As a companion piece from yesterday’s blog essay, I also offer this further thought to you. It shocks us when someone leaves the faith becuase it is always hard to believe someone who professed faith never possessed it.
Perhaps you haven’t had much experience with Josh Harris. But maybe you’ve had people close to you fall away from the faith: a family member, a dear friend, a relative, a colleague, a college roommate, a pastor. But when these events occur, we can’t leave our questions hanging in mid-air. Unless we train our minds to go to the Bible when we hear of professing Christians denying the faith, we will be tossed to and fro by confusion, discouragement, and spiritual insecurity.
I can understand. If you have invested time and money and energy following a teacher and they fall or they ‘leave the faith’ it might send you reeling. ‘What now?’ you might ask. ‘What next?’ Worst of all are the doubts such an event leaves behind. ‘What does this mean for my faith, my discernment?’ Josh Harris, according to Wikipedia,
…is an American author and former pastor. Harris is widely known for his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, in which he laid out his ideas concerning a Biblically-based Christian approach to dating and relationships. I Kissed Dating Goodbye “helped shape purity culture” for many Christian millennials. Wikipedia
I said ‘alleged’ because there is no such thing as a Christian deconversion. 1 John 2:19 says “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
If someone “leaves” Christianity, they never were Christians. It might seem impossible when you’ve been watching a long-term pastor suddenly go out from the faith, or someone who has such good works, or another who wrote books that spoke to your mind and spirit. But external works are not the only evidence of faith. It’s perseverance too. If God has you, He HAS you. He will not allow the evil one to snatch you from His hand, nor can you leave Him (and why would you want to? If His Spirit is in you, you are part of His body).
Let’s say you are a person who has an interest in education, and you silently attended all the classes in a university without having been enrolled, and then after 4 years of participating in study groups, and being seen in the library, and taking all the tests, decided to ‘quit college’. CAN you quit something you never were an official part of? No.
Your fellow study buddies might be shocked, but then when they hear you had never taken SATs, never applied, never were accepted by the Dean, and never actually enrolled, never accumulated any credits, would never be an Alumni, then they’d understand. “Oh!” They would probably say. “He never was part of the College.”
There are many pretenders in the faith. Many. (Matthew 7:22)
If something like the Joshua Harris issue leaves you questioning, that’s good. It’s good to question our own faith once in a while. Examine our motives. (2 Corinthians 13:5). Whether we are truly saved or not saved, we are always moving. The falsely saved/ sadly deluded, as Josh was, move downward and away from the cross. The truly saved in increasing sanctification always move toward the cross.
Almost 40 years ago, writer Eugene Peterson coned the phrase that sanctification is a “Long obedience in the same direction.” Despite his latter difficulties with the faith, that was a terrific coinage. You can turn it around and say the opposite is also true.
The deluded or pretenders display the same thing- a long obedience in the same direction…just movement toward and obedience to satan and not Jesus. Eventually the split becomes obvious to others or unbearable to the false Christian pretender, and they “leave” the faith. The sad punctuation point for Harris is that once you have tasted the Gospel and reject it, you can never be brought to repentance again:
Hebrews 6:4–6, It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.
Because Harris has tasted and spit Jesus from his mouth, so, Jesus will do the same to Harris. (Revelation 3:15-16).
For the truly saved, nothing on heaven or earth can tear us from the Father’s hand. and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:28-30).
Marty Sampson, a prolific worship music writer known for his work with Hillsong Worship, Hillsong United, Delirious and Young & Free, revealed he is losing his faith and believes Christianity is “just another religion.”
So, this tells us that Marty Sampson was never saved in the first place. Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of the Father’s hand. Once you’re saved, you’re always saved. The Holy Spirit is sealed in us as a guarantee of this. (2 Corinthians 1:22). No man can UNseal what God has sealed.
1 John 2:19 also makes this promise of security of salvation. When someone leaves it’s the evidence they were not ever saved to begin with:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Thus, you can’t lose your faith.
So how does this happen? How is it that someone who is vigorous for the faith, working inside a church for the church, departs?
