:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 ::

Lord or Lunatic?

As I was reading the Oregonian this past Sunday, I stumbled across this essay in the Opinion section. Here is a snippit:

"Now, you don't need to believe any of this. You're free to conclude it's all total rubbish. But it's impossible to maintain Jesus is just "Mr. Nice Guy" and one of history's great moral teachers. "The Domesticated Jesus" doesn't hold up logically. He's either lord or lunatic. He can't be both."

I met the author, David Reinhard, in the late 1990's at a C.S. Lewis conference and got a chance to chat with him during a break between seminars. At the time I was a journalist writing for a bi-weekly and it was nice to pick the brain of a well-known journalist who was also a Christian.

When I read this new piece it didn't surprise me that Mr. Reinhard would quote extensively from C.S. Lewis. What continues to surprise me is how a blatantly pro-Christian editorial can still make it to the front page of the op-ed in a liberal, urban newspaper.

One of the issues Mr. Reinhard and I discussed was the need for less "Christian journalists" and more journalists who are Christian. A subtle, but important, distinction.

What is sad is as a society we are becoming more accustomed to the rules and norms of, as Richard John Neuhaus calls it, the "naked public square." A philosophical, intellectual defense of Christian truth is not allowed in public debate, at least in the media. Even though I was a journalist in a small town whose communal life revolved around a Christian university, I was not allowed to write pieces that dwelled on overly "Christian" themes.

I'm glad to see Mr. Reinhard is able to slip a few gems past the copy editor!

:: Karl :: 10:02:00 AM [Link] ::