Jesus, Faith and a Universe of Fear

Posted byChaplainmikePosted inCommentary, Evangelical Anxieties

ferWhen I started studying Mark’s Gospel many years ago, I learned that, in Mark, faith is not contrasted with unbelief, but with fear.

The command to “not be afraid” was common in Mark. The disciples are constantly choosing between faith and fear as they journey with Jesus. It is fear, not unbelief, that cripples the community of Jesus-followers.

I don’t believe Christianity is a mind-game where we force ourselves to think happy thoughts. Far from it, I believe Christianity allows- even insists on- a full embrace of the difficulties, obstacles and deadly realities of life.

What does concern me, however, is the response of disciples to the media universe we live in, a media universe that uses fear in ways that are crippling to the mission of Jesus and detrimental to the work of the Holy Spirit.

1. I am concerned that many Christians do not understand the media’s financial stake in creating an atmosphere of crisis about as many stories as possible. They will do anything to keep you watching and reading.

2. I am concerned that many Christians do not understand the manipulation that a diet of fear-mongering makes possible. The media seeks influence and audience. A constant crisis creates that atmosphere.

3. Without in any way taking a skeptical attitude toward science, I have to wonder how many Christians realize media science reporting on many of the popular television and internet venues is exaggerated and quite “unscientific?” Loch Ness this hour, asteroids the next, swine flu at 6, followed by a special on alien DNA.

4. I am concerned that the multiplication of “fear factors” has powerful impact on some Christians, to the point of challenging fundamental aspects of how we as Christians face the painful, unpredictable and evil aspects of existence.

Am I alone in this? Is anyone else feeling that the thermostat of corporate fear is being turned up by media and its echo chamber for all the usual reasons- profit, influence, audience addiction, government empowerment- and many Christians are becoming the victims of an atmosphere not unlike what we saw at Y2K?

Anyone else see Christians becoming easy fodder for this, and failing to relate what they hear to the sovereignty of God, a moderate skepticism of media and the truths of the faith we live by in scripture?

When I heard a guy making motions about the Mayan calendar and 2012 at this year’s SBC, I thought….we’re over a line here. Now I’m seeing many more evidences of the same thing and its getting worse. Those of us who don’t have televisions are at risk for being “unbelievers.”

Is it just me?

152 thoughts on “Jesus, Faith and a Universe of Fear”

  1. Pingback: Interesting Integration Posts « Composition Culture

  2. keeping score is a DRUG….read Galatians , slowly, five times and say the Nicean Creed five times to Luther…..and see me in the morning…. 🙂

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  3. H.U.G: that’s an awesome application of the verse, and sad to say; I’ve got several very good friends that are “related” to your college roomie. I h aven’t bailed on them , yet, but I am a LOT more up front with them about the possibility that they are pissing away tons of life and energy. when the opportunity arises, of course.

    encourage the timid….be patient with all men…
    Greg R

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  4. Pingback: Connecting some dots around fear and clarity. | Internet Bard

  5. I’ve been getting rabid anti-Obama emails from Christians who should know better.

    I bailed out on my old college roomie after the 2006 elections. When he sent me an all-caps email “THE COMING ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT IS HERE” heading off a disjointed rant (with lots of caps and boldface) about the UN or something, with distinct overtones of Ye Ende Is Nighye.

    If the 2006 elections could give him a Left Behind Fever of 106, what do you think the 2008 elections (with the Obamanation of Desolation enthroned) would have done to him? I don’t know, and I didn’t want to find out.

    “If footmen tire you, what will horsemen do?”

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  6. I keep not getting that little box that will make my analog TV able to receive the digital signal, so we can only watch rented movies, etc. I think it does wonders for our peace of mind. (and our IQs, but that’s a separate issue)

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  7. Pingback: Sensus Divinitatis News

  8. There are multiple reasons I consider myself a failure at evangelism (though the ripples of influence are not required to notify those that start the ripple). Anna brings up one reason. The walls that people build to shut down someone trying to share Jesus is, among other things, built off their own guilt and/or the results of bad or over-zealous evangelism. I am not skilled (yet) at breaking through those walls. I’d be a horrible salesman too. I’m analytical, so having to deal with the anger or defenses built off of what others have said/done… I’m not so convincing in my statements. I could probably convince an artificially intelligent computer to convert, but that isn’t important right now.

    Anna – Thanks for pointing out that the “fruits” do not include converts, but I should be able to communicate what I so strongly believe in.

    but if I WERE to keep score… I always have the temptation of building a scoreboard between, for instance, the Mormon building and the Witnesses’ building who are next to each other near my house. Competition is good, right? 🙂

    In the end, I measure my spiritual growth by other things, and I won’t/can’t necessarily brag about that score either 🙂 but I’m trying.

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  9. I seriously have to wonder, how many Christians refuse to deal with the health care issue because A. it would take personal control out of their hands, and B. they’re counting on the Rapture to make it a moot issue.

    When (1) The World Ends Tomorrow and (2) It’s All Gonna Burn, you’re not going to be doing much long-range planning. All you *will* be doing is keeping your nose clean and pure to pass God’s Litmus Test and get beamed up. Even if you have to step over somebody (or a lot of somebodies) to get to church.

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  11. Why is evolution a hill that evangelicals have chosen to die on?

    It could be just one of those Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe.

    But I suspect it’s a side effect of hyper-literalism. If any part of the Bible is not LITERALLY true, then the entire Bible is suspect, so every jot and tittle must be fought over to the death or Narnia Will Be Overthrown and Perish in Fire and Water.

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  12. This is a rather interesting post. Here in Australia, we had a very interesting article in the Australian Financial Review (my paper of choice alongside The New York Times) by the international editor, Tony Walker on the current climate in the US re: Obama and his health-care plans but extending to the fear that exists in right-wing/conservative America towards your president and his administration.

    It’s scary to think that in what is supposed to be the country that is the “leader of the free world”, you have so many scared people that are fearful of anything and everything. The example Tony Walker cited was that Arizona pastor (I think Armstrong might have been his last name, I think he was interviewed on CNN as well) who was preaching from the pulpit that he would go home that night and pray for Obama to go to hell. It didn’t help that the picture that accompanied the article was of a clearly evangelical church with an attendee carrying a gun in a holster while seated in the pews…

    If this is the message that Christians are sending out in America to both the wider American public and the rest of the world, it’s no wonder why some of my work colleagues pointed that article out to me and asked “Are all of you Christians as crazy as this guy is?”

    I sadly shook my head and said that no we aren’t, but it’s always the crazy minority who kicks up a helluva fuss and makes a loud noise that screws it up for the rest of us who are ACTUALLY trying to live as Jesus did.

    If I have to choose news, CNN and Fox News Channel (FNC) don’t even rate in my books for news content anymore. Gimme BBC World News, Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service World News and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s news services anyday. And to complement them, I end up hitting Al-Jazeera English, ChannelNewsAsia and Sky News UK/Australia (this is funny given that while it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch, as FNC is, it’s far less biased than FNC) online as well. Other Australian Christians I know who do watch CNN and FNC, along with our tamed down version of TBN, the Australian Christian Channel seem to be more fearful than those who ignore these channels.

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  14. This is the main problem with visual media, though print media is also complicit. We human beings see images with our eyes and too often believe what we see. Visual images tend to dull the senses and thought processes. This is fine when enjoying basic entertainment, such as cinema, but it is the norm when it should be the occasional distraction.

