Poling: On weirdness and evangelicalism
UPDATE: NPR President and CEO Vivian (no relation) Schiller has resigned. And I’ve renewed my WYPR membership.
The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.
James O’Keefe has struck again. The guerrilla filmmaker, famous for posing as a pimp seeking tax advice from the Baltimore chapter of ACORN, managed to catch NPR’s top fundraiser Ron Schiller on tape expressing his contempt for vast swaths of America. NPR is no doubt relieved that Schiller had already left NPR for the Aspen Institute when the story broke.
NPR claims to be “appalled” by Schiller’s comments, describing them as “contrary to what NPR stands for.” As a longtime NPR listener and sometime (I was about to renew when Juan Williams got fired) member of my local station, I think this statement is patently absurd. There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of NPR tote bags at Tea Party rallies, just like there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of Fox News bumper stickers on Priuses. I do believe that NPR strives to be accurate and evenhanded, and that for the most part it succeeds. But it is also the case that its business model depends on the voluntary financial support of a demographic that by and large sympathizes with the sentiments Schiller expressed on tape.
What caught my attention about the story was Schiller’s description of the Tea Party as “fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamentalist Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian, it’s this weird evangelical kind of move.” If Schiller had listened to his own network’s coverage of the Tea Party, he’d have learned that the significant differences between its core libertarian impulses and the social conservatism of traditional Republican constituencies presented a tension that was more managed than resolved during the last election cycle. That such disparate factions are seen as similar by a person in such a senior position in such an influential media organ is troubling to me, but what is more troubling is the suggestion that evangelicalism is Christian fundamentalism gone wild.
If anything it’s the opposite, and perhaps Schiller just had his labels mixed up. For those of you just tuning in, evangelicalism as we know it today started in the aftermath of World War II when fundamentalists decided they wanted to follow Jesus without being a jerk about it. They held onto their high view of Scripture, their orthodox Christian theology, their belief that Jesus is good news worth telling and their commitment to follow him in every aspect of their lives. But they left behind the anti-intellectualism, the closed-mindedness, the insularity, the paranoia, the parochialism and the overall backwardness that they believed would consign fundamentalist Christianity to the ash heap of religious history. It used to be you could tell the difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical by asking what he thought of Billy Graham: The evangelical loved that he was bringing people to Jesus, and the fundamentalist thought he’d gone apostate because he’d welcome the local Methodist (or Catholic!) bishop on stage with him.
You wouldn’t have expected it at the time, but Graham and his colleagues turned out to be right. Evangelicalism has become the largest strain of American Protestantism, and in many ways is its healthiest (its many faults notwithstanding). Fundamentalism is still strong in some circles, and it remains true that there are more fundamentalists than Episcopalians in our country — even if fundamentalists are some 10% of conservative Protestants, defined broadly, that’s still a decent-sized slice of a pretty big pie. But fundamentalism continues its decline in numbers and influence.
You can find plenty of weirdness among evangelicals, but for the most part we’re really not so nutty as all that. It’s a pity that many of the people who ought to know better still don’t. A few years ago I noted to the chair of the religion department at my alma mater that none of their course offerings dealt with the most important religious phenomenon of the latter 20th century (i.e., evangelicalism). Oh yes, she said, we have a professor who teaches a class about apocalyptic movements and the Left Behind books. That a Harvard Ph.D. teaching religion at one of the country’s top liberal arts colleges couldn’t tell the difference between John Hagee and Rick Warren is, again, troubling. Not a little offensive, really. But I suppose she’s in some pretty good company.
It’s ironic that this tape came out just after the wonderful interview NPR did with Eugene Peterson this weekend. Peterson is a leading evangelical pastoral theologian, now retired, who served for nearly 30 years as the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Bel Air. He will be back in Baltimore in May, in fact, to speak at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Roland Park. NPR’s Guy Raz spoke with Peterson for nearly 10 minutes about his new memoir The Pastor, with the kind of gracious and appreciative tone that represents NPR’s best interactions with its guests.
Comments
The world continues to be backward. People get in trouble for telling the truth and they get rewarded for telling lies. Look how the republicans were rewarded for their lies in the 2010 elections. NPR has a great news organization and is the only one left worth listening to.
