B65. FOX News, Truth, and Me Playing Basketball

For many years there was a trophy in Starmount High School’s gym lobby with my name on it.  I don’t know if it’s still there.  I might be the only basketball player in Starmount’s history to have ever shot 100% the entire season, including an end-of-game buzzer shot about midway between half court and the foul line.  We were an undefeated team, usually winning by 50 or more points.  I still have my jacket.

True.  Every word of it.

But it’s FOX News kind of true.  A recent study found that those who get their news mainly from FOX are less informed on national and international news than those who follow no news source at all!  Here’s why.  FOX is a tool of extremist politics.  Not interested in balance, it chooses and creates stories that push extremist Republican ideology and hide any bits of truth that might support the opposite political side.  For example, it would be detrimental to let FOX viewers see President Obama as the Christian he claims he is, so if he makes a trip to the Holy Land and other news networks cover his travels and his reflections of walking where Jesus walked, FOX might instead choose to do a story on repealing Obamacare with a break-in story about how Obama keeps screwing over Israel.  Did I mention that during that trip, Israel awarded our President its highest civilian honor, the Presidential Distinction Award, and a large Israeli audience gave him a standing ovation?  One blogger noted that the Israeli people apparently are not watching FOX News.

OK, so what are FOX’s deceptive tactics?  1.  It chooses to air only the stories that support its political extremism, and  2.   it creates its own stories, aired by no other networks (when they say you’ll only see this on FOX, they are telling the truth), to support its own extremist agenda.  3.  It runs religiously and emotionally captivating stories to deceive the large segment of the Republican audience that comes to confuse the network with Christianity.  This is a political ploy, successful especially with those of the older generations who remember watching Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather in a time when the evening news really could be trusted.  And finally, 4.  it tells half truths.  Whatever words it chooses to air are probably true, although it might air only 5 true words out of a hundred word story, and fluff the rest with FOXisms.

There are levels of truth, and most of us have used them at some time.  There’s the “how close can I come to lying without actually telling a lie” truth.  This is one we learn to use as children.  “I didn’t actually lie. My exact words were  . . .” Familiar?  Unfortunately we carry this deceptive tactic with us into adulthood, and so does FOX News. 

Then there’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; the quest for real meaning and deep understanding of issues and events.  No politically affiliated entity, right or left, should be our most trusted source for this kind of truth.  If we see it on FOX (or MSNBC), just like hearing it from a politician, we can be sure there is far more to the story than what we are getting.

My basketball story was the first kind of truth.  It included no lies, but I conveniently “forgot” to share some of the facts.  Here’s the rest of the story:  I only made the team my freshman year, the freshmen team, and then only because no one was cut.  Being one of two players on the team who had not even made my jr. high team, I never even grasped the concepts of screening or running plays.  Indeed we were an undefeated team, complete with jackets to celebrate it, but none of that credit goes to me, because I spent the season on the bench.  Most games, when we were over fifty points ahead, the coach would put me into the game for the final 3 seconds.  (I must have been really bad, because I’m not exaggerating when I say 3 seconds!)  I did shoot twice during my 3-second play times.  Once was a foul shot, and once was a long buzzer shot.  Both went in, thus my 100% shooting record.  And the trophy story is true also.  I just forgot to mention that it had nothing to do with basketball.

Which kind of truth would you rather hear?  I prefer as unbiased a source as I can find, unaffiliated with either political party.  Just give me the facts, all of them that are available, and allow me to process them for myself without being fed political interpretations.

Why am I so adamant against a news network that I don’t even watch?  Because it’s deceiving people I love, not because they are unintelligent, but because they are too trusting to realize they are being politically used and brain-washed.  Less informed than those who follow no news at all?  Think about what that means.

It used to be that if it was in newsprint or aired on the evening news, it could be trusted.  Those days are gone, and I too lament it, but there are other networks that are trying harder to give us truth.

OK, enough about news.  Let's get back to me! Want to hear the story about when I played on an all women’s volleyball team in a league of all men?  Or about the season I ran track?

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B59. Was the President Sleepy Through Yesterday's Prayer Breakfast?
B51.  Jesus Times Two

B59. Was the President Sleepy Through Yesterday's Prayer Breakfast?

Did you read President Obama’s speech from yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast?  “As Christians, we place our hands in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus Christ,” he said.  He called us, Republicans and Democrats, to be more prayerful and less partisan.

I challenge you to read the transcript http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/02/07/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-at-national-prayer-breakfast/?mod=google_news_blog  All of it.  And as you read it, block out your view of the president, and think instead of George Bush or Ronald Reagan or whichever president you admire most.  What if these were his words?  How would you hear them?

It might take 10 minutes of your day to read the entire speech.  Indeed it is easier to let someone else listen or read, and then they can just tell us what we need to know.  That has become a pattern for many of us.  Yet whose version shall we believe?

Andrea Redman, a NY financial executive, told Christianity Today that she saw hurt and pain in the president during the speech.  Joseph Brown, SIU professor, said this was the most serious he had ever seen the president. 

