Posted on 10/28/2006 7:08:27 PM PDT by infoguy
An October 17, 2006, op-ed by Los Angeles Times columnist Joel "I Don't Support Our Troops" Stein condescendingly slams Christianity as a "death cult."
Writing a lippy account of a Presbyterian service he had recently attended, Stein belches,
"The first thing I noticed about church was how much like PBS it was. The lighting was dim, the speakers talked slowly, the songs were dated, there were a lot of references to reading material and every so often my eye line was interrupted by envelopes asking me to donate money. Also, I kept falling asleep."
And (bold added),
"I'd never realized how much of a death cult Christianity is. When we weren't fixating on how awesome Christ's murder was, we were singing about how terrific it was going to be when we bite it. Chipper up, Christians! There's a lot to live for. They're making more of those 'Narnia' movies."
Cute, eh? Ugh. There's more to Stein's column, but suffice it to say that it is a disrespectful and dismissive slap at Christianity.
A few days after Stein's arrogant column appeared, the Times, surprisingly, published two letters that were critical of the column.
Thank you, Richard Rorex of Apple Valley, California (bold mine):
Joel Stein's column would qualify as hate speech if the subject were anything other than Christianity. Making light of one of the two mandated ordinances of the Christian religion does not show any sense of decency. Considering the furor over the cartoons of Muhammad published in Europe, I do not understand why Christianity is fair game for ridicule.
And thank you, David Schwankle of Riverside, California, whose letter begins, "Even though I'm an atheist, I find myself offended by Stein's glib, juvenile ridicule of a church service."
As NewsBusters reported a couple weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times recently solicited readers for advice on how to improve their newspaper. My very first piece of advice, which I documented in the comments section and at the forum at the Times web site, was for the paper to hire a columnist with a genuine Christian worldview. At NewsBusters, we have documented several instances of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic bias at the Times. Stein's column simply adds to the pile of examples.
The Times seems to care very little about how often their columns offend Christians. If they did care, they would do something significant about it - right away.
It is instructional to learn that the type of person the LA Times hires an immature man, devoid of wisdom, and clearly lost.
A good allegory for the MSM itself.
Looks like this will work here too.
Rom. 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
I doubt it was a PCUSA church, if they were talking about the Atoning Death of Christ. Big difference between Presbyterians and PCUSA. James Kennedy and RC Sproul are Presbyterians.
In some ways, the Stein commentary provides useful feedback regarding Christian methods of communication.
We were all unbelievers at one time or another. In that state we perceived the world in the same fashion as does Stein reflect in his comments. We essentially perceived with our senses and with our thinking in rationalism and some appeal to emotionalism where rationalism was insufficient to promote our desires or satiate our inpatience.
When we became believers, God, the Holy Spirit gave each of us our own spiritual gifts, some known to us, some unknown.
The gifts of communication given by the Holy Spirit included evangelism (a spiritual gift to communicate the Gospel or good news to unbelievers as faith) and in other believrs the gift of pastor-teacher (a spiritual gift to communicate advanced faith such as Bible doctrine to believers). These two different gifts are used by God in us to communicate to two different audiences.
Presbyterian churches are well known for promoting teaching within their worship services, so it wouldn't be surprising if an unbeliever in attendence perceived the topic as rather dull, if it were a gift of pastor-teacher being given to an audience of believers.
Likewise, with forms of worship, more mature believers might come closer to a deeper fellowship with Him while singing some timeless Psalm (indeed dated compared to Tupac or Pootie Tang) than a more emotionally uplifting revival music targeting emotionalism over faith.
Stein merely telegrphs his lack of faith and soulish perspective running to and fro seeking worldly entertainment. Perhaps there is a different method of fishing for his method of thinking.
Ummm, No. Try taking the Christian/creationist position on an evolution thread.
Church services may be (and often are) boring but who said that was Christianity?
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Oh, you mean like the LA Free Press?
Choose life.... Choose Barabas,....... SSDD
I dare this pinhead to walk into the Cathedral of Towmorrow on a Sunday mass and repeat these bigoted words.
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