Religious Right Gets More Than Its 15 Minutes
WASHINGTON - Conservative religious figures are mentioned in the major U.S. news media as many as 2.8 times as often as progressive religious figures, says a new study released Tuesday in Washington.
The report, “Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media”, analysed the number of times conservative and progressive religious leaders were quoted, mentioned and interviewed in newspaper and television media outlets.
Conservative religious leaders were found to be interviewed, on average, 2.8 times more often than progressives, 3.8 times more often on the television news networks, and 2.7 times as often in the major newspapers.
“The overwhelming presence in the news media of conservative religious voices leads to the false implication that to be religious is to be conservative, and worse, that to be progressive is to lack faith or even to be against faith,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism. “People of faith have long been, and will continue to be, active leaders on progressive causes for justice. Our faith compels it.”
The report, released by Media Matters for America, a press watchdog group, challenges the presentation of religion in the major media as a politically divisive force.
The major media presents the U.S. religious spectrum as divided between cultural conservatives who ground their political values in religious beliefs and secular liberals who simply don’t participate in the debate, says the report.
It is important to note that the main study purposefully did not take into account religious leaders whose celebrity and influence make them political figures and newsmakers in their own right. These leaders include James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton.
The study was carried out in response to the media’s coverage of the 2004 election in which “values voters” — ostensibly those who oppose abortion and same-sex marriage — were said to have largely impacted the outcome of the presidential election process.
It covers the period following election day, Nov. 2, 2004, through the end of 2006.
Media Matters argues that this assessment is inaccurate and the media’s portrayal of “values voters” is misleading in that it suggests that centrist or progressive voters do not care about values in the national political arena.
Recent polls have confirmed that the prevalent moral issues are those which are of greatest concern to moderate and progressive voters.
A 2006 Zogby International exit poll found that the moral issue most cited by voters was the war in Iraq. More than twice as many voters said greed and materialism or poverty and economic justice were the “most urgent moral crisis in American culture” compared to the number who cited abortion and same-sex marriage.
Ninety-percent of U.S. citizens identified themselves as religious, according to a report by the Centre for American Values in Public Life, but only 32 percent identified themselves as conservative.
The disparity between the media’s portrayal of right-wing, religious citizens and the reality of moderate and progressive religious citizens, pointed out by a number of religious leaders present at the release of the Media Matters report, is due to both the media’s biases and the way the moderate and progressive religious communities present themselves to the media.
The religious right is known for short answers that fit in a sound bite, while “…most of (the moderate or progressive religious community’s) answers are 10, 15, or 20-minute sermons,” said Reverend Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ at the release of the report. “Christianity may be monotheistic but it is not monolithic.”
The religious progressives’ and moderates’ tendency to see the gray areas of a problem and the nuances of ethical and moral questions is one of the movement’s greatest strengths as well as one of the reasons it does not receive as much media play, said several of the religious leaders at the report’s release.
“This report clearly indicates what we’ve always suspected — that the media prefers to see the world through a simple lens, a casualty of which is that the right and the conservative voice can often take control of the conversation,” said Rev. Dr. Jim Forbes, host of the Air America programme “The Time Is Now”. “So what do we do now? Those of us who call ourselves progressives need to speak out and be heard.”
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service
Who is more likely to make an outrageous, bigoted, or just downright stupid remark? Of course the media prefer to interview religious conservatives. Their responses are more likely to set off a bickering free-for-all that will allow lazy journalists to avoid honest work.
Righ wing religious leaders have always found it easy to bless the troops as they march off to another foolish war—this
is bound to get them in the media everytime.
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine’s anthology, Europe and Elsewhere.
The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed. See Jim Zwick’s page “Mark Twain on the Philippines ” for more of Twain’s writings on the subject.
The talk radio is also filled with nasty comments made by chauvinist braggarts who claim to be filled with undying devotion to country. There are a few narrow minded women who also fill the air with rude and bigoted comments. These are the turn coats who need to fall on their “holy asses”. These so called religious right wingers, who dare to call themselves Christians, are in favor of war and killing and turning the other cheek to fellow Americans. Therefore, the media, which is mostly owned by backers of the Republican Party, will glut the air waves with chauvinist pigs like Rush Limbaugh. It’s hard to believe that the average person will put up with such garbage.