Posted by: Atlanta Roofing | March 8, 2011 11:56 PM
You actually listen to people like O'Keefe and take gun seriously? Certainly NPR has to call for Schiller's resignation but who can dispute the absolute fact that Tea Party members have had racist signs in the past at rallies and their leaders just ignored requests to put an end to it..Schiller is just a small fish in a pond and I'm sure he's funded by the republican party and encouraged to try anything to get someone to say a personal thought in front of his hidden camera...but it's okay for Fox News to say things like...'someone should shoot Obama' on air during prime time...and they get away with it. I too liked the piece NPR did on 'The Pastor'...we wouldn't hear pieces like that if NPR no longer existed..millions of Americans agree with that.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 9, 2011 7:24 AM
The only good thing about NPR is Garrison Keillor. He isnt afraid to stick up for God like the rest.
Posted by: Clay | March 9, 2011 8:32 PM
Clay,
Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" is produced by American Public Media, not NPR.
I, too, enjoy PHC. I particularly like how he gently skewers hypocrisy among the sometimes pious (but just as frequently quite impious) residents of Lake Woebegone.
Posted by: BankStreet | March 11, 2011 10:17 AM
Clay,
You might also think about tuning in "Being" (formerly "Speaking of Faith") at 7AM each Sunday morning on WYPR (88.1), another American Public Media production. Host Krista Tippett delves into issues of faith with a variety of guests.
I do see several problems, though:
- The show acknowledges faith traditions other than the Church of Clay.
- It may require (or at least prompt) thinking on your part.
- It may do serious damage to your presumption that public radio is a godless conspiracy.
Posted by: BankStreet | March 11, 2011 10:50 AM
Interesting interview on Fresh Air yesterday...
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/10/133245874/unprotected-texts-the-bible-on-sex-and-marriage?ft=1&f=1008
Posted by: Anonymous | March 11, 2011 10:56 AM
The reason that most cant tell any differences between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are twofold. First, there arent that many differences between them. The Southern Baptists I have met dont allow alcohol in their churches. I dont think you will find too many bottles of whisky in Billy Graham's house either, including his church. Both preach that to discriminate against someone because of their race is wrong, both preach about sticking to the word of the bible. Both attempt to spread God's word to the population. The only difference I am aware of is that the Southern Baptists only use the King James version of the bible. I am not sure about this with other fundamantalists. The main reason most cant tell the difference is because most people dont know God, so why would they know the difference between the two? The Tea Party movement isnt a "weird, evangelical kind of move." Most people in the Tea Party dont know God from Mickey Mouse. They only tend to align with Christians because both tend to be conservative. That doesnt mean that Christians necessarily disagree with the National Health Care plan. Some dont. Some dont even disagree with same sex marriage. And it surely doesnt neccesarily mean that the Tea Partiers know God. Last but not least, with a person like Sarah Palin aligning herself with the movement, some will always suspect that Tea Party members at least spend weekends in mental institutions.
Posted by: Clay | March 15, 2011 12:25 PM
Clay - The difference is like the difference between cow and horse manure. It doesn't make much difference when your parents put a hot steamy bowl of either in front of you. When they hand you the spoon and say eat, people like you dig right in.
Posted by: Robert Littel | March 15, 2011 3:01 PM
I think the big difference for you is like The Simpsons on tv. Homer Simpson works at a nuclear power plant. He comes home glowing with radiation and spins around crying out. People laugh because they think it is funny. Then something happens like what is happening in Japan. Suddenly, it isnt funny. Now it is time to stop being childish and be serious. God bless.
Posted by: Clay | March 16, 2011 8:47 AM
Clay,
Just because you didn't "witness" her there last weekend, doesn't mean she wasn't there.
You must has missed her while in line for medication.
Posted by: HatManAtLarge | March 16, 2011 8:47 AM
Clay - Your Homer Simpson reference is confusing, considering that no mention of the disaster in Japan has been forthcoming in this thread, but as long as you have brought it up, I think that because there is so much danger inherent in not only the potential for Human error, the age of the facilities and the outside forces like those now affecting Japan, that Homer Simpson's face and the word "DOAH" should be painted in the largest size on every cooling tower in the country. It would be a fitting reminder that we are fooling ourselves if we think we can safely handle something so caustic that has to be stored in containers we cannot yet build, and that will be required to function 300, or more, times as long as the already crumbling Pyramids.
Posted by: Robert Littel | March 16, 2011 5:30 PM