Anti-Christianity: Exhibit A
by Robert Morrison
January 6, 2010
For those of us who have to read the Washington Post, it can often be a trial. We are used to having our political, economic, social, and foreign policy principles trashed on a daily basis. We know that the Post considers us “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” Our hometown paper regards us Christians as, at best, interlopers here. One of the prime examples I cite was the cartoon done by the late Herblock. He depicted anti-abortion demonstrators as decidedly déclassé. The woman bearing a placard looked mean-spirited and frowsy. But at least she was a woman. The man in the cartoon wore a ragged black frock coat, a broad-brimmed hat, and nasty little granny glasses perched on his long and disapproving nose. Here was the best part: in the pocket of down-at-the-heels preacher was a snake. Oh my. How very tolerant the tolerance troopers are.
For sheer leer and sneer, however, you’d be hard-pressed to top the Post’s TV critic, Tom Shales. Shales has made a career of looking down his nose at just about everything that we cherish. They are the beliefs of tens of millions of us from outside-the-Beltway (and tens of thousands inside-the-Beltway, too) Shales came down like the big ball in Times Square this new year on Brit Hume.
The former FOX News anchor, now a senior commentator, had the temerity to recommend to Tiger Woods that he get right with Jesus. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the horror! Shales thought Hume was “dissing” all the Buddhists in the world by stating Christianity offered forgiveness and redemption that exceeded that of other faiths. And he said it—gasp—on camera.
Okay, Mr. Shales. Let’s talk about Christian forgiveness. I’d like to take you to the Lincoln Memorial. There, the words of the majestic Second Inaugural are inscribed on the wall. President Lincoln offered this thought about the slavery issue that had convulsed the country through four long years of civil war: “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”
Where do you think that “judge not” phrase came from? Was it a saying of Buddha? Or Mohammed? Or might it possibly have been found in Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 1, and offered by You Know Who?
Frederick Douglass was the first black man ever invited to an inaugural reception at the White House. Unlike today, where the uninvited get in, guards tried to keep President Lincoln’s guest out. When the President saw Douglass after he had climbed through the window, he hailed him. “There’s my friend Douglass.” He motioned for the champion of black Emancipation to come to the head of the line. He asked for Douglass’ opinion of the Address. “Mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort.”
What? Sacred efforts undertaken on the Capitol steps? Wasn’t Lincoln attempting to shove religion down Americans’ throats? If Tom Shales had been there to report on that scene, would he have carped: “He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?” Was Lincoln trying to—shudder—proselytize?
How else could Ulysses S. Grant treat Robert E. Lee and his ragged rebel hosts with such tenderness, such dignity, at Appomattox? What else could explain Lincoln’s policy of “letting `em up easy” than an understanding of forgiveness and redemption—as taught in the Christian Scriptures?
I am not saying Lincoln and Grant were evangelists. Or born-again Christians. But at their best they lived and acted in a world formed by biblical ideals. They were—as millions of Americans then and now—shaped by scriptural truths.
If Brit Hume had gone to Thailand and there told a TV audience that Buddhism was inadequate, there might be room for protest. If he had confronted the Dalai Lama and urged him to give it all up, there might be room for Shales’ haughty harrumphs. But Brit was reaching out in a most tender-hearted way to a man whom he admired greatly—whom we all admired greatly. Brit was offering Tiger Woods balm in Gilead. You can enter the Kingdom of Heaven with that—and even pass through airport security.
Family Research Council is a 501c(3) non-profit organization. If this post has been helpful to you, please consider a gift to help us continue to advance Faith, Family, and Freedom.
Comments
PS – I assume that you would have us shaped by “Scriptural Truths” in the same way that Ancient Greece was shaped by “Homeric Truths”? That’s what you’re referring to–people who reference the Bible, not believing in it, but using it as a resource or a library of quotes, just as one would use Homer or Shakespeare? I wouldn’t disagree, but I don’t think that this is what the FRC believes in. That’s what Liberal Christians believe in, but you hate them.
Secondly, by citing this example, you have contradicted your own premise. Hume wasn’t referencing a Bible Verse, he was proslytizing. He was evangelizing. He was saying that Tiger needs to come to Jesus to be saved. He wasn’t saying “there’s a season for everything under heaven” or that America is a “City on a Hill”. That would have been fine. He did what no self-respecting public leader would have ever done, and used the political talk show forum as a way to condemn every religion but Christianity and to appeal to a man to be saved. That’s no doubt what the FRC and it’s supporters believe. But, it’s what more than half of the planet does NOT believe, and therefore it opens him to immense and justified criticism.
By the way, Allah and his prophet are the only way to save your infidel soul. Reject Jesus and come to Allah. See, proselytizing is not so offensive, is it?
By: Bob | January 7, 2010 at 11:23 am
Abraham Lincoln was not a Christian. He remained uncommitted even until his death. This is copiously documented in his biographies. It is believed that, as a young man, Lincoln authored a Pamphlet debunking Christianity, in the tradition of Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason”. He later burned all copies because he feared that it would hamper his political career.
You were saying about Lincoln?
However, this is beside the point. Brit Hume is welcome to demonstrate his ignorance and to present the plan of Salvation on FOX as much as he wants. When he does, the rest of the world, Washington Post included, is more than welcome to lambaste him. That’s called Free Speech. Say what you want, but if you’re an idiot, people will tell you so. There’s nothing anti-Christian about that. When Hume re-presented his altar call on O’Reilly’s show, it was just after he finished lying about Bush’s record on terror (a matter of public record in the 9/11 report). Not to mention, isn’t Hume on his second Marriage? Perhaps he was speaking as one hypocrite to another?