    It is fearful sensationalism that has turned me away from televised religious shows about the end times and made me want to steamroll Michael Moore documentaries. Visual mediums used in cinema are fine, but more and more, people with agendas, both left, right and religious, are using the television to entice other to their point of view. Disturbing.

    If I want to be frightened, I’ll watch a Hitchcock film.

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  15. Pingback: …links for your linking pleasure 30… « Community of the Risen

  18. Faith in Christ is a process, not a sale. The problem IMHO, is that some churches teach us that we are all supposed to be closers, when some of us are really openers. Truth is that the Holy Spirit is the closer. We just have the privilege of introducing others to Him.

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  19. John,

    A long time ago, I saw how many people were being turned off by the in-your-face type of evangelism, and decided not to be one of those. I saw that they were being pushed further away from the Kingdom (of God), and decided not to make the work harder for the next guy.

    Besides, I was never able to get into those perfect conversations with the person sitting next to me on the plane and witnessing to them.

    Last time I looked, the fruits of the Holy Spirit did NOT include converts.

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  22. Having grown up in two fundamentalist churches, I have to agree with your post. Fear is often used by fundamentalists to present the Gospel. It is also used to keep people in line once they are “converted”. I put “converted” in quotes because I believe that many people walk the aisle to escape Hell, not to make Christ Lord of their life.

    I believe that the latest spate of fear mongering is purely a matter of control. If people are glued to their TVs, if they believe whatever either political party or partisan says will happen if something occurs, then they can keep people in a constant state of panic. By keeping people in a constant state of panic,they can sell the idea that 1) you can get the information that you “need” by watching us or 2) if a political party or pasrtisan, we can solve your problems. Most information that is on TV (in particular 24/7 “news” channels) is not needed, it is useless, And most politicians aren’t interested in solving problems, they are interested in getting elected.So, whatever control we cede to either is in fact idolatry.

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  23. Hi Martha,

    I don’t mean to sound like a 4 year old asking “Why” type questions, but for the past couple years I have been plagued by doubt. Not in Faith, but in application. (And my current job is about to break my mental threshold on a serious level, so that doesn’t help my optimism)

    The point of this thread (which I may still be off) is the over-use of fear. The verses you repeated say do NOT be afraid… Are we to find comfort that punishment is coming for the lost? They ARE being given many chances, but still.

    And then there are “fire and brimstone” churches or ones that focus on End Times possibly for the wrong reasons of using fear to boost attendance.

    Though I am confident of my own salvation and I am vigilant to consider if I’m fooling myself, I am a total failure as far as evangelism. So there are times I question what I should fear of. I hope I am making sense.

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  24. And on this topic, this was the first reading at the vigil Mass this evening:

    FIRST READING Isaiah 35:4-7

    Say to all faint hearts,

    ‘Courage! Do not be afraid.
    ‘Look, yourGod is coming,
    vengeance is coming,
    the retribution of God;
    he is coming to save you.’

    Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    the ears of the deaf unsealed,
    then the lame shall leap like a deer
    and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy;
    for water gushes in the desert,
    streams in the wasteland,
    the scorched earth becomes a lake,
    the parched land springs of water.

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  25. Most snakes aren’t dangerous if you leave them alone, at least in the United States, but in Africa there is the black Mamba which is extremely aggressive and will pursue people, its fast and if it is able to envemonate you seriously you are dead within five minutes.

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  26. Thanks somuch for the post. You’ve confirmed what I have suspected for a long time. I do choose to read outside of US news sources. It just seems to bring down the level of hype a bit and get a broader perspective. But I am sad that we seem to have no voice in our own media.

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  27. Have not had time to read all the comments but do want to affirm with you that not watching tv is the key. We simply do not have any channels because we have never had cable and did not get one of those digital box thingies.

    .We only use our tv for dvds. We do not take the newspaper, either. But with TV, their goal is to keep you tuned in so something sensational is always after the next commercial.

    And still without watching tv , one is bombarded with fear mongering. it is everywhere.

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  29. Thank you. If would be boring if everyone agreed with each other.

    I was raised in a more hypocritical, sunday-only, poor representative what Catholics should be like, so I don’t blame individuals or a whole branch of religion for anything. And I try to be obvious when I am making friendly jabs at stereotypical aspects of any group.

    Some of my humor is ad hoc, but one day at work when we were talking politics during lunch, and someone made a side comment about my picking vegetables out of my meal, I said “Well, I voted against Barack-oli and the dem-o-carrots, but this must be a bi-parsley(bipartisan) meal.”
    (If links are cool here, this is another example of my quasi-politican-food humor – http://twobrain.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/republican-weight-loss-program/ )

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  30. Jjoe – Be very careful when talking about single mothers with minimum wage, etc. I adopted my only child (4 year old son) and this little angel is alive today because the birth-mother did not have the money or national healthcare to pay for the abortion. I do applaud your niece for not having an abortion, but the country is sorely lacking in accountability. I wager many of us caused hardship on our parents pocketbooks and lifestyle. Abortion is used nowadays like birth control and an eraser for mistakes that even teenagers should be old enough to prevent or be responsible for.

    I had an open adoption, meaning my wife and I had to be picked by and meet the birth-parents. (Not awkward at ALL!) My son’s birth-parents are good kids, but they do not know responsibility. Where EXACTLY does “basic healthcare” start and stop? There is no exact, so the generalization provides too much grey area for abuse.

    44 other countries did not have the wealth and prosperity and current selfishness of American society. Groups will cry and cry that plastic surgery is critical for health self image and the line of expectation will push farther and farther. The wait in the emergency room will be even longer when everyone can show up for every little thing. It is not cruel for people to survive the way we have ALWAYS had to survive – deal with life, get help from family and friends.

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  31. Todd – I struggle with giving assistance to someone broken down. God took care of me before I personally got to know Him. But I’ve emptied my change from my car for someone who had their hood up and watched them drive off 2 seconds later. I’ve suffered a broken jaw from a street gang attack on innocent bystanders. I know the real world first hand. I trust God more than many, but I know not to jump off a bridge expecting Him to catch and I know not to sit on my couch expecting the government to support my lazy butt and I know God wants me to use my resources wisely. I could give some change to the bum on the corner everyday and it won’t help him. If God gives me the opportunity to do more than just enable the bum to continue wallowing in the same circumstances, then I’ll be there and I have been there.

    The slippery slope goes both ways. You can’t accuse the general public of selfishness without saying the same about those that want national healthcare. Do you truly care about the people that NEED better healthcare? Then you can help them just as much by fighting against all those that abuse systems that give stuff that isn’t earned.

    Yes, I feel more Christian by not expecting how other people’s money should be spent. I care to encourage and enable people to improve their situation by learning, working hard and contributing any way they can. National healthcare is just another attack on “rich people are obligated to give back more of the money they stole from us and we have a right to demand they do it”. But the people taking judgment into their own hands would be NO different if they won the lottery – the desire to keep and control as much money as I can. The more money government spends, the more that is wasted. The more that people have to personally do to help others, the less that is wasted.

    Even if I disagree with you, I am totally enjoying having real conversations without name-calling, etc. So thank you.

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  32. J, at least one should stick to the same family of stupid. Mixing Mesoamerican and Middle Eastern is an unappetising cocktail. Even Dan Brown at least stuck to the familiar path of ripping off all the Templar conspiracy rubbish.

    What next – the crystal skull, the Starchild, and Indigo children?