If you are a FOX News watcher, you will probably miss those comments, and Obama’s heart and words.  Here’s the FOX headline: WATCH: Amazing Conservative Speech Upstages Obama at Prayer Breakfast.  Then you get, not a story of Obama, but a story of Dr. Benjamin Carson’s speech and his views on the Affordable Care Act. (FOX calls it “Obamacare.”)

Or when I googled for prayer breakfast headlines, there was a right-wing news group called righttruth.typepad, with this sensationalist headline: Obama at Prayer Breakfast Forced To Hear Amazing Speech by Conservative Black Doctor . . ., and the artcle begins by quoting Mr Sensationalist himself, Rush Limbaugh.

The Rush Limbaugh headline says Sleepy Obama Sits Through Prayer Breakfast where Dr. Benjamin Carson Blasts Obamacare. (Besides the sensationalist tone, notice that Dr. Carson gets a first name, a last name, and a title, but the President of the United States of America is simply called Obama.)

Sleepy? Hurting? Serious? We believe whichever version we hear, and we hear whichever version we expose ourselves to.

“But I hear it from my friends, my pastor, my Sunday School teacher,” you might say.  “And they heard it from FOX,” I would respond.

A few months ago a study found that FOX News viewers were by far the least informed of all news viewers about national and international issues.  Even less informed than those who followed no news at all.  MSNBC, with its liberal bent and far fewer viewers than FOX, was next to worst, also less informed in the international category than those without any news.  (See that study here: http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5 )

Friends, listen. Obama knew who was invited to speak, and I’m sure he knew his views. He invited him on purpose in an attempt to make the prayer breakfast bi-partisan. Please, please, please, be a proud Republican if you want, but choose another station for your news, and turn off the crazy talking heads like Rush Limbaugh.  Trust me when I tell you that even he does not believe what he says.  He’s an entertainer, an entertainer who makes a lot of money dependent on being able to stir up the American people every day.  We are becoming a brain-washed nation, shrouded in ignorance.

It is to FOX’s and Rush’s advantage that they not let you hear the real voice of your president, but if you do not hear it, it is not because it is not available for you to hear.  Be a good Republican, but be an intelligent Republican, a pre-FOX kind of Republican.  But don't take my word for any of this.  Read the transcript yourself with an open mind, and then switch the channel, forever.

B51. Jesus Times Two

We are a culture that loves the name of Jesus.  Say the name, and it sells products.  Post the name, and it’s shared widely on Facebook.  “Praise the name of Jesus,” we sing.  “Blessed be the name!”  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know!”  When I sang these words as a child in the ‘60s, there was only one Jesus, and indeed the name was sweet.  My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and all my Christian acquaintances sang of one Jesus, and all the Christians I had encountered were a united spiritual family.

Today though we are confused by two Jesuses, and they don’t resemble each other at all.  One is the Jesus of our Christian subculture which includes many of our churches, and the other is the Jesus of the Gospels.  I fear that unless we find our way back to the Jesus of the Gospels, church as we know it is on its way to irrelevance, and then to oblivion.*  Christian friends, please hear me out.  We might be fighting for the wrong Jesus.

The first Jesus is a political entertainment figure. We could nickname him “Jesus Beck,” “Jesus O'Reilly,” or  “Jesus Limbaugh.”  This Jesus teaches his followers that all things Republican are of God, and his two main concerns are abortion and gay rights.  This Jesus came into prominence in the 1970s, the brainchild of Jerry Falwell and others who united with him to forge Christian America into a political army.

God, however, is neither Republican nor Democrat, nor even American, and, while abortion and gay rights are important issues worthy of our discourse, Jesus of the Gospels said nothing at all about them, at least to our knowledge, unless we count loving our neighbor and forgiveness.

Then who is the other Jesus, the one we have left behind?  We could call this one “Jesus the Christ.” He too has his passions.  Love your neighbor.  Feed the hungry.  Welcome the immigrants.  Don’t confuse God and Caesar.  Care for the poor.  Stand up for the oppressed.  Reach out to the marginalized.  Show compassion.  These are his heart’s cries.  These are his passions.

If we continue to listen to the media Jesus (via our chosen media sources or via church and denominational leaders who listen to these sources), we might never hear Jesus the Christ, for he is gentle and speaks in our quietness and our solitude.  We prefer to hear the Jesus that speaks in loud angry words.  We prefer to judge our neighbor and decide for ourselves whether he is worthy of any compassion.  We know who deserves to be helped better than Jesus does.  We understand food stamps, prisoners, and immigrants better than Jesus does.

How can we find Jesus again, the Jesus of the Gospels, if we want to?  The answer is simple, yet so very difficult because it probably means standing against church and religious culture.  We find him in the Gospels.  Not in the Church’s interpretation of the Gospels, not in cable news’ take on world events, but in reading the Gospels for ourselves, at home, alone, just like we read the newspaper, just like we read a best-selling novel.  And when we finish, we read them again from another translation, and then again from another.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, cover to cover, over and over.

It’s not our fault, Christians, but we have been led astray, tricked, used.  I’m going back.  I miss Jesus.


*Note: True Christianity will endure, but it might not resemble what we call "church" today.