It’s a visible demonstration of this verse,
Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. (Matthew 13:5-6)
The pagan who is trying to keep up appearances finds that it’s all very tiring. Look how hard the Pharisees had to work to keep up the pretence of care for their flock and submission to God- fussing with lengthening tassels, praying long prayers in public, vying for best seats, outdoing each other in fasting, giving, and memorizing…it’s hard work to pretend.
Eventually the unrelenting spiritual anguish, resulting depression, religious confusion, and physical exhaustion gets to be too much. It’s easier to leave. And that is what Sampson and Joshua Harris and so many others did. Like Demas did, whom Paul said was in love with this present world, left the faith. Judas spent three years with Christ day in and day out, and still was revelaed to be an apostate when he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and left him behind in Gethsemane.
Imagine how hard it was to pretend to care for an unseen world that in your heart of hearts you’re never sure exists, or that you even want to be a part of in the first place.
Here is a sound podcast about the issue of apostatizing.
But there is one thing that never gets easier: when an individual who has professed Christ, immersed in the local church, and served in ministries, departs from the faith. AKA, “apostasy.” John Owen defined apostasy as “continued persistent rebellion and disobedience to God and his word,” or “total and final and public renunciation of all the chief principles and doctrines of Christianity.”
Included in this edition of Prata Potpourri are some things that either aren’t talked about enough (Lake of Fire) or are talked about so much that the wackadoodles have gotten a-hold of the issue and twisted it beyond all recognition (angels, spiritual warfare). Here are some credible links to these and other topics.
Jim Osman and Justin Peters’ video series on Spiritual Warfare is excellent. Here is the 8-part series-
Show 1 of 8: Justin Peters & Jim Osman on the: Doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to Biblical Spiritual Warfare. Justin Peters interviews Pastor & Author Jim Osman on the subject of Spiritual Warfare and Jim’s book: “Truth or Territory: A Biblical Approach to Spiritual Warfare”. Some examples of False Teaching on Spiritual Warfare are briefly discussed as well as some False Teachers are named. These issues will be discussed in greater detail in coming episodes. Jim Osman starts this series off by giving viewers a brief Testimony of how the LORD changed his thinking on this very important subject, then both Justin & Jim introduce viewers to the topic of the Doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture which is briefly defined and defended from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:3-4.
There have been some high-profile people proclaiming their abandonment of the faith this week. There have subsequently been a lot of response articles of various kinds. Here are two:
Are you surprised when you come across so-called Christians who claim to be followers of Jesus, but never ‘follow’ Him into a church? They say that attending church isn’t necessary to be a fully devoted Christian? I am. I am actually shocked when I deal with this among professing Christians. And it’s spreading.
What DOES the Bible say about angels, anyway? I love the thought of angels and I study Angelology (from credible sources). Here are two credible sources on a teaching about angels you might enjoy.
From Ligonier: The Final State of the Unbeliever. This will happen. Pray evangelistically and frequently! Romans 10:1 says, Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
I am a fervent believer in the sufficiency of and the importance of all of scripture. Around a quarter to a third of all scripture deals with last things, known as the study of Eschatology. That’s a lot.
I am also a believer in the clarity of the Word. This is known as the doctrine of the Perspicuity of Scripture.
In other words, God didn’t set down His clear revelations to us throughout the Bible only to purposely muddy Last Things. It’s ALL clear, if one studies hard and remains submitted to the illumination of the Spirit. Eschatology can be understood, if not 100% just like any other doctrine, at least with a high degree of confidence, just like any other doctrine.
Therefore, since it comprises so much of the Bible, we should be studying it. Since the Spirit promised to illuminate the Word to us, (Psalm 119:130) we should be studying it with the expectation that we can know to such a degree that we can and will cling to the promises made in the doctrine of Last Things, and obey the commands within them.
Because there are promises and commands within the study of Eschatology, it is doubly critical that we consider the Doctrine of Last Things just as important as the rest of the Doctrines of God, such as the Doctrine of Man, the Doctrine of Sin, the Doctrine of Angels, and so on. Eschatology should not be relegated to a back room because it’s allegedly too hard. I want to encourage you all to read and study with confidence and joy.
