One of the most dangerous and under-reported threats to the American people is the stranglehold liberal media have on our lives. Because of technological advances, media have mushroomed, and now include blogs and such.
The “old school” outlets—the television networks and institutions like the New York Times—are losing market-share, but that doesn’t mean they have watered-down their liberal ideology.
This past Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, we were treated to a panel that included token “conservative” George Will. At one point, Katrina vanden Heuvel—publisher of The Nation—actually launched what I thought was surely a stand-up routine when she referred to the “mythic liberal media.”
Soon after the narrator of a commercial for the New York Times mentioned the paper’s “highest standards of reporting.”
These things are said with a straight face. And when vanden Heuvel uttered her outrageous statement, Will sat with his hands folded and said nothing.
It is true that FOX has introduced a somewhat conservative news bureau, and that blogs and a few papers scattered here and there offer a conservative or even biblical viewpoint, but overwhelmingly, the media have been liberal for decades. This poses a great danger for our nation.
For example, when influencers like Jimmy Carter schmooze with terrorists like Hamas, this serves to confuse the populace. When Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War unwinnable—though as a private citizen seeing the country for a few days the iconic Cronkite couldn’t have known what he was talking about—the country became confused and divided.
There is one target of the liberal media, though, that makes all other attacks on a sane worldview look like rank amateurs:
Israel.
When Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said, in 2011, “If we say that we want to wipe Israel out…C’mon it’s too difficult. It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don’t say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself,” the New York Times had nothing to say.
A year earlier, when PLO/PA diplomat Maen Rashid Areikat said that “absolutely” no Jews could reside in a future Palestinian state…”the highest standards of reporting” were strangely silent.
Tragically, it isn’t only “secular” media that bash Israel. The United Methodist News Service reported on a 2006 trip in which denominational officials toured Israel and the Palestinian territories. The group met with Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh, who said, “The wall erected by the Israelis is a great violation of human rights and international law.”
It is of course neither, but the UMC and its news service peddle the liberal lie that Israel’s security fence is a grotesque evil. In point of fact, Israel’s security fence is 96 percent chain-link! The four percent that is concrete encompasses cities and towns where homicide bombers used to enjoy free range.
And does anyone seriously believe the Israelis undertook the expense of erecting the fence just to annoy the Palestinians?
Since Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (a dressed-up PLO) were allowed to enter Israel in 1994, there have been almost 30,000 terror attacks—almost 17,000 wounded and dead among both Jews and Palestinians.
This, however, is not on the radar of the New York Times or the United Methodist News Service. It would put too many dents in the Palestinian narrative.
There are scores of facts that never see the light of day in secular and liberal Christian news outlets. As David Meir-Levi pointed out in his extraordinary book, History Upside Down, Israel’s security fence raises international ire, which is highly selective:
“The fence separating Spain from Morocco at Ceuta, the British fence that ran through Belfast in Northern Ireland, the fence dividing North and South Korea, the fence that China built to keep out starving North Koreans, the fence dividing Greek from Turkish Cyprus, the fences between India and Pakistan and between India and Bangladesh, the fence between Batswana and Zimbabwe, the fence between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the fence recently built by Saudi Arabia to stop weapons smuggling from Yemen, and of course the controversial security fence planned to extend hundreds of miles on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
After several generations of liberals infected journalism schools, we see now the blending of those harmful initiatives with the rotting liberalism of American Christian seminaries and waves of multi-cultural emphases. All this fits the Emergent Church movement like a new suit of clothes.
Sadly, a new crop of young Christian journalists drinks from the cup of liberalism, and usually it’s in the alleged context of “justice” and “missional” activities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pages of Relevant magazine. Cameron Strang, the publisher, is the son of long-time Christian media mogul Stephen Strang (ironically, a staunch defender of Israel).
Cameron Strang recently returned from a trip to Israel/”Palestine” and it’s obvious which side influenced him the most. In a CNN religion blog, Strang telegraphed where his perspective has come to rest:
“There's no question the worldview of most younger Christians already differs from previous generations regarding social justice, cultural engagement and politics. The next issue of probable divergence? The conflict in Israel and Palestine. The American church has largely purported just one theology about the modern state of Israel, but now questions are being asked - especially by younger Christians learning of persecution and human rights issues happening in the region - if the church should have a more active role in peacemaking. Is there a way for the Church to be pro-Israel, pro-Palestine and pro-peace?”
First of all, one can gauge another’s perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict by listening to the geographical terms used. To refer to “Palestine” today is to refer to a place that doesn’t exist, at least not officially as a UN body. It is evidence of a political bias that favors the Palestinians, yet few notice because few know history, especially biblical history.
And Strang’s closing language—“pro-Israel, pro-Palestine and pro-peace”—comes directly from folks like the liberal change agent Brian McLaren and Lynne Hybels of Willowcreek Church.
Look for an increasing emphasis in Christian media on the plight of the Palestinians. As more and more Christian leaders “emerge” as advocates for the Palestinians, so too will like-minded media outlets work 24/7 to demonize the Jewish state and her strongest supporters, Bible-believing Christians.
In the old days, liberal media opposed the Church from the confines of Manhattan and Washington. Now, the battle is within the fort.
It is no mythic war.
(Jim Fletcher is a writer and speaker, and director of Prophecy Matters—www.prophecymatters.com; he can be reached at jim@prophecymatters.com)
