fluidfaith   ver. 0.4.3

Who Speaks for Evangelicals? 

What's the most important part of the word "infamy?" That's right: FAME. To wit, here's today's recipe:

1. Pat Robertson makes a stupid comment.
2. The media reports it.
3. Bloggers like me respond.
4. Talking head pundits (liberal and conservative alike, I might add) feel compelled to fill their 24-hour news cycle by hammering the topic for two days.
5. Prominent evangelical leaders book a slot on Larry King to plublicly disavow the original statement.
6. The words "Robertson," "Christian Broadcasting Network," and "700 Club" are constantly repeated on the public airwaves.
7. Rinse and repeat.

CBS News' PublicEye blog has a pretty good piece today on whether comments from a guy like Pat Robertson should be considered newsworthy. And personally, I'm willing to take the message to heart, as one who has previously felt the apparently irresistable need to comment on Robertson's comments (not once, but twice!).

The article eventually turns on the question of whose thoughts/quotes can be considered representative of the group we know as American Evangelicals. Different folks in the piece have different lists, but few include Robertson. One guy really likes to get quotes from Rick Warren and Joel Osteen (20 million book buyers can't be wrong). Others mentioned Billy Graham and his son, Franklin. Another suggests Jim Wallis, but the article quickly points out that Wallis would likely seem too left-leaning for most mainstream evangelicals.

The post closes with a list that I find interesting ... and very telling. "Sullivan says that Ted Haggard, Warren, Brian McLaren, Osteen, Rod Parsley, and Franklin Graham, among others, are religious leaders who should be featured as evangelical voices of today." Cafeteria-style evangelicalism. A little surprised to see McLaren and Parsley on this list. Shocked to see Dobson excluded. But mostly intrigued by the diversity here.

Which raises the most important point of all, I guess. In the end, nobody can be said to speak for this group or that group. It reminded me of this really awful, awkward moment back in the 1980s when members of my own tribe appeared on the Phil Donahue show to talk about a court case in Oklahoma in which a church member had filed suit in civil court against a local Church of Christ that had disfellowshipped her. It was a minor media circus of sorts. I mean, hey! Donahue thought it was interesting enough to put on his show, so you know it had to be up to his usual circus-standards.

Anyway, somewhere in all this a question was asked of somebody who was (I dunno) an expert in Churches of Christ or something. (Please remember, I was like 17 years old when all this happened, so my memory's a bit sketchy.) As I recall it, Donahue asks the guy: "So, what does the Church of Christ believe."

The answer was -- rightly, I think -- prefaced in terms of local church autonomy and diversity of opinion, etc. and summed up with this classic description: "So, Phil, a Church of Christ might believe just about anything." In other words, if you're looking for a definitive, uniform, unwavering representation of the group known as Church of Christ, well...think again!

Which is an important reminder about generalizations and, especially, about using the quotes of any one person as representative of a whole group. Especially if that quote comes from Pat Robertson!