My own personal testimony regarding this issue is:
It has brought me bountiful awe. I read Revelation and literally sometimes my breath is taken away with the majesty of Jesus. Nowhere in scripture is He seen as He is now except in Revelation, and it’s simply awe inspiring. And yet for all His glorious majesty seen in that book, including His righteous wrath, when we further realize He is friend and father too, it brings me to my knees.
It has given me a perspective of eternity that helps me in the present. For example when an enemy sees to take my job or malign my reputation with heinous slander, (and these things have actually occurred in my Christian life), I look to last things and realize this IS but a short affliction. This perspective helps.
Knowing what is going to happen to the ungodly gives me a gratitude I can’t even express in words. I was a sinner who justifiably would receive the wrath we see in the prophetic books and other verses. There but for the grace of God go I, said John Bradford in the mid-sixteenth-century, seeing prisoners led to execution.
It enhances my love for first things. My favorite books in the Bible are Genesis and Revelation. Seeing God’s activity from beginning to end allows me a perspective of His work I would otherwise miss, I think, if I did not study Eschatology as much as I do.
And there are so many more benefits to studying it than these I’ve shared from my own life.
Remember, Last Things is the only doctrine and Revelation is the only book where Jesus promises that if one reads it you will receive a blessing. This promise is made twice in the book, once at the beginning and once at the end.
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (Revelation 1:3).
Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of prophecy in this book. (Revelation 22:7).
He would not have made that promise of blessing while tricking His children by making it impossible to understand it.
Dr. Nathan Busenitz delivered this “Premillennialism and History” lecture (also below embedded video) at The Master’s Seminary Chapel last year. He began with the following premises:
Why does eschatology matter?
1. Hermeneutics. One’s view of last things reveals his approach to interpreting the scriptures.
2. The issue of hope. God has given promises in His word as to what the future entails. These promises are the substance of our hope. We as believers are called to pace our trust in those promises.
3. Holiness. Last Things, the truth about what us to come are revealed to us in the scriptures to impact and motivate our lives in the present. An accurate understanding of last things is necessary to equip us to obey in the present. Our future hope promotes present obedience.
It isn’t just theoretical theology, eschatology matters.
Here is the video if you care to watch. Enjoy His word, all of it, including Last Things!
By Elizabeth Prata
I don’t have a hugely deep piece today. I just have an opinion. Not even resources to point you, just an opinion.
I’m tired of racism: the word and the act. People fling the word around on the basis of often faulty assumptions, or erroneous facts, or or fake news. They hurl accusations that damage.
I’m tired of racism itself. it exists not only in black vs white and vice versa. It occurs among many ethnic groups, tribes (Tutsi vs Hutu), and cultures.
My Irish grandfather emigrated to the US in the 1920s. It was the time of NINA, No Irish Need Apply. He had an Irish brogue but had lived in England for a few years and fortunately had a British passport. It’s the only reason he got a job.
My uncle was from Malawi Africa, dark black as coal. His siblings are too. When his sister and he began college in Alabama in the 1960s, they were advised that they would ‘fit in’ better there. They didn’t. Why? They were discriminated against by lighter skinned fellow blacks. Their daughter was bullied for being biracial.
The Gospel resolves those and other racism issues by letting us know we are one family in Christ.
Yes, peoples all over the world are oppressed, discriminated against, and even killed for being the ‘wrong’ color/tribe/ethnicity.
One need not be white to be racist and one need not be black to be discriminated against. It happens. It shouldn’t happen. In heaven, it won’t happen.
But in Christ, there is no Jew, no Greek, no slave or free. No hierarchies, intersectionality, victimhood, we are all overcomers and all one family. Anyone not presently in the family of God is invited in, and they are welcomed if they repent and believe. It’s not an exclusive club:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands”, Revelation 7:9
We’re all going through something. We all have burdens, griefs, and issues to deal with. If not at this moment, we might be coming out of one or going into one. The Lord said that in this life we would have trouble. (Jon 16:33).
He cares for us and will be with us every step of the way. He said to cast our cares to Him.
Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)
Believe it!
Still not sure?
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6-7).
Really!