    But as I said, I’m primarily interested in how a non-Biblical source suddenly achieved this authority; I would have expected it to be considered either worthless or demon-inspired, certainly not taken as some kind of external authority that corroborates whatever end-point date picked by the sortes Vergilianae using the Book of Daniel.

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  34. ‘Faith grows as a result of obedience.’ – The scriptures say faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word concerning Christ.

    “If we acted in love towards our neighbors—if we actually did stuff for them, rather than smile and wave at them as they pass—we would see God empower our obedience”

    So if I am hearing you right, we need to obey God before he will help us really obey Him?

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  35. In “Bowling for Colombine,” Michael Moore asks some related questions about America’s media-induced “fear” fueling its “need” for handguns. If you haven’t seen the movie, I recommend it.

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  36. Only in countries like ours do we (even or especially Christians) have the luxury to be so neurotic and fearful about such trivial things. As Annie Dillard says, “how we spend our days is how we spend our years”.

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  37. “I’d happily pay more taxes so more mothers could have ultrasounds, baby vitamins and wellness checkups.”

    How Christian of you.

    Crazy fundies, take notes. In the language that Jesus spoke, that’s the present active imperative form of “I love you”.

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  40. bad, sure. Incompetent? Nope. David Coverdale has like a 4 octave range, and at one time or another the band was made up entirely of people who used to be in Deep Purple, and nobody in Deep Purple sucked at their instrument.

    Besides, “Slide It In” is the most entertaining song that’s ever been written about anything, and that’s a Fact.

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  44. When our infant mortality rate is 45th in the world, with nations 1-44 having universal health care (and Cuba beating us at 44th) yes, national health care will save lives.

    I’d happily pay more taxes so more mothers could have ultrasounds, baby vitamins and wellness checkups.

    I have an 18 year old niece who is a single mom (who chose not to have an abortion, which I think we ought to applaud). She works at a minimum wage job with no benefits and her health care plan is this: “Uncle Joe, we can’t afford to get sick so we just won’t get sick.”

    If she can’t show up for work because she has to wait 12 hours in the emergency room because that child has a low grade fever or an ear ache, 1) they’re going to try and charge her a couple thousand dollars, 2) she doesn’t get paid and 3) she could well lose her job.

    Here’s a kid who messed up but is now doing everything we’d ask of her, doing everything right, and our national response is basically the finger… it’s her own fault so don’t bother us with it.

    Why? Fear is the only explanation. I refuse to believe that America is inherently that cruel.

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  45. Timely.

    It seems to me that fundamentalism is grounded most often in the emotion of fear. Sometimes I wonder if fundamentalists are addicted to fear. Fear can give you an adrenaline high, and I think people becoming addicted to it, like teenagers who love horror movies. Jesus help us.

    I think at the root of fear is an illusion of control. We feel less secure, thus we become afraid and try very hard to re-exert control over a situation. Not too far down this road lies idolatry. Either turning over lordship to someone else, or trusting ourselves to be a better Lord than Jesus.

    If we deeply trusted that Jesus is Lord, how much fear should we have?

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  46. Sanity,

    Welcome.

    This is one of the places where I tend to hang out, electronically speaking. I’d say that most of us are scarred people, especially from certain rigid types of Christianity. At times, things do get interesting, because there are some Catholics, both cradle and converts who are part of the family. But, I know that Michael tends to keep a decent control here, and that keeps things both civil and safe.

    Bad jokes, bring them on.

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  48. Can I make a suggestion that it might be irrelevent whether someone is out to get Christians? Not to harp on an idea, but if your *eternal salvation* is in the hands of God- well, isn’t that more than enough? Isn’t that the point? Aren’t you supposed to be persecuted for his sake?

    How much control can you have over the teachings of people you disagree with? How much control does God have? It just seems amazing to me that some Christians seem to have so little faith in God accomplishing his own agenda.

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  49. When I was growing up, one lesson my grandmother instilled in me was that all we are and everything we have is Gods, exist by Gods pleasure. The biggest lesson I got from her was that service is an honor and a pleasure, and when someone asks for help or assistance, provided what they are asking for will harm me, the answer that God wants is “what else can I do for you? How else can I help you?”

    It’s stayed with me. I’m not always brave enough to be giving, because I want to be the one with control. and because I don’t want to look like a fool to the people around me. But when i can give up that illusion of control, and allow myself to reckon with how utterly not-on-control I am, and be more giving of my resources- well, the peace inside of me and the joy is incredible.

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  50. Why is evolution a hill that evangelicals have chosen to die on? This may be off topic, but Catholics are just one example of Christians that have been able to make peace with this theory. Yet evangelicals have refused to look to their example. This whole thing really frustrates me and i just do not understand it.

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  51. maybe another thot is useful here…and I’m venturing a very educated guess with this , but please remember that ALL but the most utterly disrespectful (as judged by the I-Monk, I suppose) are welcome here. In other words: non-christian posters are not just tolerated, they are welcome. If you can hang with that, you’ll be blessed.

    have a restful and peaceful “Labor Day”
    Greg R

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  52. Okay, please enlighten me on this: how did the Mayan calendar (a PAGAN calendar) become evidence on a par with the Scriptures?

    Bandwagon effect: “Just like whatever’s trendy, except CHRISTIAN (TM)!”

    The same thing happened with The Jupiter Effect back in ’81, when the astrologically-based “Coming Earth Changes” book of the same name sparked a couple local Rapture scares.

    If we’re going to run around like headless chickens, why not stick with the prophecies of St. Malachy? We’re supposed to be on the last Pope but one now: after Benedict XVI comes “Peter the Roman” and the beginning of the end!!!!!!!!!!!

    Some ARE going with St Malachy. Usually the same types who are into The Three Days of Darkness and “Mary appeared and told me this”.

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  53. I know Christians who struggle with whether to stop for somebody who has broken down on the side of the road to see if they need help.

    I know of many who absolutely will not give money to anybody begging, because they might spend it on alcohol.

    I know of many people whose attitude towards health care is “as long as I’m okay, everybody else is in the place that God wants them, and it’s not my problem.”

    Baaaaaah.

    Your response, in it’s “oh, beware the looming slipper slope!” form, only belies the fact that for you, there is only “my utter control” or “my utter lack of control.”

    Where is God in this? What power, what control, does God have over your money? What are you doing to educate the people around you, to help them? Or are you consigning them to whatever doom they encounter off stage right where they aren’t a part of your personal performance?

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  55. Todd – ??? Am I to understand that we should give all our money to the government because they will use it better than we can? Or that as Christians we are not to exercise any control over the resources granted to us?

    Is national healthcare going to improve the DISMAL mortality rate that is at nearly 100%? Generations have been dying without national healthcare and with it as well. Shall it now be an inalienable right to eat, drink, smoke and live any way we want to abuse our bodies and demand the government take care of us when our bodies give out?

    When it is discovered that national healthcare hasn’t resolved any of our health issues, are we going to require the wealthy to contribute more and give priority to those that can’t contribute (most of whom would be cursing God and the government for not providing enough of their expectations)?

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  56. Interestingly enough, I just ran into this quote today:

    Indeed, if the press were to hang a sign out like every other trade, it would have to read: “Here men are demoralized in the shortest possible time on the largest possible scale for the smallest possible price.”

    –Soren Kierkegaard in his journals

    (can’t prove that, just saw it quoted somewhere else and thought it a propos!)

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  57. depends on the topic , really; If you look back to some of the atheist threads, there are honest-to-whatever-power-might-rule-the-universe atheists that logged on and weighed in. As far as the christian audience, it is very diverse here, although many of the topics have an evangelical application, and hence the ev. audience may be bumped up a bit relative to others.

