Re: [RC] Ed Stetzer - Consider Rachel Maddow's Comments: A Reflection of How the World Sees Conservatives (and Evangelicals)

[David R. Block]

Title: ORourke1 Signature

I have a difficult time considering Rachel Madcow's comments, because quite often she just builds and holds forth the stereotype. And we are that way largely because she says so. Most of the Alex Jones conspiracy cranks aren't Christian. Yet to Madcow, we are all Alex Jones conspiracy cranks. If one wants more people to think that Obama is a Christian and not a Muslim, then maybe Obama should start observing the National Day of Prayer or something instead of being the only President since its inception to ignore it. Maybe if he hadn't said that the Muslim call to prayer is the most beautiful thing that he's ever heard, and hadn't cited "The Holy Koran" repeatedly in speeches, people might not get the impression that he is a Muslim. And these are on video, they're not made up. I know about Photoshop. "Videoshop" is a whole order of magnitude (or three) more difficult to accomplish. David   "The principal villain in rising health care costs is the government.  Not pharmaceutical companies, not doctors,  but government."--Neal Boortz On 11/9/2012 12:37 PM, Dr. Ernest Prabhakar wrote: I think my man Ed would agree with Lennart. :-/ http://www.edstetzer.com/2012/11/rachel-maddows-comments-a-refl.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Edstetzercom+%28EdStetzer.com%29 Consider Rachel Maddow's Comments: A Reflection of How the World Sees Conservatives (and Evangelicals) Rachel Maddow (and much of the ideological left) think that conservatives (and, by what she included in her comments, evangelicals) "have to pop the factual bubble." I actually agree with parts of her comments, as I made clear yesterday in my post about not making a "conservative set of facts." For example, I wrote, "I'm saddened that many Christians are being included in the groups that create their own facts." This week, more and people are noticing. Of course, I recognize the usual suspects will likely forward this around and say I am promoting Rachel Maddow's worldview. This is not the case-- it is not a secret that we'd disagree on a bunch of things. However, it is time to face reality for some evangelicals-- making up your own set of facts is not helping. Being known for conspiracies is hurting. It's not everyone, and perhaps it is not most, but it is just too many. I'm crazy enough to think the polls were right, that President Obama was born in Hawaii and is not a Muslim, and... well... you get the point. It's unhelpful when Christians are the one holding up myths about biased polls, a forged birth certificate, a Muslim President. Now, I know that some will point to all the areas she was wrong saying, "But what about!?!?!..." Well, I'd just do something crazy and consider the larger problem within evangelicalism, rather than point out all the areas where she is wrong. The reason this is important is because these are the views (of us evangelicals) that are growing in prominence in our culture. Gullible or conspiracy-spreading Christians just do not help these perceptions. Instead, they feed the impression that evangelicals are simply without willingness to face truth. If unchurched people think they must commit intellectual suicide to become Christians, it hinders the work of gospel proclamation and cultural engagement. As such, this video is well worth your time. Watch it. Let it sink in. Then perhaps consider what to do about it. What should we do to address this perception? -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org