Think of it this way. There are 8 billion people alive on earth today. Of those, how many Christians are there in the world at any given moment? Millions? Hundreds of millions? Since Jesus calls us to cast our cares upon Him, and there are hundreds of millions of Christians doing just that each day, it’s a gigantic pile of cares. He handles it. In the face of all that, he can handle your checkbook. Your mother’s cancer. Your daughter’s shoplifting. Your husband’s grumpiness. Your job search. He can handle it, and He does.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will do it. (Psalm 37:5)
Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. (Luke 10:20)
to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, (Hebrews 12:23)
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with pa new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. (Revelation 2:17)
Everyone who wins the victory will wear white clothes. Their names will not be erased from the book of life, and I will tell my Father and his angels that they are my followers. (Revelation 3:5)
When I’m teaching, and a child has finally exceeded his limit of chances and warnings, we call for his agenda notebook which goes home every day, and write his name down in it. It’s a sobering moment. He knows it’s serious, he knows he’s in trouble. He looks downcast. The other children quiet down too, not wanting their name to go home with a “bad note” to mom and dad.
We also have a program where we write a note to mom and dad on a postcard lauding the child for good work or super behavior. We mail it. They love to see their names written on the gaily colored postcard coming in the “real mail”, just for them. They are so proud.
Imagine the gravity of the moment when your name will be revealed in heaven…where will it be written down? It it in the Lamb’s Book of life in heaven? Or is it written on a tombstone where you will endure the second death?
If you have repented of your sins to Jesus, who was the sacrificial lamb taking on the sin of the world, died, and was resurrected, and turned your life over to Him, snatching it away from satan, your name will be revealed in heaven in glory as a righteous child of God. If not, then your name will be revealed in heaven as a child of satan and you will be cast to the second death.
These are not popular thoughts, I know. Everyone likes to think his name is written in heaven and glory awaits, because “God is love” and how could he not love me, they think. But the truth is that “many will go to destruction.” (Matthew 7:13). Please don’t let that be you. Repent, live for Christ, follow His precepts, obey righteousness, and these fleeting troubles will melt away as the postcard to heaven reveals your lauded name to the Father.
In the song “The Solid Rock” we sing the lyric ‘He is my hope and stay’. Did you ever wonder what a stay is?
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
In Isaiah 10:20 in the KJV the word stay is used. It means, To rest; to rely; to confide in; to trust.
It’s good to remember that the Lord is our hope and stay. He is strong and we can rely upon Him and His promises.
When Edward Mote wrote the song in 1834, sailing was the only mode of travel across the sea. People were familiar with ships on rivers, lakes, and of course, the ocean. Steamships hadn’t come to the fore yet.
In Mote’s time, women’s whalebone undergarments were made with a bone lining of rigid ‘fingers’ called “stays”. Whale baleen isn’t really bone but is robust but flexible, and was cut into narrow strips, inserted into the lining of outer garments, creating whalebone bodices or ‘bodies’ that molded the torso into a tight and conical V-shape that was sought-after at the time. In the 17th century, these whalebone linings became distinct, separate understructures, known as stays. (info source)
What we have come to know as a corset (a term not used until the 18th century) was previously known as stays. It is not likely however, that a genteel man writing a hymn of praise to the Lord would intend a mental picture of a ladies undergarment for his metaphor.
So what is a stay, then?
As a result of the familiarity with ships, many people were acquainted with the terms of a ship. Mast, bow, port & starboard, etc were commonly known. A stay on a ship is a piece of rigging that holds up the mast. Rather, their downward pressure hold the mast in place. It’s critical that all the stays, do their job in harmony to perfection, every time.
Stays are ropes, wires, or rods on sailing vessels that run fore-and-aft along the centerline from the masts to the hull, deck, bowsprit, or to other masts which serve to stabilize the masts. A stay is part of the standing rigging and is used to support the weight of a mast.
I lived on a sailboat for two years. We regularly inspected all the rigging, including the stay. If the mast falls down, you’re in serious trouble. The boat will roll, might even capsize. The mast, till attached to the rigging, is a mess and might trap your foot and you’d drown. The broken mast might punch a hole in the boat as it wildly pitched, having no balance. Lots of things.