It’s pretty obviously a slanted study to get the results they wanted. The skipped Sharpton and Jackson. Those alone would even out the results. Also the rather obvious use of progressive and conservative instead of the more common usage of liberal and conservative indicates that they were massaging this to get the result they wanted. I would like to see the truly raw data not the synopsis.
“Conservative” is a word that lost its meaning ages ago. I wouldn’t call anyone who condones the dismantling of the Constitution and the unchecked trashing of our natural resources and geographic heritage a “conservative”.
Just so, I wouldn’t call a person of faith who supports governmental violence/militarism/empire and displays open contempt for poor or marginalized people a “conservative Christian”.
As someone with 4 degrees in Christian History and Theology, I can assure you that those who claim the label of ‘conservative Christianity’ jettisoned the teachings of the Church Fathers, the lives of the saints, and the model life of Christ a long time ago.
They can cherry-pick Scripture any way they want. Anyone can find support for pretty much anything they want to do if they take a random biblical text out of context. Matthew 4 & Luke 4 tell the same story.
Fundamentalists are actually a fairly recent development in the Christian timeline. Globally, there is no more dangerous phenomenon than religious fundamentalism, in the US, in the Middle East, and in India.
The sad waste is, while the fascists on the Right have been quick to learn how useful & handy fundamentalists are to have on board, Enlightenment thinkers on the North American Left have real trouble admitting the existence (let alone the usefulness) of progressive Christians (who are actually the MAJORITY OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA).
Those on the Left who consider all people of faith idiot bigots play into the hands of the fascists every time, bolstering their case that the fundies ARE the Christians. I keep tellin’ them, “Bad Tactics, guys.” They keep clutching their ideological bias and refusing to see the thousands of Christians (Jews, Muslims) marching and protesting AS PEOPLE OF FAITH for peace and social justice.
We are part of the struggle. We always have been. We always will be. The time is long since to make better use of that fact, but any time now would be ok with me.
peachmcd in Durham NC
Peachmcd: I hope you are right about the numbers. I applaud people of faith who live the EXAMPLE of the spiritual prophet they wish to emulate, rather than call for calamity in his name. Caohaoim: If you consider the many Christian fundamentalist channels on TV, then their voice totally outweighs the balance this survey seeks to measure. Where is any program for and about left thought, spiritual values that do not answer to an orthodox patriarchal religion? NOT A ONE. Too many voices are excluded from media dialog. I’d like to see Indigenous natives speaking about the earth and HER sign language. I’d like to see women from Code Pink or another organization instead of those insiders on “The view.” ETC ad nauseum.
I am sympathetic with peachmcd’s vehemence. As a minister, I am frequently frustrated with the casual assumption that the only Christian position is the political right. When I started my current position, my immediate predecessor had been an active pro-choice activist along with a number of other liberal ministers in the area. They did this on their own time with their own money. The local paper ran an editorial criticizing them for not separating church and state, while ignoring a number of other churches which had signs on church property supporting the pro-life cause.
We from the religious left need to take some pointers from the religious right. We need to be brief. We can’t temper our message if we expect airtime. Yes, issues are complex, but we need to be heard. We should not hesitate to prooftext. Above all, we cannot hesitate to participate in the public sphere.
At stake is more than any single issue. At stake, is rather there will be room in Christian churches for all theological viewpoints and political views. Our lay people will pressure us to conform to what they see portrayed as the religious viewpoint in the media. The religious right will not hesitate to bring to bear all the legal and public pressure they can to silence the left and ensure that only their opinions are heard. The result will be the monolithic church that Rev. Edgar spoke of, and a large group of moderate and left-leaning people being estranged from a church that is not conforming to the scriptures that they read and not offering the comfort they need.