    I hope you find the posts, the guests, the comments, and the vibe here life producing; they have been for me.

    Greg R

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  58. It’s been quite interesting the reactions I’ve had since posting that on my FB profile.

    And all of the responses are as if this issue was only about me, or about other people who have jobs, and who have health care, and are managing their debt.

    I seriously have to wonder, how many Christians refuse to deal with the health care issue because A. it would take personal control out of their hands, and B. they’re counting on the Rapture to make it a moot issue.

    But if the Gospel had only been a Spiritual message that hell (which was taken as a fact of life in the form of hades) could be avoided, Christianity would never have survived.

    So the government takes more taxes, or uses your health care differently? Is it your money?

    is anything that you have truly yours? Will you tell God “no, I don’t care about your purposes, I must have control over everything that I own, everything that I do”?

    The only choice any of us has is whether to steer our heart toward God, and respond to Him. Everything else is merely window dressing and distraction.

    Where is the faith of this Generation in God, in the Goodness of God, in the Grace of God, in the Love of God?

    We see disasters as signs that we need to turn from destruction, and we turn a blind eye to the chaos and degeneration around us as we proceed to our pristine churches, but as John Wesley said, “if you had to step over somebody to get to church this morning, you would have been better off not coming.”

    If the church truly relied on one another for resources, for help, for healing, for accountability, for discipleship, if the only question about our money was “who can I help today”, can there be any doubt that God would do incredible things in our world?

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  62. One of my favorite scenes from a recent movie is found in Mel Gibson’s truly unusual “Apocalypto”. Fairly early in the film, the main protaganist, a young father, is trying to process the shattering news of Mayan slave raiders in the vicinity of his tribe’s peaceful little village. His worried expression is noticed by his father, the de facto village chief. In the inimitable way of the wise Indian elder, the chief stops his son as they are walking back to the village and says:

    “Do not bring fear back into this village.”

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  63. There’s no point in the Church simply keeping all of that in circulation

    ohh……you mean other than reputatation and money and some kind of bizarre quasi-cultural status ?? ooooops….there goes 1/3 of (fill in your fav. book store H-E-R-E)

    nice…..
    Greg R

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  64. welcome Hey-you J-ayster…..glad to have you here at Mr.Monk’s.

    Here’s to fighting the things that matter, in ways that honor Jesus.

    Greg R

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  65. Ok, new guy here. A slow reader, and 80+ responses behind… but I couldn’t resist.

    I’ve debated many things, including freedom of the press. I’ve always been disappointed in the internet because there is no reliability on the “quality” of information. I would most certainly fight against total freedom of speech, press, any type of media. I’m old enough to have heard of the ‘standards’ that newspapers used to hold each other accountable to, but today’s media, and for some time, has not proven responsible enough to be trusted with “news”. It is about money and agendas, etc.

    Not to be sacrilegious, so to speak, but if been pursuing a Zen-like obsession with the truth and with getting past rhetoric to constructively discuss solutions that actually solve things, i.e. healthcare reform as being handled will not actually solve problems but will just shift the problem around and create more opportunities for the same people to profit.

    Anyway, I see many churches or “Christians” being led by the same tactics we detest in the media. I used to attend a “mega-church” that kept things shallow on purpose and like shocking sermon titles to entertain which only produces shallow Christians. Many Christian movements focus on fear-mongering or simply trying to outmaneuver the tactics of the “other side” without really trying to fix things.

    I’m beginning to believe the conspiracy concepts that we are controlled into fighting about things that don’t really matter.

    Well, I hope I am making sense and hope to have time to catch up on reading the other responses.

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  66. *White washed Vipers.*

    That makes no sense. A whitewashed viper would be . . . a white viper.* It wouldn’t look like anything else–much less something purer or less dangerous. And that would be stupid anyway because snakes *aren’t* evil or dangerous as long as you’re reasonably smart and leave them alone.

    Plus, I can’t imagine a viper reacting well to some dope with a paintbrush coming after them.

    *The band White Snake, on the other hand absolutely IS evil. Or, at least, musically incompetent. Which is much the same thing in my book.

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  67. Actually, I’ve heard that sex does not sell. Sex draws attention, but it does not–except in the case of prostitution, which has always done a pretty good job of advertising for itself without any help from “professionals”–motivate the movement of money between hands.

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  68. Monk wrote:

    ….. I wrote a book

    now THAT’s a positive, faith, hope, and love producing headline if I ever saw one.
    I’m meditating on that today, there might be a book buried somewhere deep inside of me, and many here at I-Monk , as well. Your response to your media habits shows us a great way to refuse to “curse the darkness”, and to go a better direction.

    Greg R

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  69. Yes. That one was in “The Tattooed Man”. My own feeling is that he stole some of the idea from John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl”, but still a creditable effort.

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  71. *Okay, please enlighten me on this: how did the Mayan calendar (a PAGAN calendar) become evidence on a par with the Scriptures?*

    Yes. Because it’s very, very important to pick and choose carefully from among the various different premodern bats*it mythologies.

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  72. That the body of Christ divides itself along political lines bothers me. That is by far the worst example I’ve heard about. I have all but removed myself from political discussion for two reasons. Both are evident in your example and they are related. First, political disagreement creates unnecessary division within the Church. Second, American political views have become so irrationally polarized that a worthwhile exchange of ideas is difficult or impossible to find. Because members of the Church are caught up in the media’s fearmongering, political discussions within the Church, at least the ones I’ve seen, tend to be destructive.

    I’ve come extremely close to completely abandoning politics. I still consider doing so occasionally.

    The most telling part of that example, in my opinion, is that the reverend didn’t even express support for Obama or his plan. He is merely advocating reform, which even the staunchest conservatives in Congress admit we need. People are jumping at shadows, it seems.

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  73. . I am looked at by some of those as uninformed and a “problem” because I am not concerned about Obama, etc sufficiently.

    hmmm…..interesting timing on this as I was at the folks last night and my mom showed me an e-mail sent from an aunt in Montana: evidently OBAMA is set to do some kind of world-ending anti-Zionist something….. what did I think of that ? It was a chain e-mail no less.

    I casually asked what happens to the person who refuses to send it on ?? What kind of curse can they expect ?? Frogs ? Locusts ?

    You are on to something Michael, and the bigger concern is not how manipulative or paranoid for prophet/profit the news media can be, but how utterly Christ-less, and hence peace-less the church can be. THAT has me missing some sleep.

    nice post
    Greg R

    PS: I miss FOX news like an infected tooth

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  75. Yesterday this message was being posted on Facebook: “No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day.”

    The fear this statement uncovered was amazing. I saw a pastor who posted it get some of the cruelest comments I’ve seen on fb. When people are so scared of the government / Obama that they are willing to tear down the Body of Christ by publicly demonizing, belittling and insulting ordained ministers (who are their “friends” on fb, ironically), I fear for America as our ancestors knew it.

    I doubt even Thomas Paine, as radical and angry as he was, would’ve made such nasty statements to anyone, let alone a Reverend trying to speak the truth as they saw it.

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  76. Too many layers of response to reply directly to Ben, so I’ll add this here:

    It appears from the article and others that Alphonse de Valk was accused of “hate speech” for articles in a magazine and on a web site—going well beyond referring to homosexuality as sinful in itself. Hate speech is criminal in Canada. The case is still ongoing. Thank you, Ben, for the citation.