I was on a friend’s boat in the Bahamas, sailboat racing, when his forestay came loose. His mast fell down he was pitched in the water amid the soggy huge sail and all the ropes and rigging. We had to get him on the boat fast before he got wrapped in it and pulled underwater. Luckily it was a calm day and we were providentially near the only port in the entire Bahamas that had a crane lift and mechanics and riggers to fix the mast. And all because one piece of rigging, the forestay, failed. The stay holds up the mast, or rather, holds the mast down with pressure.
I do not know what author Edward Mote had in mind when he wrote that line, but it’s comforting and lovely nonetheless.
Jesus IS my hope. He IS my stay. The original title to the song, was in the author’s Hymns of Praise, 1836, is No. 465, and entitled, “The immutable Basis of a Sinner’s hope”. Source info: John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
News. Love it. Hate it. Need it. Fake news. Real news. The good old days of news. The bad old days of news.
Sigh.
We think news should be unbiased, and it should be, but it is a relatively new phenomenon. The golden age of unbiased, pure news was relatively short, a true golden age. During the 1972 Watergate scandal when the President of the United States stood accused of various abuses of power, good journalism came into American scrutiny and vernacular. It was reporters, diligent, honest, unbiased reporters who broke that story, one which led to the only American president ever resigning. We weren’t too concerned with non-bias immediately prior to that moment in history, presupposing that the news we were given was true. It wasn’t always.
The largely male Washington press corps looked the other way then and likewise kept Kennedy insulated from sexual scandal during his presidency.
Before that, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, the press corps had a gentleman’s agreement, or actually a forced tacit agreement, that they would do everything possible to avoid displaying in photography or words, the President’s disability and the fact that he was in a wheelchair.
Bias of sensationalism:
And let’s not start on yellow journalism at the turn of the last century just prior to Roosevelt’s time that would put this millennium’s fake news to shame.
Yellow journalism and the yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. Source
Anonymity:
Even further back, for example, Benjamin Franklin created an entire persona (Mrs Silence Dogood) and anonymously left his writings under the door of the newspaper editor, who happened to be his brother, who never would publish anything Benjamin wrote. Such anonymity in news writing in past decades was looked down upon in real journalism, but seems today with the advent of anonymous blog commenting, Twitter, and other social media, it’s now an anything goes wild west of reporting, anonymous or not.
It’s important to use constructive and informative language, language that’s precise and not evasive, language that solves, not destroys. With anonymous blogging and such, those qualities are all too often abandoned as a first resort and the lowest linguist denominator is used instead. This problem is gravitating to even Christian reporting, where the reporter, who may or may not be anonymous, does the same.
As already mentioned, the age of sterling reporting was short. In my opinion, perhaps between 1971-2001. Certainly by 2007 the news bias in America became widely evident during the Obama-McCain campaign, morphing into the general travesty we now endure.
I’ve been a professional news journalist and a newspaper editor. I have also been on the receiving end of news reporting. The Open Letter to Beth Moore published on this blog and here & here, sparked controversy in much wider realms than I usually run. I noticed a range of good-to-bad reporting that I’d like to offer you today as a lesson in detecting news bias.
One note: none of the reporters to my knowledge attempted to contact any of the Open Letter ladies nor do I believe they tried to contact Moore. It is a basic principle to try to speak with all parties. But all 3 reporters relied solely on already-posted material online. That’s not horrible, it is lazy though. It’s best practice to actually interview the subjects who are being reported on.
I am sure I hadn’t caught up with all the news that published stories about the Open Letter. Not that there were a plethora, but of the ones I managed to find or be told about, I believe these three represent the gamut of good, medium, and bad ranks of reporting. Let’s start with the good.
This headline and article from Crosswalk.com is pretty good. It uses neutral language, states what the article is about, and isn’t inflammatory.
The actual article was pretty good, too. The headline and first sentence didn’t really “call into question” Beth Moore’s stance on homosexuality, because we don’t know what her stance IS. That’s why we published the letter, but I let that go. The author forgot to mention the name of one of the original signers of the letter, a factual mistake that didn’t need to be made. But the overall reporting on the issue was accurate.