Good point about “cherry picking scripture”, peachmcd. My husband (who used to pastor) sat around one night with a friend of his who has an MDiv and demonstrated just exactly how absurd (and unbiblical) a theology you could build with enough effort. They developed “the church of the holy fart” complete with beer and cigars for communion - and had scriptures for the whole thing (ok, technically, it almost exclusively partial scriptures - but let’s face it, that’s often the sort of cherry picking that is often relied upon for this sort of thing and if it’s not partial scriptures it’s scriptures very, painfully out of context).
Thing is, what the media, a major political party and apparently a large part of the Christian church in America have all forgotten is that there’s no Biblical endorsement of “Republicanism”, “conservativism”, “capitalism” or any of the our other “isms” that many would like to see God rubberstamp. Nor are there Biblical condemnations of being a “Democrat”, of “socialism”, of “liberalism” or of any of the various “isms” that such people would have liked to see God condemning. Christians are called to do specific things, live a certain way and to follow Christ - and none of that tends to fit in our neat little philosophical boxes; all of our “isms” endorse or encourage some things that are right in the Lord’s eyes and some that are sin. It’s time for Christians to reclaim the church from the politicians who’ve twisted and abused it for their gain and return it to what the Lord intended.
Bob Edgar raises a valid point. We are a nation with a short attendance span, so the sound bites of the “pundamentalists” easily attract attention while the lengthier explanations of the truly spiritual and erudite go undigested. It’s easy for me to tell someone the earth is flat,but it gets considerably more involved to explain why it isn’t. As John Stuart Mill accurately observed, “not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservative.”
peachmcd wrote: I can assure you that those who claim the label of ‘conservative Christianity’ jettisoned the teachings of the Church Fathers, the lives of the saints, and the model life of Christ a long time ago.
I do not doubt your years of training, but I would posit that “Church Fathers” shanghaied Christianity over 1,000 years ago, and that Christianity is actually a black stain against the lives of the saints and Christ. Christians, even without the moderators conservative or fundamentalist, have gone out of their way and used the cross to terrorize, kill, torture, rape and steal from anyone who did not support their now-corrupted teachings. Religion of yesterday or today, of whatever flavor, would be unrecognizable to Christ, Buddha, Mohammed or St. Francis.
I believe Christ lived and that his teachings are the greatest words that man has ever uttered. But his followers suck.
Christ was the last Christian.
Peachmcd:
In what sense do you claim that fundamentalism in Christianity is a recent development? One can argue that the very claim of “Jesus as the one true way” is fundamentalist. Alternatively, are you excluding Christian doctrine, and religious purges such as the crusades, the inquisition, Salem witch trails etc., as they were inter-religious in nature?
While religious fundamentalists exist in every large community, I attribute much of the rise of global religious fundamentalism to the influence of Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In the US due to Christians; in the Middle East due to Judaism and Islam (Sunni/Shia); and in India due to Islam (and Christianity to a lesser extent). The current fundamentalist movements among the “Hindus” have their origins in a reaction to perceived (rightly or wrongly) Islamic/Christian pandering. The Sikh religion itself owes its origin to Islamic incursions.
You are right in that some on the Left in this country are obstinate about excluding religion from the social sphere. That indeed is unfortunate. However, the religious progressives have to take some of the blame for not finding ways to get their point across succinctly, and for not being proactive enough in mitigating the effects of the religious right.
Caohaoim:
Many progressives do not consider themselves liberal, especially since the conservatives have managed to caricature a liberal to mean “a big government supporter lacking in faith.” The use of the term progressive in the study would remove this bias, and is therefore, appropriate.
While the short attention span of Americans and the media is a valid point, and the use of sound bites by liberal thinking, true Christians might make their messages easier to record and report, I must point out the obvious. The major media forums, television, radio and print, are all owned by the very same people who have stolen our democracy and continue to plunder the planet and it’s people for profit. This is a very well thought out strategy, it’s no accident or coincidence. We will be force fed information that promotes the current status quo and until we discontinue our monetary support we can expect more of the same and it will get a lot worse before it gets any better. Turn off the TV, stop buying newspapers from the conglomerates, buy local, grow your own, use flea markets, yard sales, e-bay. We must use our market changing leverage!!!