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  77. Hear, hear! My own lack of fear for “how things are going” is based not only on my own faith but my education and knowledge of history and American political thought. Every time I hear that the guvmint is planning to whatever to churches and christians, I just disregard that because I KNOW our political system just isn’t equipped for that. We have such LACK of information about religious systems that the govenment cannot distinguish between the devout and the atheist. As it should be.

    It IS a judgement on our education system that people can learn things in school (in American goverment class) and have it make zero impression on them. I didn’t learn much in my high school govt class, but in college, we ground through the Federal Papers until I was sick them, but by crackey, I learned a LOT. The dangers and value of factions, the tyranny of the majority, the need for seperation of powers. It’s all there but no one remembers it.

    Just like no one remembers their Sunday School lessons or the sermons they’ve heard either. I bet if you quizzed people leaving church about what they learned that morning, they couldn’t tell you because it just didn’t make an impression on them.

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  78. Okay, please enlighten me on this: how did the Mayan calendar (a PAGAN calendar) become evidence on a par with the Scriptures?

    If we’re going to run around like headless chickens, why not stick with the prophecies of St. Malachy? We’re supposed to be on the last Pope but one now: after Benedict XVI comes “Peter the Roman” and the beginning of the end!!!!!!!!!!!

    (I hope I festooned that last with enough exclamation points?)

    Or, you know, we could just go with “”No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. “

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  79. All I know is my writing partner has had to preach his “DON’T GO STUPID ON ME!” sermon way too often. Most of the “Going Stupid” since the election has to do with Left Behind Fever and Obama = Antichrist.

    And the latest pop interpretation of Revelation (usually John Nelson Darby with added Juicyness) has been the preferrred method of “SCARE ‘EM INTO SALVATION!” for a LONG time. Remember Late Great Planet Earth back in the Seventies? I went to Bible studies back then where the Bible was 3 1/2 books long: Revelation, Daniel, the “Nuclear War Chapter” of Ezekiel (the half), and Late Great Planet Earth. And Hal Lindsay’s Inspired Scripture trumped all the other (2 1/2) books. Serious nightmare fuel; the scars are still bleeding 35 years later.

    “Idi Amin and the Shah
    And al-Fatah is quite bizarre;
    I never could get the hang of
    I-de-o-lo-gy
    I do the Rock…”
    — Tim Curry, “I do the Rock”

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  80. To make sure everybody drinks the Kool-aid when the Secular Humanist Persecutors come and the pastor calls “WHITE NIGHT”…

    Can you say “Paranoid CULT”?

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  81. “There will come a time when men will go mad. And they will lay hands on the sane among them, saying ‘You are not like us! You must be mad!'”
    — One of the Desert Fathers (according to my writing partner; this is his usual reply to my recurring question “Did I go crazy, or did everybody else?”)

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  82. Because that would be exposing oneself to doubleplusungoodthink.
    Which could lead to doublepluscrimethink and loss of salvation.

    I mean, Evolution is right up there with Homosexuality and Abortion in the Christian version of Two Minutes Hate and Hate Week. (Wonder what happened to this guy Christ they’re apparently named after; I think He couldn’t get a Word in edgewise and bailed.) Can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject.

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  84. Heard a really good sermon on the radio the other day by David Jeremiah. One of the main points was that the opposite of love is not hatred, but fear. Good stuff. Fortunately not all use of the media has become corrupted.

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  85. I’ve noticed this too, and for a long time. It’s not just the media, but also, and most unfortunately, a significant number of Christian ministries that use the media. Propogation of fear and conflict keeps the dollars rolling in. If there’s no enemy, no “other,” there’s no war to fight. So the “other” is exaggerated into existence, or outright created or recreated.

    I agree it’s not just Christians who do this, but we’ve certainly contributed to it when we ought to do the opposite. Where is the perfect love that casts out fear? Let’s promote that!

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  86. Yep. That’s the one that gets me. I’m reminded of the old Petra song, “Witch Hunt”:

    We’re on another witch hunt
    Looking for evil wherever we can find it
    Off on a tangent, hope the Lord won’t mind it
    Another witch hunt
    Takin’ a break for all our gospel labor
    On a crusade but we forgout our Savior

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  87. Yes, it’s an equipping problem for the most part. This was, as usual, compelling and edifying reading, and thanks so much.

    We could be still points (to go all Eliot about it), but we’re turning along with everybody else.

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  88. I’d say it’s far worse than just failing to equip the saints to deal with it. Many churches of all stripes (but primarily evangelical) have bought into this mode completely and preach fear themselves. It makes me angry too.

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  89. Bruce Schneier has a good take on this: If it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. When it becomes so common it’s no longer newsworthy is when you need to worry.

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  90. Since the mod edit to Athanasius’ post, my response no longer makes sense. It kind of seems like I made something up out of whole cloth, actually – it would be better to delete it, if possible.

    Thanks for your consideration!

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  91. I’d have to go with blogs by people who know the topic they are talking about. Even if they wanted to get it right many journalists just don’t have a strong enough understanding of most issues.

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  92. What percentage of Christians in your opinon do you think are on the “Obama is the antichrist” bandwagon? SO MUCH of the fear amongst Christians seems to stem from the book of Revelation but it doesn’t really get talked about much.

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  93. “This church has a gun club, and an armed guard at the door every church service.”

    What? What? WHAT!! WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT???????????????????

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  94. That’s fascinating, Adrienne. I have just realised that these days I have more of a Muslim worldview than I do a Christian one. Interesting…

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  95. For me all this stuff does not create fear but anger. I’m increasingly angry at the world for perpetuating this foolishness, and increasingly angry at the pop-evangelical church for failing to equip the saints to deal with these challenges.

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  97. A few things regarding Christian response to fear in the media

    1) The advent of the idea of self-government, and democracy (specifically American-style) wasn’t around until many centuries after Christ. Under all the previous totalitarian forms of government, it was easy to reason a course: follow the law of the king unless it goes against the teachings of Christ. Probably not as easy to follow through on those choices, but the reasoning was easier. The king says pay a tax? We do it. The king says denounce all the non-Catholics for inquisition? That’s a no-no. But what do we do when we’re responsible for making those decisions? How do we not phrase our political decisions like, “I’m afraid if we do X, then Y will happen”? We ought to be fearful! We have the lives of others in our hands. Many American Christians used to answer these questions by not voting at all.

    2) I see many Christian’s being rebuked for fear when that’s not the case at all. When someone makes the case that they’re against legal homosexual unions because they think it will make sexual deviance more acceptable, it never fails that someone cries out “What are you afraid of?” A desire to not see others cascade even further into sin is not a fear.

    3) Even Jesus prayed: “Let this cup pass from me.” Sometimes, they’re just out to get you.

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  98. I realize that Michael Moore is like a bad word amongst many Evangelicals, but the one thing I most appreciated about his film, Bowling for Columbine was his points about the media’s pedaling of fear and how much damage it does to the American psyche. I think that had a profound affect on how I interpreted the news media after that point. That isn’t to say that I was never aware of it before, but his point just stuck with me. After that, anytime I heard the news make a claim about the next big thing that may kill you, I was immediately skeptical. It didn’t help that this apparently VERY IMPORTANT news was usually preempted by several commercials and not revealed til near the end of the broadcast.

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  100. I had the privilege of seeing Jabbour speak a few years ago when he was still writing his book (many parts of his lecture are included in the text). Truly inspiring, I appreciate greatly his work among Muslims.

