Matt Slick, who recently appeared on the Daily Show, tells us how his words were edited and twisted in the TV interview, and then Dr. Brown speaks with Jewish author, journalist, college professor, and psychologist Bernard Starr, who is on a campaign to encourage every Jew to read the New Testament. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.
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Ahead of todays show, I checked out the Matt Slick interview on the Daily Shows. (it’s on YouTube).
Clearly, it’s a heavily edited piece, meant for parody of Christians who believe they are the ones being persecuted in America. Daily Show is not pretending to be objective.
I checked with the FBI. There is some anti-Christian violence but it hardly compares to anti-gay violence.
The closest equivalent would be antisemitism. Not anti-Christianity.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2011/narratives/victims
———-
Religious bias
Of the 1,480 victims of an anti-religious hate crime:
63.2 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
12.5 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
5.7 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias.
4.4 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
3.4 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias.
0.3 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
10.5 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion).
Sexual-orientation bias:
Of the 1,572 victims targeted due to a sexual-orientation bias:
56.7 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
29.6 percent were victims of an anti-homosexual bias.
11.1 percent were victims of an anti-female homosexual bias.
1.5 percent were victims of anti-bisexual bias.
1.2 percent were victims of an anti-heterosexual bias.
—————
Does Mr. Slick think this is just wrong?
Thanks Greg,
I did not know there was so much anti-religious hate crimes in America.
It’s almost the exact same as the total of sexual orientation in America… Wow, nobody talks about this….
When will we get an Oprah special to stop this…
Ty,
I was a little surprised by it, as well.
What the statistics don’t show is the amount of hate-crimes in relation to the population.
Even though Jews are just a couple of percent of the population, yet they get most of the religious persecution.
I also left out the race-based numbers, since they are not relevant to our discussion. Race is — by far — the most common hate crime. Especially anti-black violence.
In any regard, it seems pretty clear that conservative Christians are not a primary target of hate crimes, yet they have a strong persecution complex.
Why do you think this is?
Well.. My take is.. “we are a christian nation” I think that as a whole the Christian faith dominates the American population. (a seperate debate, can be “are they really living as christians”).
I think we see our social & moral views being shunned and equate it to physical persecution. Which it is not.
To ridicule a viewpoint in an intellectual debate, is a hard pill to swallow and is disrespectful… but it is not persecution or a hate crime.
So when the majority feels.. “HEY this is OUR VIEW…” and it gets overturned by the minority we feel someone is out to get us.
Greg, the issue here wasn’t violence against Christians in the USA it was media BIAS against ChristiansIn the USA. Which while Bias doesn’t have to be violent it is a type of persecution. What if I misrepresented a Homosexual’s position on pedophile.. Wouldn’t that be persecution???
I dont think “misrepresention” or “bias” equates to persecution. It may lead to persecution…but I could be wrong.
I do agree about the media bias. I ahvent heard the show yet, waiting for it to be uploaded.
Bias is not a type of persecution. Everyone has a bias, including myself and Dr. Michael Brown and Matt Slick and The Daily Show.
I’m not sure that media bias against Christians in the USA really exists that much. This is coming from someone who still considers himself a conservative Christian.
I’m 27 years old now, and I was told a lot growing up that secular universities have a bias against orthodox Christianity. While I did find a grain of truth in that statement, I did not run into it very much in the prominent secular university (which was quite liberal) that I ended up attending in my undergraduate years.
To be sure, theologically conservative Christianity was not common on this university campus, and at least one Shakespeare teacher parodied one of the common arguments against homosexual sex in class, but I never felt singled out or constantly ridiculed for my beliefs (and I never kept quiet about them, but I spoke up about them as carefully and as politely as I could).
I think perhaps some of the reason for the bias that does exist in secular universities (and in certain press rooms) is that perhaps a lot of these people are actually legitimately reacting to real close-minded and anti-intellectual thinking among the conservative Christians they’ve encountered.
I think if we’re going to get a voice, we need to stop whining that “conservative Christians are being persecuted” and be willing to take more time to hear out the other side and be more willing than we have been to acknowledge where we’ve been simplistic or where we’ve failed.
That doesn’t mean we compromise our convictions. Hardly. But sometimes we may discover that some of our convictions do need to be cast aside in light of new information (or in light of being shown something in Scripture we haven’t seen before, or something in the world God created that we haven’t seen before).
