Why don't sane Christians get media coverage?

[Cyrano]

So the crazy orange one had a bunch of "Christians" in Oval Office, laying on the hands, and praising him as some kind of gift from God.

I'm just guessing here, but I'm willing to bet that these crazies do not represent the majority of Christians. Why aren't sane Christians speaking up? Where is their outrage?

Are they screaming and not being covered by the mainstream media? I don't know. But it seems to me that if a vast majority of a Religion were shrieking about being misrepresented, someone would be covering it.

As a devout agnostic, I really don't care what anyone believes. But the crazies who call themselves "Christians" are trying to tell the rest of us what to think and enforce it by law.

So, again I ask. Where are the immense number of sane Christians? Why aren't we hearing from them? Why aren't condemning those who are perverting their beliefs.

Where the fuck are the sane Christians who are watching the perversion of their religion?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Probably because they're too busy doing charitable work.

Also, loving your neighbor, helping the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner and all that other do-gooder stuff is too boring to make headlines. Hollering about how feminists and gay people are causing hurricanes and will go to Hell for it is much more interesting.

[blur256]

4. Yep

This right here

[Hekate]

39. Yes

[blur256]

2. This right here

Pisses me off to no end. My wife is a UCC minister and is fighting the good fight. We have plenty of ministers that go to Washington to protest and they never get the same coverage as the others do. It's sick to me. There are good churches out there that believe in equal rights, the shittiness of our current government and other things we believe in here. But they are never covered. It's all about ratings these days.

[TheBlackAdder]

37. Because Christ is antithetical to Ayn Rand, Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump--with Christ or against.

[Garrett78]

3. The likes of Reverend Barber get limited coverage. But crazy sells.

[irisblue]

18. He won a MacArthur Grant

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/10/05/closest-person-we-have-martin-luther-king-jr-pastor-activist-william-j-barber-wins-genius-grant/

Headline "Closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr.’: Pastor-activist William J. Barber wins $625,000 ‘genius’ grant"

He's going to get more attention.

[KentuckyWoman]

5. Nobody sane gets media coverage. There's no ratings in it.

The first thing people miss is that news isn't there to inform us. It is there to pull ratings - to make us watch more news.

[bitterross]

26. THIS

You hit the nail on the head.

[WhiteTara]

6. They're boring. They live normal lives and care

about other people.

[JaneQPublic]

7. I'm old enough to remember "Jesus Freaks"

...which were left-wingers, and often hippies, in the 1960s.

As I recall, conservatives/Republicans viewed them as wackos.

[Brother Buzz]

13. Ronald Reagan changed all that...

when he embraced that Moral Majority crap and the Christian Coalition, and gave them prime time legitimacy. The whole thing seemed to flip overnight, and it was when I first noticed they started quoting the Old Testament that conflicted with the New testament to justify their bombastic positions. Pick-and-choose scriptures with zero consistency; can you say hypocrisy?

[FakeNoose]

27. Pat Robertson brought so many RWNJ voters to the Republican Party

I'm thinking the so-called Christian Coalition had more to do with Robertson than Reagan.
Once the GOP figured out that Roe v. Wade was the lightning rod for all those votes, they were suddenly "born again."

[Brother Buzz]

30. I believe it was Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority shit that Reagan initially embraced

Par Robertson's Christian Coalition formed during Reagan's administration, it an attempt to capitalize on the movement and ride on the coattails. And as they say, "The rest is history".

[FakeNoose]

32. Yes they all happened around the same time

[UTUSN]

8. Wingnuts ask why sane Muslims don't speak out about the terrorists hijacking their religion.

I must be an agnostic, too, but am so much so that I don't even know whether I am. But thoroughly agree with "I really don't care what anyone believes. But the crazies who call themselves "Christians" are trying to tell the rest of us what to think and enforce it by law."

The local wingnuts I know personally claim to be Christians and quote scripture and hang all their political activity on the hook of being anti-Choice and the SCotUS to clamp the whole country down. Funny (not) how they rant about "sharia law" while they are attempting to establish THEIR version. And their version of "life" is to have every birth while cutting off all social services for the born.

[lancelyons]

9. The trump GOP know if they push false propaganda enuf people believe

That includes Christians media and democrats. We don't have any democratic counter narrative and dems just depend on the media to help them arrive at the truth. I am not sure what the Democratic Party is doing but it seems like they are losing the messaging war.

[Cyrano]

10. It's past time for another Martin Luther King

Time for someone to get out there and shake up the establishment.

Time for someone to get out there and really piss off the racists, bigots and Republicans.

Time for someone to grab the media by the balls and make them pay attention.

Past time for someone to grab a bullhorn and shout out who we are supposed to be.

But here's the thing. Like Abraham, John, Martin, and Bobby, they must be prepared to be assassinated. For hundreds of years in America, that's been the price for trying to bring about the promise of truth, justice and decency on a major scale.

[7wo7rees]

16. I can name one.

David Hogg. Media whiz, firebrand, magnetized the youth.

[FakeNoose]

28. He certainly has a bright future but he's too young to run for anything big right now

It will be 6 years before he can even run for the House of Representatives. He still has a lot of learning to do, and working for other people. First you help get others elected, then you get the help you need when it's your turn.