    I highly recommend that book – http://www.nabeeljabbour.com

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  101. Amazing insight, Michael. Media people are brilliant, and reflect society, providing fear on steroids. They know society is insecure and fearful, and play to all the defenses people throw up to combat it (sin), with all of the motives you mention. Perpetuating fear becomes a given. Aren’t we trying to combat that though, right here using the internet?

    MIndful of the obvious cautions, can’t we take the solution to the greater media, too? In my part of the country there are about 2 hours of decent Christian television per week. Yeah, there’s WHI out there and a few other outlets, but really all there is right now is the internet, and that doesn’t cut it against the real media. Is there an unspoken understanding that we need to keep the true gospel in church, and the more reformed it is, the more we need to trust and stay out of the mainstream media?

    I don’t mean getting panel discussions going on TV between theologians that would bore most people to death. But let’s face it, if you like TBN, then there’s a wound in your life that isn’t healed, and you’re a transformation, perhaps justification, waiting to happen. It wouldn’t take but one message from Piper or Chandler (the list is actually quite long) to change your life forever. Why are we not on TV? Perhaps we are, but just not around here, and I’m quite sure I simplify it.

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  102. Fear indicates two things: A lack of faith, and a lack of love.

    Too many Christians do not love, or do not love enough. (I’m one of them.) Not because we can’t; it’s because we do not try. Loving one’s neighbor is, says Jesus, the second greatest commandment. But it is the one command that we really don’t take seriously. We figure we don’t hate our neighbors, and we think minorly pleasant thoughts towards them… but otherwise we do nothing. Yet the opposite of love is not hate. It’s apathy. That same apathy we have for our neighbors.

    Faith grows as a result of obedience. If we acted in love towards our neighbors—if we actually did stuff for them, rather than smile and wave at them as they pass—we would see God empower our obedience. As we grew in love for them, we would lose our fear of them. As we grew in love for the other people God calls us to love—Christians of odd denominations, people in other political parties, people with lifestyles we don’t approve of, enemies—we would lose our fear of them too.

    But we don’t take the first step of faith: We don’t obey Jesus.

    So our fear stands to reason.

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  103. “Be not afraid,” is still the best advice out there for coping with the modern world. That, and “Turn off the TV,”

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  104. Pingback: Maybe it isn’t the economy, stupid « The Contemplative Life

  106. Some churches in other countries do marry gay couples, and some don’t teach homosexuality is a sin, but I haven’t heard of any forced to marry them, or forbidden to refer to homosexuality as sinful. Cite, please? Where does this happen?

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  107. I will periodically go to the BBC website in England. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is also good. Because I know another language, I will rarely go to a news site in the other language. And, for Middle Eastern news, both Israelis and Arabs publish English-language websites.

    And, sometimes I swear I am living in five or six different worlds after making the rounds.

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  108. Preach it, brother!

    I’ve been getting rabid anti-Obama emails from Christians who should know better. What drive them? It’s fear, the same thing that drove the anti-Bush email senders up until this year.

    God has not give us a spirit of fear, I try to tell my dear friends, but I don’t suppose I’ll be heard unless I manage to phrase it in a way that makes it seem like a crisis if they don’t calm down.

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  109. What a great insight regarding the Gospel of Mark. Thanks for that.

    I think that the culture of fear that is (ironically) a part of American life reflects a few things:

    1) A lack of respect for/understanding of history. Every time health care reform is compared to Nazism, it’s an insult to those who actually suffered and died under Hitler’s regime. Similarly, when conservative evangelicals compare restrictions regarding prayer in public schools to the persecution of the early church under the Roman Empire, it reflects a tragic lack of appreciation and insight into the real dangers faced by the first followers of Christ. Not sure how to fix this.

    2) Boredom. Honestly, I think most folks are more bored than scared. Deep down, most of us don’t actually believe that the end is upon us or that America’s become a “socialist nation” or that swine flu will kill us all. But predicting worst-case-scenarios are the best way to draw attention to your cause and make you feel like you’re doing something important. ( I’m as guilty of this as anyone else.) Were we to take REAL tragedies more seriously and devote ourselves to easing the very REAL fears of other people by working to stop global poverty, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, etc. perhaps we would find the purpose and adventure that we are looking for.

    One quick note regarding “the media”: Let’s not forget that the news media is comprised of actual human beings, with names and families and stories and feelings. When I was just starting out as a reporter for a local newspaper, I wrote an article about “holiday workers” (referring to college students who took on part-time jobs in retail during the holiday season), and I got this nasty e-mail from a lady claiming that I clearly had an anti-Christian agenda for not using the word “Christmas.” I’m a Christian, for God’s sake!

    I think sometimes we see a bias where we want to see one. Yes, Fox is becoming a joke. Yes, newspapers continue to use the “if it bleeds it leads” mantra to sell papers. But advertisers wouldn’t buy spots if consumers weren’t there to see them. “The media” is not some evil entity. If anything, it’s a mirror.

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  110. 1. I don’t see the Reds losing games. I just hear them on the internet radio.

    2. I wrote a book. And for a guy who has spent 20 years saying he couldn’t, that was a big deal. Writer’s block vanished. Lots of work done quickly. I couldn’t have written this book this well or this easily with the TV.

    3. More relaxed atmosphere in the home. Much better for Denise and I, and for my blood pressure.

    4. I know less of what is going on, but I am still informed. I do not read deeply in the news, but I look at a few news pages a couple of times a day.

    5. Everyone around me watches Fox all day long. Some in doses that deeply concern me as they are in a constant state of anger, panic and alarm.

    6. I am looked at by some of those as uninformed and a “problem” because I am not concerned about Obama, etc sufficiently.

    7. I haven’t listened to talk radio for years

    8. I listen to podcasts. Dividing Line. Derbyshire. /Film. ESPN baseball. Reds. God Whisperers. Etc.

    9. A huge improvement. We watch net flix a bit on the weekends or other DVDs we own.

    10. We’re saving $60 a month.

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  112. listen up, people! media is not life. technology, for all its benefits, is robbing us of our humanity and creating a culture of fear-filled non-thinkers who wouldn’t know what the night sky looked like if it fell on them.

    have enough courage to turn off the tv, refuse to listen to talk radio, don’t read the hate blogs, throw away the culture war junk mail. talk to your neighbor. have dinner with your family. read a good book. take a walk. find a friend who knows how to laugh with you. make a conscious decision not to be impressed by any church or christian leader who is trying to be on the “cutting edge.

    imonk, i’d be interested to see if you have noticed any changes in your own journey since you unplugged the tv earlier this year.

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  113. Just read five minutes ago in N.T. Wright’s chapter on the book of Mark in _Following Jesus_:

    “I long to see the Church lovingly but firmly confronting the media barons who destroy people’s lives and reputations for the sake of a sensational story… We live in a world of Jameses and Johns (the disciples), of projected guilt and fear and anger. There’s no point in the Church simply keeping all of that in circulation…. We need — and it’s a scary thought — Christians who will do for the world what Jesus was doing.”

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  114. I agree completely, and was just thinking about this the other night when I saw yet another “BREAKING NEWS” segment on CNN at work. Of course it was just Pres. Obama about to speak regarding a routine topic, but it caught my eye nonetheless. It seems like we’ve been in a constant state of fear and panic in the media since 9-11, and ever since the cable news shows spiked in ratings we can be sure that they’ll sell whatever we’ll take. In the 90s it was the big thing on 20/20 and Dateline, these days you can get your right-wing fear from FOX or your left-wing fear from MSNBC, or get a little of both from CNN.