And that’s part of how we grow. So let’s act like adults and not whine every time a conservative Christian like Matt Slick is made fun of on Comedy Central.
PART of the reason there are relatively few hate crimes reported against Christians and many against homosexuals is that police rarely classify crimes against Christians as hate crimes. Also Christians are not encouraged to report them. On the other hand, homosexuals are encouraged to report hate crimes and police are pushed to move forward on them. There are also a large number of false hate crimes reported by homosexuals.
For example, I remember the case of some college students burning up churches for fun. The case was not reported as a hate crime. If that crime was against homosexuals I have no doubt it would be labeled as a hate crime.
This is not to say that Christians are more persecuted than homosexuals. However, I think there is reason to be a bit careful when using the raw numbers given by the FBI.
Doug,
If you look at the FBI statistics link, you can see that they do consider Christianity in hate crimes.
Ty,
I think you are on to something. American culture is moving away from being predominately Christian to more pluralistic. I think Christians, especially traditionalist, confuse this with persecution.
I have had the somewhat unusual experience of having lived among/with Christian, Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists.
They all sahre this strong sense of being persecuting.
It’s a pretty strong commonality among the three groups.
Sadly (and ironically) some of them use this sense of being persecuted to justify persecuting others.
And, I suspect, it goes back to what you said.
Fundamentalists feel that they previously owned the larger culture/national and they are losing that status. They perceive this as persecution.
Cliff,
I suppose there is a continuum from media bias to real persecution. At the very least, relentless media bias certainly fuels real persecution.
I’ve heard (and experienced!) how a media bias will prompt an individual to do violence against the target of the media.
(Some won’t like this example but…)
For example, Bill O’Reilly famously used his media platform to tag George Tiller as “Tiller the Baby Killer” over and over again.
It was no big surprise, then, when an anti-abortion activist walked into Tiller’s church and shot him dead.
Greg,
You completely misread my comment. My point is that you are VERY unlikely to have a hate crime against a Christian prosecuted as a hate crime. On the other hand there are a large number false hate crimes alleged against homosexuals. It’s not hard to find examples of hate crimes against Christians that have not been charged. It’s also not hard to find false hate crimes that have been reported against homosexuals. I would be suspicions of the FBI numbers.
Doug
Interesting podcast
Funny story is that while I was in high school.. a catholic highschool.. we had a project to draw in class. I drew a picture of Jesus, but removed his golden locks & blue eyes and replaced it with a more middle eastern lookin man with thick hair.
Teacher lost her mind… all this resulted in a trip to the Dean’s office. As if I offended her. All i heard was why does it matter… so I asked “you tell me why does it matter? I don’t recall to many blonde hari, blue eyes ppl from that region”
Anyhow… great show!
Jesus looks like an Italian or Portuguese girl in Albrecht’s “Christ Among The Doctors”. Disturbing.
Dan1el,
Are you saying that you were ruined (went to hell) by reading the Bible? That you were better off being a believer that didn’t know the word than after you knew it? I am not sure I understand.
Shalom
Oops! wrong thread I have reposted on:
http://www.lineoffireradio.com/2013/07/02/clear-answers-to-controversial-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-359416
@64:01, Bernard Starr:
Dr. Brown:
Bernard Starr:
Matthew 23:5f:
Where I live, Christians don’t have a persecution complex. When we talk about persecution, we talk about where it’s actually happening, and we pray that they can ENDURE it first! That’s my experience. Here are the stats for Canada: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11635-eng.htm
If American Christians feel they have a persecution complex, I would guess it is tied to politics. With the Left’s bias always toward the underdog and selling a victims-vs-oppressors narrative and the majority of Americans at least nominally Christian, one can see how the Right would try to secure the votes of Christians by selling its own persecution narrative even if it has less credibility. I’m just an ignorant Canadian, but I think, as a conservative also, we need to look at this honestly. As Christians, we need to remember that our loyalties are to God, that our politics should be shaped by how HE sees right and wrong. Anyway, that’s my hypothesis… Being a ‘victim’ in one’s own mind (If you get my meaning) is never a good thing, even if the stats are on your side. The nazis justified what they did by their sense of victimhood.
