The Reverend Dan Rather
Bob Lee, station manager for WDBJ in Richmond, Virginia, says he's never seen
anything like it. Angry viewers sent 1,000 phone calls, E-mails, and letters his
way after CBS News apologized for a "60 Minutes" broadcast which used
discredited documents.
"It's damaging," says Jeff Fager, executive producer of "60
Minutes."
"I'd be very surprised if heads didn't roll," says Alex Jones,
director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center.
"Rather is wearing a scarlet letter," says Bob Steele of The Poynter
Institute.
Ratings for the CBS Evening News, already low, hit a nadir point. Viewers fled
the nightly program in droves. The reason: telling for true a report based on
papers nobody could authenticate. Simple as that. The result? "60
Minute's" ticking clock has Mickey Mouse hands as Dan Rather becomes grist
for late-night comedic mills. Society's jokesters are having a field day.
Whereas, most likely the evangelical church will also come down hard on Dan
Rather and be among those voices calling for his retirement in disgrace from the
tube, this might be a good time to extract the beam in our ecclesiastical eye
before criticizing the splinter in CBS's.
On any given day, Sunday or otherwise, the most ridiculous twaddle parades as
truth from both auditorium and television pulpits. Electronic and real-live
reverends dispense nonsense by the bucketsful in the form of stories
(inspirational and otherwise) told as gospel fact. TV preachers and pulpiteers
disgorge more blathering per square inch than carnival barkers huckerstering
customers to come see Goat Man. From empty heads in the pulpit, to gullible
minds in the pews and dens across America and around the world, preachers are
filling the troughs with the pretend water of "true" stories.
These stories range from the simply silly to downright character assassination.
In the simply silly category our own Rev. Dan Rathers breathlessly report the
astounding news that Russian engineers have not only drilled their way into
hell, but have the tape recorded screams of the damned to prove it.
In a story with no names and no locations, preachers report that hostile natives
(somewhere) size up and flee from missionaries because they see 26 (or whatever
the changing number is) angelic creatures standing behind them. When the
missionaries return to their (unnamed) church (somewhere) in America, they
report their story and learn that at the very same hour the hostiles were
fleeing, exactly 26 (or whatever the number is) church members were at prayer
meeting praying for them.
Respected Christian magazines, et al. report of NASA scientists who can't figure
out a time line until one of their number (unnamed) shows up with his Old
Testament to turn to Joshua's long day and solve the computer problem. The
simply silly abounds.
In an effort to build up one candidate at the expense of another, we read and
circulate the story of how President Bush took time from an important dinner, a
fundraiser, or whatever, to spend 30 minutes witnessing for Christ to a
teenager. The Internet circulates that falsehood around the world.
More sinister are those stories intended to kill a person's character. Making
its rounds on the evangelical Internet is the story that Senator John Kerry,
when asked his favorite Bible verse, said, "John 16:3," thus making it
obvious that he and the Bible don't know each other. However, the same story
surfaced about Vice President Al Gore four years ago. With a joyous click of our
mouse, we send it on.
Mike Warnke, "Christian comedian," travels the country and empties the
pockets of Christians in packed auditoriums so that he can fight the cult of
Satan from which he came. Yet, upon examination, we find that his claims to be
in certain places with certain devil worshippers don't check out. He drops off
the circuit (with our money).
The FCC has to mail letters to pastors all over the place because of bazillions
of petitions from scared Christians who have been told that Madeline Murray
O'Hare has gotten a bill before the U. S. House of Representatives to throw all
preachers off the airwaves. (From what we're hearing from some preachers, this
might not be such a bad idea.) The FCC asks pastors to tell people to cease and
desist; it's all an elaborate hoax some one dreamed up. It resurfaces every few
years.
Proctor and Gamble holds executive meetings to stem the rising tide of a
Christian boycott because, as the story goes, "The president of the company
is a Satan worshipper who said so on a national talk show." Nobody in the
church seems to notice that the name of the talk show changes in the story. Not
only that, but we're told that its logo is straight from the pit. After
sustaining huge economic damage from this story, P & G finally tracked down
and prosecuted the originators of the story (who turned out to be two sales
people, a husband and wife, from the competition). Score one for P & G.
Such stories find willing minds, because, for some unfathomable reason,
Christians love conspiracy theories. (Although the Bible does speak of a vast
conspiracy-II Cor. 4:4-P & G seems more fun to fight.)
But there's a big price to pay-the church loses its credibility, and once lost,
it's hard to get it back. The person in the pew wonders what's true and what
isn't. If we tell him about the (unnamed) blind father of the (unnamed) football
player from the (unnamed) high school, who goes to heaven and finally gets to
see his son play what the coach calls the best game of his life, if we tell him
of our tapes from the pit, and our special NASA scientist with our Bible and he
learns that those are all a hoax, then won't he wonder if the gospel is a hoax
also?
Peter said, "We have not followed cunningly devises fables," yet we
find the church not only buying into the Christian urban legends of our day, not
only clicking the mouse and sending them on, but also making them up.
Watch out for stories with no names, no locations, and no dates. Most, by their
very nature aren't verifiable. If we can't verify them, we shouldn't pass them
on.
The Rev
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