    It bothers me to see Christians falling for this constant culture of fear. If any group should be united in saying “Turn that crap off and start focusing on important things,” it’s the Christians. Unfortunately fear sells — and selling fear to Christians is much too easy. This stuff leads us nowhere but down a path focusing on ourselves.

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  115. No, it isn’t just you. I escaped from a church where the pastor would take the horrific news stories and use them to browbeat the sheep with a club of fear. This church has a gun club, and an armed guard at the door every church service. The congregation is paranoid nearly to the point of no return. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we see Him face to face. This manic behavior paralyzes people. It quenches the Holy Spirit.

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  116. Michael,
    This is how I personally see things effecting me, but I think that part of the problem is that on one hand we believe that we are in control of our destinies, so to speak, or that we have the right to control how we live our lives. On the other hand we see all the chaos, danger and destruction in the world and we feel out of control, or we try to protect ourselves and those that we love from the bad and painful things that could happen. We take this almost to the point of obsession.

    We realize that we can only do so much to protect ourselves, and our families and we freak out, or we are tempted to.

    So on one hand we hear all about how we have the right to control our own lives, but on the other we realize just how little control we actually do have.

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  117. Harry Potter is a classic tale of good vs. evil. Nothing more, nothing less. I read the first couple of books so I could be sure that the fear-based frenzy fellow Christians were whipping themselves into over Harry Potter was baseless – and it was. I don’t prefer the genre myself, but all of my now-older teen and adult sons have read them and they are all committed, growing, serving-others Christians.

    I don’t want to debate Harry Potter, but isn’t that kind of statement exactly the kind of fearmongering with which Christians have given themselves a bad name?

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  118. This might seem like a tangent, but I don’t think it is.
    I recently finished reading Jabbour’s _The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross,_ which talks about how to better explain Jesus in a Muslim culture. The author points out that the Muslim worldview is not influenced as much by the Western worldview of law, guilt and redemption. Instead, Muslims relate more to a worldview of shame vs cleanliness and fear vs power. Jabbour’s point is Jesus can speak to these worldviews as well.
    Which brings me to my point – we may underestimate the message of the Gospels that speak to Jesus’ power over fear.
    We see Jesus as “payment,” not “power.”

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  119. I have found that it is increasingly more difficult to have discussions with some Christians because there is such a sense of fear.It is really a shame that we have lost the boldness that Christ has given us to mindless fear.

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  120. The other fear threat on that issue is the loss of freedom of speech. Churches being forced to marry gay couples or forbidden to teach it’s a sin. Is this true? It has happened in other countries…

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  121. So for the ordinary citizen wanting to be informed, is there a way around this?

    Militia and Conspiracy websites?

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  123. I remember something from a Christian radio station’s morning talk show back in the Eighties:

    “IF YOU CAN’T LOVE ‘EM INTO THE KINGDOM, SCARE ‘EM INTO THE KINGDOM.”

    I’ve been on the receiving end of such “Fear Christianity”, and I still suffer from the aftereffects.

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  124. Isn’t it true that FOX News went to court to get the right to lie to the public.
    They most definitely are not a news organization.

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  127. With the advent of ‘pastors’ advocating gun-toting radical protestors showing up at political rallies, and ‘pastors’ advocating the deaths of abortionists, and much, much, worse;
    I’d say that these ‘christians’ HAVE become the witches.

    Evil is evil. You can dress it up and put it in a church in a pulpit, but if it’s evil, it’s still evil.

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  128. “Crazy premil dispys” and a LOT of other Christians are also pretty energetic at using Fear to keep others in line and loyal.

    The End Time Prophecy types (who have now “baptized” Mayan Calendar 2012 as the latest date for Ye Ende) are perhaps the most blatant, but Culture War Christianity is also no slouch at whipping up Fear — remember that Focus on the Family “Letter from the Future” just before the November elections? And all the post-election Obama-Is-The-Antichrist preaching? (And my sister-in-law’s “godly” neighbor who claimed God spoke to him after the November election to say: “Now My Judgment on this Land Begins”.)

    Or is this all the Christian media doing the usual day-late-and-dollar-short cheezy imitation of “secular” culture? Including imitating their fearmongering, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)?

    These days, I’m calling up my writing partner (the burned-out preacher) every week or two with the same question: “Did I go crazy, or did everybody else?”

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  129. Xenia,

    I have often asked the same question. Is it that that the world is getting worse, or are we just hearing more about the problems?

    Personally, I’m inclined to say that a lot of it is improved communications and the fact that fear sells.

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  130. Thom….someone is out to get Christians. The devil and his demons. He wants us to get sidetracked into politics and anything else so that we don’t evangelize the lost and make disciples. He wants to keep us busy being busy. He especially enjoys infiltrating the church with false teachers and false doctrines to lead many astray. I think what you call a “culture war” that you think the church should ignore is no different than the money changers in the temple. Jesus got very angry. He didn’t try to establish a “relationship” with them. White washed Vipers. He tossed them out. When false teachers enter into our churches teaching the purpose driven gospel (good works + faith that Paul says is no gospel at all in Galatians), that homosexuality is not a sin and that pastors can be openly homosexual, and that Scripture is not the final word, we should be just as angry.

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  131. PS: Good stuff, Karl. FOX News is a totally laughable beast from where I sit outside the US. The whole media deal would be hilarious if it wasn’t eating stupid lazy people up for breakfast every morning 😦

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  132. I hardly watch television news anymore or read the newspapers. It’s funny but when you get some distance from it, it is SO much easier to see how patently pathetically fearmongering it all is.

    I do not want to think what a steady diet of media fearmongering would do to a person. Sometimes I wonder if the people who have not learnt to test what they hear (and unfortunately it seems to be a great many people who cannot be bothered sifting stuff because it requires mental effort) are not continuously caught up in the swirl the media promotes. I do not think there is much good that can come from living in this swirl – certainly not enough left over from your own fears and torments to, say, help a homeless person or look beyond the abject fear of the Western lands to see all the people starving beyond them of preventable diseases.

    The media is a major player in the status quo, me thinks. And it’s got so much worse in the last several years. It’s like listening to a spoilt brat child that has been given everything complaining about unimportant things. I just don’t have the time for that sort of thing anymore. Its hard enough living this life as it is, thanks very much.

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  133. And Christian media is as much to blame as the secular “news”. Without the fear factor, Christian talk radio wouldn’t have much to say.

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  134. Of course there is media manipulation. Some of it is to get wealth, but also to influence power. Be with the In Crowd. The Global Warming Hoax is that exact thing. After 10 years of cooling and the coldest summer on record the media, the government, the schools, etc…. all still push the hoax. It is the old “emperor has no clothes” story.

    Topher: [Mod edit] The problem is not learning about evolution, it is actually believing that it is based on actual science. It does not make kids or adults into soulless nazis. It merely transforms folks into anti-intellectuals…because I have never yet met a person who believes in the nonsense of darwinism who can actually defend it scientifically.

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  135. It’s not just you, Michael.

    BUT….

    Christians create their own subculture of fear.

    It’s called “the culture wars.”

    Someone is always out to get us, right?

    Give me a break.

    Pax.

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  136. Yes, fear sells. Sex sells. Hatred sells. Weirdness sells. Good news and normalcy…… eh, not so much.

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  137. Fear is why I can’t stand politicians anymore, from any side of the fence. Almost every single politician these days tries to win our votes based the fear of the OTHER PERSON being elected, and what horrible outcomes will occur if that happens.

