Fox&Friends Lie About A Newsweek Article – During Holy Week!!!!
Reported by Priscilla - April 12, 2009 -
I thought that Christians were supposed to be secure in their faith. However, from the negative coverage being given to Jon Meacham’s Newsweek article (“The End of Christian America’) Fox News’s Christians seem to be quite threatened by the article as they frequently allude to it being an “attack” on Christianity. It would appear that they haven’t read the article because it is nothing of the sort. But there is an 11th Commandment amongst conservative Christians in the Fox Nation and that is “thou shall not speak of Christianity in terms other than loving and reverential.” Those who write opinion pieces, based on real-time hard data, are anathema and are doomed to the fiery furnaces of smear campaigns by Fox News. Christianity, in the Fox Nation, is on the march and anyone who dares say otherwise is going to hell!!! But in the spirit of Holy Week should we forgive them for “they know not what they do?”
Update - Focus On The Family's James Dobson says that evangelical conservatives have lost the culture war. Is he attacking evangelical conservatives? Is this a sign of impending "end times?" How will Fox News spin this?
H/T Think Progress
Earlier this week, Steve Doocy mentioned the Newsweek article in two interviews. (here and here) Poor Steve was “aghast” that the Newsweek article appeared during Holy Week and said that "Christianity appears to be under attack." (So major magazines now have to set up their publishing schedule around Christian holidays?). The war on Christians meme was also included in the coverage of the Notre Dame "controversy" when Brian Kilmeade asked Rev. Littleton if the Notre Dame issue was "an attack on Christianity." Gretchen Carlson said that she actually thinks that the Notre Dame thing is an "attack" on Christianity. Friday(April 10th), Gretchen Carlson introduced the Christian whinefest by saying that “the recent cover of Newsweek makes the claim that Christianity is on the decline but why is this attack coming now, during the most holy week for Christians.” First, the “claim” is backed up by polling data and second, how is an article that analyzes the current state of American Christianity an “attack?” Brian Kilmeade introduced their guest, a Texas minister, Max Lucado. Kilmeade asked if Lucado was offended by the Newsweek story. (Did Fox’s John Moody instruct the crew to phrase any commentary about the article and Notre Dame in negative "attack" terms?). Lucado didn’t have a problem with it because, according to Lucado, God’s work isn’t “dependent on numbers.” As he spoke, the “evil” cover of Newsweek was shown. In fact, minister Lucado gave credence to the stat’s referenced in the article when he said that “Christ does his best work in a minority.” Doocy cheerleaded for the Christian team when he said that 75% of the country does believe in God and “that is a landslide.” (Yay, Team). Lucado, who seems like a nice person, talked about the “unique hope” of Easter. When Gretchen Carlson said that one can assume that the reason why Newsweek put this on the cover was to sell magazines, Lucado said he couldn’t speak to the motives of the publisher.
Yesterday morning, on Fox&Friends, the weekend crew interviewed Mike Huckabee about Obama’s Christian nation comment. While Huckabee spoke about how the Founders “were not afraid to say we’re a Christian nation,” the chyron read “Magazine uses Holy Week to question religion.”
Comment: Rather than actually discuss the content of the Newsweek article, Fox chooses to denigrate it without any reference to the substance of the article beyond the polling data. If they were “real journalism, fair and balanced,” they would interview Jon Meacham who appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” recently to discuss the article. Meacham talked about how the Christianity of the civil rights movement was taken up by the religious right after Roe v Wade at which point the religious right used their version of Christianity to wage a culture war which, Meacham posits, they are losing. The article is interesting and well written. It’s thoughtful and doesn’t deserve to be summarily dismissed, in simplistic terms, as “an attack on Christianity.” But then, the Fox Nation does love simplicity and it’s easier to be told what is “bad” than actually come to one’s own conclusion. One assumes that the Fox Nation doesn’t even read Newsweek and they certainly won’t now because it’s been deemed unsuitable by the militant Christians on Fox News. If the Fox congregation read the article, I don’t think their faith would be shattered. Contrary to what the Fox Christian soldiers say, it isn’t an “attack” on their faith. Meachan quotes the president of the Southern Baptist Seminary who says, "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." Meacham says, “Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian.” But this type of exegesis is a little too nuanced for the Christian Fox Nation which likes to be told who and what to hate. Onward Christian soliders, marching for Fox News.
