The War of the Media and Hollywood on Christians
In his best selling book, Persecution, How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity, David Limbaugh gives countless examples of how he believes the left constantly ridicules anything to do with the Christian faith. Besides buying the book, one can read about the topic at www.newsmax.com. In this editorial, I will not mention the names of most of those singled out for ridicule, or any of those doing the ridiculing, because those doing the ridiculing will not have a chance to explain themselves, but I will give examples.
First, the media often portrays Christians as violent and unreasonable, charging them with acts of violence against abortion clinics or homosexuals, even though the vast majority of protesters against abortion or homosexuals would deplore such acts. On the other hand, the media and Hollywood downplay or totally ignore acts of violence against Christians.
Also, religious conservatives are often portrayed as “the religious right.” Such a term obviously is used in trying to portray such people as intolerant or fanatics, but religious liberals never receive the term “religious left.” Some followers of the policies of certain national famous Christian conservatives were even called in a major liberal daily newspaper “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”
In 2002 on a major early morning national television news show a leader defended the Boy Scouts for not allowing homosexuals to be Scout leaders. The host of the show, thinking the microphone was off muttered that the leader was an idiot. Not only that, but he also muttered a cuss word.
The billionaire owner of several well known cable networks asked some employees who had ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday if they were “Jesus Freaks.”
I will mention that in the book, Bias, by Bernard Goldberg, it was reported that a female producer at one of the major television networks called Christian-activist and presidential candidate Gary Bauer, “the little nut from the Christian group.” Those are the kind of people who are responsible for reporting the news in an unbiased way, who should respect all major candidates from the two major parties? What a joke!
Also reported in the Limbaugh book was that after the anthrax was found in letters to Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, both Democrats, a major radio network reported that the Traditional Values Network had criticized the senators for trying to remove “so help me God” from a public oath. The report went on to say that the Traditional Values Network had not been contacted after the anthrax incident, which some might believe was a reference to the Christian organization being a suspect. A full year later the radio network issued an apology, saying that nobody from the FBI had ever told a reporter that the Christian organization was a suspect. How much damage was done to the reputation of the totally innocent organization in the meantime?
Another example of bias has been the attacks on movie producer Mel Gibson, who was accused of promoting anti-Semitism in his movie, Passion of theChrist, about the arrest, trial, beating, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A newspaper columnist for a major Northeastern United States daily newspaper said that even a faithful rendering of the Bible account would “carry the virus of Jew hatred.” Numerous Jewish people who have seen the movie, however, deny the charge made by the columnist.
One of the latest examples of bias is the Christian movie, Facing the Giants, was given a PG rating, because the theme of the movie calls for the rating, according to those in the motion picture industry. Often a PG rating is given for violence, profane language, sexual content, or other things parents find objectionable, although some movies are given a PG rating because of the theme. Those in charge of ratings said the movie’s heavy emphasis on Christianity might offend some of other religions. The word “proselytizing” was used to justify the decision.
The movie, made by two Christian associate pastors for a low $100,000, includes answered prayers, a medical miracle, and a bench-warmer who kicks a winning 51-yard
field goal in the big game after his handicapped father pulls himself out of a wheelchair to stand and inspire his son’s faith. The thing that might have caused the very clean movie to receive the PG rating was when the football coach encouraged a player to stop talking back to his father and get right with God.
I can’t imagine those responsible for movie ratings giving a PG rating to any movie only because it is largely about any other faith than the Christian faith. Using the twisted logic used to rate the Christian movie if the classic movie Fiddler on the Roof came out today it might be rated PG, because of its emphasis on Jewish tradition and lifestyle.
Finally, I will give two other examples-The Book of Daniel and The Da Vinci Code. I can’t think of an example of a television show that was more biased and showed more bigotry toward Christians than The Book of Daniel. If you are unfamiliar with the plot, an Episcopal priest had a pill habit; his son was promiscuous; and his daughter dealt marijuana; and the Jesus the priest talked to was very tolerant of sin-and those are only some of the ways the show portrayed Christians in a negative light. There was constant pressure from viewers on local stations not to air the show, and a few did not before the show was dropped for low ratings. There was also pressure on advertisers to withdraw support, and many did, leaving the show with low budget advertisers. Various Christian organizations asked supports to petition the network, local stations, and advertisers to withdraw support.
Finally in the Da Vinci Code, the movie and the book upon which it is based are indeed fiction, but on one page in the book before the start of the plot author Dan Brown said that all the documents, rituals, and organizations referred to in the book are true. In so doing he is claiming the New Testament is based on false accounts, as that is what the documents referred to claim. A novel is one thing, but to suddenly say the New Testament is not true based upon documents not even found until almost 2,000 years after the time of Christ is ridiculous!
None of the attacks on Christians by the media and Hollywood surprise me. Jesus said in the New Testament that because He chose followers out of the world, and they were no longer really of the world, the world would hate them as it hated Him. So, the attacks are no surprise, so we should actually love and pray for the attackers, not be bitter toward them. That does not mean, however, that we need to watch or participate in some of the attacks they put out in movies, television, and in the press. That also does not mean we do not have the right to protest and shine the light on their hypocrisy, as many did, in protesting and telling the truth about The Book of Daniel and The Da Vinci Code.