In reporting, one needs to read as many of the facts related to the issue as possible, then distill them, choosing salient facts necessary to the issue AND of interest to readers for their understanding, restate them neutrally in language that will be comprehensible to the reader, and present both sides if there are two sides to the issue. That’s reporting.
In choosing the salient facts to present to the reader, the author is making a subjective judgment. The higher the skill level with the least amount of personal investment in an issue, the better the article will be. But there is really no such thing as totally unbiased reporting, because of the choices that need to be subjectively made as objectively as possible. The Crosswalk article did a good job of that, even including the full 5 questions within the article and un-truncated quotes from it. I rate the article an A.
Lesson Example #2
This next article is from a news organization called NOQ, News-Opinion-Quotes.
They went for a slightly more inflammatory headline and included the fact that one of the signers of the letter was later blocked by the addressee, Beth Moore. Now, the date an article is published relative to the incident being reported is important. The first article above was published the day after it appeared on my blog, The End Time, and on DebbieLynne Kespert’s blog and the same day it appeared on Michelle Lesley’s. Moore hadn’t had time to refuse to answer, nor had Lesley been blocked yet.
The NOQ article appeared 10 days later, after a period of time had passed where it became obvious that Moore was not going to answer, controversy had erupted, and Moore had engaged in certain actions such as blocking. Those subsequent facts were now part of the story. The headline can thus be called accurate, since Moore’s refusal to answer and the block were now wrapped into the issue.
The article singled Michelle out as a sole signer, which isn’t accurate, as there were 6 total signers. But the author did use a subjective opinion (an accurate one) when writing,
The letter is not confrontational towards Moore; however, it does ask that she confront the Bible and homosexuality.
It’s accurate because there are no words in the Open Letter than can be construed as confrontational, so the author’s assessment of it as non-confrontational isn’t opinion or bias, but a factual judgment call. However, note that othrs did assign the language in the Letter as confrontational. That’s why it’s a judgment call and it’s best left etirely off the table when reporting.
The author chose to include lengthy pull quotes in the article as well as the full 5 questions that Moore was being asked to illustrate his point. This is good.
In journalism, you want to present the facts as neutrally as possible and allow the reader to arrive at his or her conclusions. In this next paragraph, though, the author arrives at his own conclusions and presents them to the reader, telling him or her what to think. Not as good.
The implication is clear that Beth Moore refuses to address concerns, especially as it pertains to her notable dive off the deep end of woke-ism. Social Justice is incompatible with Biblical Justice and those who embrace the former seldom adhere closely to scripture. We can look at the PCUSA, the Episcopal church, Lutherans, and various factions within the United Methodist Church and see this.
That, and the next two paragraphs veer into certain heresies and discusses the social justice issue, which the letter didn’t really have a a lot to do with. Bringing in other issues perhaps betrays an agenda on the author or the news organization. It also concludes with another “I’m telling you what to think” paragraph.
This article is a medium on the scale, a C+.
This third article was a disappointment. OK, it was a massive travesty, if you really want my opinion Sadly, it represents the kind of journalism that we’re all-too-familiar with: BAD.
The Open Letter that I was involved with didn’t “call anyone out.” It asked a popular Bible teacher her stance on homosexuality. That’s it. The inclusion of the word “again” makes it sound like I and the other ladies make a habit of calling Beth Moore out on homosexuality. The Ecumenicalism wasn’t a part of the letter, the author just threw that accusation in. Thus, the headline is inaccurate, inflammatory and prejudicial. It gets worse.
The author’s entire first paragraph describes the criticism Beth Moore has endured lately and thus the article begins with soliciting sympathy for one of the parties the author is supposed to be objectively reporting on. This is bias.
Bias of word choice:
in an open letter demanding Moore clarify her stance on homosexuality. [italics mine]
The word demanding is a prejudicial word, betraying an agenda. In journalism, look for words such as “stated” “asked”, “said” or “presented”. Those are neutral words, keeping the focus of the sentence on the facts, not the emotion.
When authors start using words like demanded, it puts a picture in the mind of the reader that the author wants there, not as a result of the facts, but because of her own bias.