[irisblue]

19. Read the WaPo article

"Closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr.’: Pastor-activist William J. Barber wins $625,000 ‘genius’ grant"


I have a lot of respect for Rev.Barber

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Probably that would be Rev. Barber.

[nycbos]

11. Crazies bring in better ratings.

Last edited Sun Oct 14, 2018, 01:55 PM - Edit history (1)

[treestar]

15. +1

[Hotler]

12. I thought that whole prayer circle thing was a bit tacky, and the Rev. getting down

on one knee to Trump is scary, it should NOT have been televised. I'm a spiritual guy and I like my prayer time to be private, and I do not bow down to people like the Red Don.
Remember Sinclair Lewis said "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. He just got out of a Turkish prison, so who knows where his head is?

Or, he could have been a delusional fundie in the first place who is now crazier than ever.

[lindysalsagal]

40. The poor man is traumatised: It's 45 who took advantage of a severely distressed victim.

And no one should be surprised about that.

[treestar]

14. That could be similar to the requirement

that Muslims speak up when there is Islamic terrorism - you'll hear the claim they have a duty to make sure we know they don't support terrorism.

It is likely the media's choice. That would be dull - they'd rather find an atheist to counter that so it would be more controversial.

[Progressive Jones]

17. Sane Christians aren't a bunch of attention whores and drama queens. nt

[LAS14]

22. Many thanks from this Christian to this agnostic for the post.

It's something that I find incredibly frustrating.

[Turin_C3PO]

23. I don't know

but I just watched a fantastic documentary on Mr. Fred Rogers. He was apparently a devout ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. Now THERE’S a true Christian.

[Loryn]

25. Wasn't he wonderful?

I recently saw a bit with Mr. Rogers and Margaret Hamilton. She had her wicked witch costume, and they were the sweetest people ever.

[The Genealogist]

24. Sane people don't make money for sponsors

Loud, obnoxius kooks do.
People who say provocative, hateful things do.

That's why infotainment programming is full of Trump and religious kooks, and why sane Christians are not on.

[HopeAgain]

29. Because they are minding their own business?

[pangaia]

31. Insanity sells advertising.

[Buzz cook]

33. Money and power. nt

.

[BobSmith4152]

34. Why do you assume that "sane Christians don't get media coverage"?

Last edited Sun Oct 14, 2018, 07:56 PM - Edit history (1)

There are about 250M adults in the US, 75% self-identify as Christian. Your conclusion is that thee are sane and not-so-sane members of this group, and that the MSM disproportionately reports on the latter as opposed to the former.

Christians are a self-selected group who believe in an incredible explanation of science and society without any evidence. Variations on beliefs and ritual have caused intrafaith (intramural?) fights that have caused violent death. Many hold beliefs in spite of scientific observation. This is our starting group.

If the MSM doesn't report on the sane ones, first define the sane ones.This is your show so I'd suggest that you, as a disinterested agnostic, are as qualified as anyone to define sane. Maybe a checklist?

Sane or Not-So-Sane Christian beliefs

-predestination
-infant damnation
compatible with predestination?
-pre-infant damnation
(since aborted fetuses weren't baptized, are they all in Hell?)
-Papal infallibility
-evolution
-Rapture
"in my lifetime"
while Trump is president
Halloween because God's got a sense of humor
November 5 just to put us out of our misery


Modify the list until you are comfortable. There are no granular Christian polling, but almost all Christians belong to churches* and they all have websites now You can do a back-of-the-envelope to get a rough percentage of Christians you consider sane. The problem comes in when you look at the MSM. Usually, news stories don't identify a persons religious affiliation unless it's relevant to the story, and then seldom by specific sect. And that's where we lose the thread.
To actually determine whether sane Christians are underrepresented in the news would take more people, a defined scope of research and money. Generating a statistically significant number of news stories, verifying religious "sanity" per the standard, this would be a big deal. Even if you're right, you'd see crazy Christians in the news, they're not going anywhere.


*I was going to put "going to church" on the sane or not-so-sane list, but really, if you go to church you're a bad Christian in either case. (Matthew 6:6 but there's no Christianity that can cost-effectively put a collection plate in everyone's closet)

[hatrack]

35. Because the End Times clowns & fascists like Graham are at the center of power

People out taking care of other people because, y'know, that Jesus guy said it was a good thing to do - not many dramatic photo ops there, as opposed to:

[llmart]

36. That picture is just freaky.

He is the least religious president and this picture just freaks me out.

As others have said on here, the media shows this crap because what real Christians do isn't that "exciting" (in a reality show sort of way).

[Hekate]

38. Why did Al Gore get mocked for sighing? Why did Dubya get known as the guy you'd most like...

...to have a beer with, even though he is a recovering alcoholic? Why did Hillary continually get called stiff and cold? Why did Trump get free air time?

The cable news media may not be "fake," but it is certainly biased as hell in favor of ratings.

Sane Christians are out there. I can easily list half a dozen Christian (and Jewish) groups who have been working for peace and social justice for decades, Often for over a century. I had the same concerns as you during Dubya's administration, and was as sickened as you.

Just look for them -- they are there.