    I teach an adult Sunday school class and we’re doing a concurrent study of Matthew and Mark. During last year’s elections, I responded to a lot of the “fear-filled” talk I heard from friends with a “we have too much fear in our lives, and I don’t think that’s a good witness.” I tried to make the point that ignoring and not responding to fears is what Jesus wants us to do. An element of our Christian walk and faith is showing the people of the world that they don’t need to live in fear. After all, if we suffer in fear, how are we any different than the world?

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  138. That is also strange to me, Tim!

    Another thing that is strange to me is how vested people are in their fears of what will happen in this world. I feel like we already know that we, and everyone we love, will die someday. On some level, what can be worse than that? God seems to be an answer to the question death points to- and faith seems to be about following through with that question and answer relationship. To spend too much time agonizing about the events that happen in the finite and temporal world we live in now seems to deny the power (and mystery) of God. It’s just so hard for me to wrap my mind around that.

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  140. Pingback: Fear Not! « St. Stephen House

  141. I worked in the media for 20 years and now am ashamed of most of it. Here’s the bottom line: in the modern, corporate media, the “news” is not the product, and the audience is not the customer. The audience is the product, and the advertiser is the customer. It’s capitalism 101, folks. The advertiser is the one who writes the checks. Subscription revenues, even for newspapers and cable outlets, are a tiny portion of total revenue. (Where I worked, our advertising-to-subscription revenue ratio was about 90-10.)

    Individual media outlets (from FOX to CNN to the newspapers to all the rest) are not concerned with the “truth” of what they report. Frankly, they couldn’t care less. If you don’t want to believe me, fine, but I’m basing this on hundreds of editorial meetings I personally attended. What they care about is viewers and readers and that’s all. They are in an entertainment industry, and they know it. They don’t consider the other networks and newspapers their competitors. They consider video games and whatever else is the latest rave to be their competitors. They then tackle the problem through market segmentation, a tried-and-true business strategy, and attempt to shape the news to fit the audience they have selected as a target. Because the media is so segmented, if you get even a small percentage of households, you can make good money.

    So for the ordinary citizen wanting to be informed, is there a way around this? Possibly, but it’s not simple. Basically, you have to take responsibility for your own informing. You have to read or watch as many news sources as you have time for, and you must always get different points of view from actual advocates of those views and not simply “paraphrases” from their opponents. You also absolutely have to get news from multiple countries. Relying on U.S. media alone is just indefensible in the Internet age. Find out what the world is saying, not just Americans. Even countries which don’t have many English speakers often have English-language media online. Finally, read books.

    I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even waste my time arguing with people who think any outlet is “fair and balanced” (and no, I don’t just mean FOX). People who have been manipulated into thinking they’re getting the “news” from any one source don’t even know enough to know what they don’t know.

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  142. Yes, I do think we let the media push our fear buttons too much, and that those same buttons are potentially able to be pushed in all human beings, Christian or otherwise. But I also think Christians may be particularly vulnerable to such fear-mongering, especially when we let ourselves be guided as a group by an “ethic of security,” as described by Notre Dame researcher Darcia Narvaez.

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  143. “On some level, so what if something terrible happens in this lifetime? Isn’t the point of their faith (I think) that the Big Point *isn’t* about being safe in this lifetime- but about being held in the hands of God through out all of eternity.”

    In the gay marriage debate, I hear Christians often allude to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the underlying fear is that God will do the same to America. This is odd to me, since the book of Revelation says God is going to destroy the whole earth anyway and it can’t be stopped, gay marriage or no gay marriage.

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  144. I think this use of fear is based on the ‘culture war Christianity so prevalent today. It is the nature of politics to demonize you opponents in order to whip of opposition; so I am not shocked that fear of the other is used to manipulate individuals to vote or act a certain way. Of course, the media plays into it in order to get money. I also feel that certain pastors have played the fear game for their own purposes esp. when it comes to children…Harry Potter will turn your kids into witches…learning about evolution will turn you kids into soulless nazis etc…

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  145. I think Christians believe that fear is good, because they think that people need to be scared and in crisis in order to look to God. God might uses crises to draw a person to him, but that should be God’s right alone, not ours. That’s too dangerous a weapon for men to wield.

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  146. I do see this culture of fear almost everywhere I go.

    People need to just live their life.

    Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to be a farmer. It reminds me of a Ray Bradbury story I once read where a farmer in a small village watched as millions of cars drive down the highway because “the world had ended” and he just goes back to tilling the soil. What had happened was nuclear fallout in every major city and it didn’t affect him way out in the country at all. Interesting story and we would do good to consider it.

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  148. I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate (he doesn’t need one), but as the saying goes, sex sells, and I think the same applies to fear. There’s only one reason the marketers are trying to make money from it is because they WILL make money from it. I’m not saying it’s our fault, I’m just saying. Beck, Limbaugh, they didn’t make their money by telling us stories about babies and lollipops…

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  149. When the Evening News only lasted half an hour the anchormen presented the top stories, whatever they were, and that was that. I only remember a few occasions that warranted wall-to-wall coverage, such as the Kennedy assassination and the moon landing. The very fact the my mom’s afternoon soap operas were interrupted by the news meant that there was something very serious afoot and as a kid, when this happened I was very apprehensive. Scared, even.

    Thanks to 24-hour cable news networks, it’s like the Kennedy Assassination all the time and if I were to keep CNN or Fox on all day, I would be a nervous wreck and I too, would begin concocting bizarre conspiracy theories to account for all the horror.

    Every day a little girl is kidnapped, every day someone shoots up a crowd of people, every day there’s an earthquake in Indonesia, every day Mr. Obama says something a little frightening. Are our nervous systems equipped to stand all this? Most of these news doesn’t even affect us but scares us half to death anyway. It creates a climate of fear, where we become scared of our shadows.

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  150. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

    When I come across Christians who seem almost manic with fear, two things jump out at me:

    1) Fear makes it very, very difficult to love, turn the other cheek, or even view with any sense of fairness or justice people who are different or “other”. It seems the most basic commandments are difficult enough to follow already- when they feel directly threatening, how much more difficult?

    2) I cannot help but wonder where their faith is, if they are so terrified. On some level, so what if something terrible happens in this lifetime? Isn’t the point of their faith (I think) that the Big Point *isn’t* about being safe in this lifetime- but about being held in the hands of God through out all of eternity.

    It makes me so sad, really.

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  151. No, Michael, it’s not just you. The media environment can easily become overpowering and paralyzing. We need to be sharply aware that everything in media, from advertising to drama to news, has a subtext under it and a motive behind it. Americans are (for all practical purposes) brainwashed to fear (to name but several examples) swine flu, global warming, the New World Order, evil corporations, alien invasions, leftist radicals, right-wing fanatics, and psychotic Christians (who seem to be the villains on one out three “Law & Order” episodes in recent years). We’re made to feel shame if we don’t have the latest cell phone or the coolest hair gel. Media has always operated this way, but in the 24-7 world of a thousand channels, what was once a small part of life is now, for too many, life itself.

    I don’t believe we should “hunker down” in our Christian “bunkers” — I’m a huge advocate of engaging the culture — but the benefit to the spirit of throwing out the television, or at least restricting its use severely, can hardly be overestimated.

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  152. It is not just you, and its not even just crazy premill dispeys. Its whatever the news marketers decide to run up the pop charts. Remember Evian flu? Somehow we got through that one.

    DSY

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