Bias of scare quotes:
According to Michelle Lesley and a handful of other “female Bible teachers”,
Here, the author uses scare quotes. They are also called sneer quotes. Definition: ‘quotation marks used around a word or phrase when they are not required, thereby eliciting attention or doubts’; and are “employed to convey derision, irony, or skepticism” as this article about three erroneous uses of scare quotes describes further.
These are unnecessary quotes used to disparage a person, in this case, we “female Bible teachers.” Note that the first article simply stated that we are Bible teachers. The Church Leaders article used scare quotes to describe us. Whenever you see excessive scare quotes, it means the author is sneering, dosplaying bias, and isn’t as neutral as she should be. Run from the article. Still not sure? Note the difference-
The letter alludes to the various public statements Moore has made recently
Among the reasons is the alleged lackadaisical attitude Moore displays
The reporter is maligning the Open Letter writers’ credibility by using language that insinuates we have communicated vague or ambiguous claims. Should be “The letter refers to the various public statements…” and so on.
Lesley articulates the problem with Moore striking such amicable relationships with Merritt and Hatmaker this way:
Amicable is a judgment call, indicating bias. It skews the sentence into another opinion the author wants the reader to have. Better to drop the ‘amicable’ entirely. Just say ‘relationships’ and let the reader decide what kind of relationships they were.
So far, Moore hasn’t addressed the letter publicly (she rarely addresses criticism directly)
Facts not in evidence. How does the author know that Moore rarely addresses criticism directly? If the author knows this, was her knowledge gained via a social media relationship, which should be announced to readers so they can assess authorial bias, or does she know this because she contacted Moore and learned it first hand, in which case this fact should be in quotes and attributed to Moore? The author is displaying bias again, telling readers what to think. The enclosed parentheses are another clue.
Buice also takes issue, specifically, with Moore’s ecumenicalism, which is apparent in her willingness to work with other Christian leaders from different denominations
Is it apparent? No. This is another biased judgment call on the author’s part. If she wanted to include that fact she should give an example of the ‘apparent willingness’. She is leading readers to the conclusion she wants. And the ‘other denominations’ Moore works with in this context, is Catholic, which is not a denomination but a false religion. The author is biased and ignorant of religious falsity.
she has made a couple comments that could very easily be interpreted as alluding to the pettiness of the criticism
The author again is displaying bias by telling her readers that the criticism (which isn’t criticism, but an honest question) is petty. The author has inserted her opinion into the article. It’s just opinion writing at this point, not reporting.
Several of the comments garnered by the debate point to the general public’s disgust at the in-fighting present in the church today.
As the author opened the article with sly innuendos about unfair criticism against Moore, she ended with with a general, non-specific (and unnecessary to the point of the Open Letter) statement reminding the reader of the public’s disgust with in-fighting, leaving the reader the impression once again that the Open Letter writers were unfair in asking Beth Moore the questions that were asked.
Overall rating of this article: F-
I’m disappointed in the author’s overt bias and negligent reporting. She’s a Christian according to her bio. These things should not be. Grace and benefit of the doubt should be given. It wasn’t.
It’s even more disappointing because according to her byline, she has written nearly 1000 articles. Hopefully her bias hasn’t shown through in 999 others of them. Perhaps she’s been more fair and neutral elsewhere than she was in this article.
Conclusion
When you’re reading Christian news articles, or even secular articles, look for neutral headlines devoid of inflammatory language, headlines that match the article, and headlines that have captured the essence of the article’s point. Look for neutral language that doesn’t lead the reader to the author’s biased conclusion, and is absent sneering scare quotes. Look for whole, not truncated quotes, an absence of adjectives, attributable facts, and is generally honest and fresh. In other words, a unicorn. LOL, well not really, but the reporting I’ve described IS becoming rarer these days. Treasure it if you find it.
Elizabeth Prata was a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and her newspaper is a three-time winner in writing categories in the New England Better Newspaper Competition, the largest and most comprehensive journalism recognition program in New England.
She has also worked for the Athens Daily Banner Herald, and contributed articles to the Madison County Journal and Maine Monthly.
the-end-time.org 