Consider that persecution often involves the authorities. Also, for cases of persecution, media bias is important because it also affects what happens that wouldn’t be classified as a ‘hate crime’. E.g. Do you think this was included in statscan (police arresting the preacher)? -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xynn6CRM9I This guy was assaulted more than once I recall before the police showed up and arrested HIM. If intolerance against Christian convictions heightens, cases of persecution may increase, but it may not be counted in ‘hate crime’ numbers, so you have to be careful about using those numbers to say that persecution DOESN’T happen or when looking at which way the trend goes. In other words ‘hate crime’#s =/= persecution#’s.
I think lust is a very powerful desire today. Take a look around. After many trials and failures (Thank God for grace), I almost gave up but I think I have an answer to this powerful desire. I am a man and I am attracted to the opposite sex. The answer was in the form of a question. How should we love a woman? I’m assuming that everyone has their own ways of showing true love. True love should think of the other person and it is not selfish. Lust loves to be selfish. Although a woman wants to be thought of as a beautiful person, understandably, I think that we should be aware of ourselves being selfish. Beauty was made by a beautiful God, and beauty is attractive. However, when we think of our relationships with others, I think that we should be very careful out of love. A truly loving husband will be faithful to his wife and I believe that in being faithful, his wife will know the sincerity of his love. A loving husband will have the heart to forgive because being forgiving was the way the heart learned to love in the first place. Have you ever thought that the person you loved was the most perfect person in the world? I think that part of the reason for this is because you were willing to let go of all of the imperfections that you see. True love should have a desire to serve. So when I experience the desire known as lust, I tell myself that if I can’t love her, I should look away. Look at it again but think of yourself being selfish, not forgiving, and as a person who desires to be served and not a person who has a desire to serve. I think that we can all see that being loving will create a better relationship. A loving relationship. These are my own personal thoughts of love in its truest form.
Oops… Sorry for posting my last comment. Wrong thread!
LOL.. R. Kneubuhl. Yea wrong thread, but I appreicate your take on the matter. Very insightful
FYI:
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/two-christian-preachers-brutally-beaten-at-seattle-gay-pride-festival/
Thanks for the link Doug,
I doubt but wonder will this get press coverage… to the same extent it would be if the ppl were reveresd…
Ty,
IMAGINE if the members of the crowd were made up of some sort of religious demonstration (either standing up for their rights or celebrating their ethics), and the man holding a sign was a homosexual!
We would already be talking restrictions upon, and possibly outright banning, of all religious gatherings. The cops didn’t even run; they walked casually.
Ty,
Sorry for bad grammar – you get my point
I need to correct myself from above about the Toronto preacher. I just realized that I said “arrested”, and that’s a big deal to get that wrong. No he wasn’t arrested, just told by the cops to leave and had his property taken.
I think the reason people consider what happened to Matt Slick and the way Christians are treated in the media persecution is because of what is being done. Really, what the media is doing is manipulating those who watch their shows to have a particular view of Christians.
Imagine the outrage from the mainstream media if someone selectively edited a gay pride rally to mischaracterize homosexuals in some way. The mainstream media would eat up the story, and the person would rightly be accused of bigotry. However, when someone does it to Christians, on the other hand, it is no big deal.
Media manipulation of the facts is a major ethical issue. It is, in essence, a breaking of the ninth commandment. However, what is interesting is that Francis Schaeffer predicted that this would happen clear back in the late 1970’s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcjvdhV2Ok
Someone above said that the problem isn’t that Christians are being persecuted, but that society is become more pluralistic. It is not even really that society is becoming more pluralistic; it is that society is becoming more pluralistic and relativistic. The problem with pluralism and relativism combining together is that there is no standard by which to judge what is right and what is wrong. It has to be imposed arbitrarily by an elite, such as the media, or the government. It is okay to bear false witness against Christians, but not against homosexuals, and how do we know that? Because the elite have spoken.
The problem is that what we are seeing is the slavery that sin brings. We are a nation enslaved to an elite, and their ability to manipulate people to do what they want them to do. If there is no God who has said, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” then it is okay to do that to anyone you want to destroy. And it is not just Christians either. Look at what these folks do to their political enemies. There are times I can’t even stand to watch the news during election year, because the ninth commandment is broken more times than not.
The problem is that these problems are not solved by getting other people into power. The problem is that people’s hearts need to be changed, so that they believe these things are wrong. You need to learn to love he who is the truth, before you can care about the truth in media.