Matthew wrote the Sermon on the Mount first in Aramaic, and then, when Mark’s (Peter’s secretary) gospel was published, Matthew took Mark’s gospel (correcting Mark’s grammar along the way) and combined it with his Sermon to make the Matthew that we have today. Luke came later I believe, and he used both Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels in conjunction with some other sources to make an un-chronological gospel. John came later to fill in the theological details and to supplement the gaps in the first and last parts of Jesus’ ministry. Evidently, when Jesus sent the Twelve out to preach, Peter stayed with Jesus while Matthew went elsewhere, which possibly explains why Matthew defers to Mark’s gospel at about this point. Luke apparently never met Jesus, yet he made use of the eye-witness testimony of others. I believe that the Gospels, taken as a whole, are very accurate. I also think the Gospels were well scrutinized from their inception.

    I also like the idea of reconciling the Creation with science. One source I remember from years ago is Gerald Schroeder, who pointed out that the order of the Creation corresponds well with scientific theory, and the vast time differences between Genesis and science may be explained (in his expert opinion) by using time dilation in Relativity theory.

    My big history’s mystery is as follows: What on earth were people doing for one million years or so until five thousand years ago? To this day I am still puzzled as to why civilization abruptly started in ancient Mesopotamia-from almost nothing to full blown cities with writing and literature in the blink of an eye. Surely, people were capable of associating sounds with symbols before this time.

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  22. Herb

    Mark, great thoughts! This was a refreshing blog this morning, as I just looked in, expecting nothing new, as we all know has been the case the last several days. You followed my own conception of the origins of the Gospels on almost every detail, except you have thought it through better than I have. My one difference is that I could get along with a Q, except that I would just bet that it primarily consisted of Matthew’s teaching sections (not just the Sermon on the Mount — I’m sure’ you’ve noticed that Matthew’s Gospel divides up neatly in teaching sections (which always end with, “after he had said these things . . .”), followed by primarily action sections. Anyway, this scenario that we both like to follow does justice both to the authority of the eyewitnesses, and to the testimony of the church fathers (e.g. Papias, who said that Matthew wrote the logia — which would be the teachings of Jesus — first) and yet we can tell that Mark seems to be primary.
    The Jesus Seminar business strikes me as a lame attempt, despite all scholarly weight behind it, to eliminate everything that people don’t like in the Gospels, or that is too miraculous. The NT manuscripts are the only ones we have. We would like to have more, and we would like some things explained, but this is what we have. And their testimony is that they didn’t devise “cunningly devised fables”. To say that they did so is to say that they were idolaters, fashioning Christ into their own image, as they wanted Him to be. And they were willing to die for this fabrication? Doesn’t make sense. And as no less a scholar than F. F. Bruce (U. of Manchester) pointed out, subsequent generations of Christians, up to about 300 A.D., were willing to die for the manuscripts of NT books that they were convinced had divine authority, in fact, it was that willingness to die that helped forge the NT canon.
    I like your Gospel emphasis. It isn’t so much the Bible, as it is Christ himself who is the authority. Start with Him, and the other authority issues take care of themselves. We view the OT as He did (which He said many times had divine authority, and He showed us how to interpret it), and the material that follows (especially the Pauline corpus) in the same light. There is a reason for the NT emphasis upon Christ’s commissioning His apostles and the defense of Paul’s apostleship in Acts and elsewhere.
    I had a lot to do with liberal theologians in Germany, since I served primarily in the Lutheran church, and it is made up of (primarily, but by no means exclusively) liberal leaders. One thing that struck me was their aversion often to the Pauline literature. No wonder — he is pretty straightforward, both about the Gospel, and the moral basis of the Law.
    If that’s your definition of fundamentalist, I couldn’t agree more. And I don’t have any problem with the age of the earth — have you read Hugh Ross — I like him, except some of his Genesis exegesis is a bit far-fetched at times. by the way, as long as there isn’t much happening at this blog, you might try http://www.getreligion.org if you haven’t already — look at some of those like “cue the judge” — in which I’ll admit I didn’t write very well — but the whole discussion is interesting.
    Some Christians have a problem with the “big bang” theory. I never did — in fact, it helped solidify my trust in God years ago. “Let there be light . . .” I thought, sure, that makes sense. Of course, scientific theories change; the point was that scientists, if they are honest, will probably end up where the theologians were all along. And I doubt that they will be able to keep science and religion strictly separate in the future, because that requires a strictly materialistic world view, which doesn’t work. The unseen, spiritual world, is a reality.
    Oh well, I am rambling — but one last thing, I do agree that it is peculiar that man suddenly appears as neopaleolithic man, a farmer, around 10,000 B.C. in Mesopotamia. There’s an old book by R. E. D. Clark, entitled, “who was Adam?” which postulates that this was man in God’s image, through whom all other homo sapiens received the same image. Interesting.
    Thanks for making my day interesting! Hope I haven’t rambled too much! Oh, and a P.S. — I grew up a Southern Baptist, and I really haven’t been impressed with the “moderate” camp (at least that is what we used to call those opposed to the “fundamentalists”?), either. I felt it was rather insipid, and the church I grew up in basically did not prepare me for life. So though I experience difficulty with some of the fundamentalist things, some of the changes have been good. I have a lot of friends on the “fundamentalist” side — and a lot of them are very well informed, and are not KJV Bible-thumpers. At the same time, I actually like a lot of the stuff in Jimmy Carter’s new book — though it is a bit superficial. I do understand that the way the fundamentalists went about taking over the convention was not always in the Spirit of Christ. But I really don’t know what went on here in the SBC, because I was gone for 28 years, and just didn’t keep up. Now I’m a Presbyterian, though I chafe under some of the Calvinist stuff. But the important thing is that we do what we say we believe, as James tells us. Enough!

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  23. Lee

    Almost none of the native American tribes had a written language associating speech sounds with written symbols.
    Almost no peoples in Africa, South America, or the Pacific Rim have an alphabet associating symbols with verbal sounds.
    Chinese still doesn’t have much of a phonetic component.
    Korea does have a phonetic alphabet.
    Japan has a mix of complex symbols and a new addition of phonetic writing, in order to describe the modern physical world.

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  26. Nathan

    Since there is no mention of it from Brad yet, though I am sure this will come up soon, I wonder what you guys think of the ruling by Judge Cooper. I think, first, that the State mischaracterized the ruling with its headline, showing the bias that it has had as an advocate for the schools, rather than being an independent observer. Futher, I think that Judge Cooper clearly overreached in his ruling, creating, it seems, a constitutional right to pre-school for the poor. I wasn’t aware that he had been appointed the new “School Czar”. Last I checked, it was the legislators who decided when school began, not judges. Lastly, then I will see what you all have to say about it, I want to point out that his argument that poor children have no opportunity falls flat on it face when the fact is presented that some of those children do succeed without pre-school, without good parents, and without rich school districts. Opportunity means there is a chance, it doesn’t mean that most people take advantage.

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