In a widely noticed op-ed piece last March, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof admitted that "nearly all of us in the news business are completely out of touch with a group that includes 46 percent of Americans": self-described evangelical or born-again Christians, according to Gallup.1 Never mind that the definition of "evangelical" used to generate this figure is pretty loose. Kristof's frank acknowledgment of bias was as stunning as it was welcome. And while he made it very clear that he isn't calling for uncritical acceptance—"I tend to disagree with evangelicals on almost everything," he writes, "and I see no problem with aggressively pointing out the dismal consequences" of their increasing influence—Kristof deplored the "sneering tone" that many of his colleagues routinely adopt when dealing with all things evangelical.

Kristof concludes that it's time to lower the temperature. "One of the deepest divides in America today is the gulf of mutual suspicion that separates evangelicals from secular society," he writes. "Both sides need to reach out, drop the contempt," and treat each other with respect.

Are evangelicals ready to reciprocate? A positive answer comes from what might appear to be an unlikely source: Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World magazine, the feisty Christian conservative weekly, and the author of a standard journalism text in Christian schools.2 In his new book, Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon, Olasky gives advice to narrow the gap and allow Christians to speak constructively, even redemptively, to members of the media. Written after the September 11 terrorist attacks but before the Iraq war and recent journalistic laments such as Kristof's, the book raises issues that American Christians need to consider.

Olasky says that efforts to transform America into a Christian nation are doomed. He likens our position to that of Daniel, a Jewish leader called to be faithful in the pagan courts of Babylon. He says we Christians should settle down and live holy lives in the country's "liberty theme park," in which pleasure and freedom are seen as the highest goods. Needless to say, Olasky isn't prescribing quietism. Just as Kristof emphasized the need for thorough and forthright criticism of evangelical policies, so Olasky calls for Christians to "stand up resolutely against press attacks and to see them as opportunities to communicate the truth about false religions and about Christianity." He rightly points out the confusion of some in the mainstream press, who have equated biblical Christianity with radical Islam.

Still, Olasky displays his mellow side in this book. Despite World's hardline conservative stance on current issues, he acknowledges a wide range of contemporary issues for which Christians cannot claim theological certainty. Olasky also counsels taking half a loaf when necessary. For example, he suggests dropping efforts to pass a constitutional amendment barring abortion in favor of efforts to support adoption and marriage, which he says could halve the abortion rate. He helpfully says we need to focus on the practical problems with homosexuality and divorce and not simply condemn them as sinful. He also rightly points out how ugly Christians—who profess to follow the Prince of Peace—look in the eyes of journalists when they respond with outrage to every provocation.

"Today biblical Christians should see fellow citizens in America not as enemies but as needy people," Olasky writes. He says Christians should not assume press attacks arise from malice. Sometimes, he says, they reflect simple ignorance, and Christians need to constructively engage journalists to remove that ignorance. Olasky says secular journalists don't understand the extent of Christianity in the world, the historical relationship of Christians and American government, and the laudable cultural and philanthropic activities of many Christians, and we need to lovingly and patiently tell them. True enough.

Olasky also says that his book is intended to "help us look in the mirror and see ourselves as secular liberal journalists often see us." Unfortunately, he presents mainstream journalists exclusively as secular liberals. With a steady diet of élite media, it is an easy mistake to make. Indeed, Kristof said in his article, "I can't think of a single evangelical working for a major news organization." That's the view from the precincts of the Times.

But this is just a partial picture of journalism today. What about Cal Thomas, Fred Barnes, David Aikman, Jack Kelly, and other evangelical journalists with significant influence? Aikman's Gegrapha organization specifically supports Christians in the mainstream media. Hundreds have attended its conferences. At the University of Southern California, the Annenberg School for Communication has established an endowed chair in media and religion, and New York University started (in May) a Center for Religion and Media.

Doug Underwood, formerly a journalist with the Seattle Times and now an associate professor of communication at the University of Washington, has written an interesting volume on the largely forgotten but still potent religious heritage of journalism.3 Underwood contends that "journalists draw much of their professional inspiration from the Bible's prophetic complaints about moral corruption, as well as the calls for reform that grew out of the Protestant Reformation" and other historical events tied to Christianity.

Indeed, Olasky himself has long argued that mainstream journalism began well as a popular expression of the country's dominant Judeo-Christian culture before taking a left turn into Enlightenment skepticism.4 I wish Olasky had revisited this issue and given some practical strategies for Christians to find common ground with journalists. We might be surprised to discover how open secular journalists are to offers of help.

In a prescient April 1994 lecture at Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, Cullen Murphy of The Atlantic Monthly outlined several other factors contributing to increased awareness of religion in mainstream journalism.5 Murphy said that journalists are being forced to grapple with religious issues partly because of the inescapably religious character of many of the conflicts outside the West. America's encounter with radical Islam after September 11 has only deepened the desire of secular journalists to understand the religious forces that drive so many world events. As David Brooks said in a March article in The Atlantic, "Secularism is not the future; it is yesterday's incorrect vision of the future. This realization sends us recovering secularists to the bookstore or the library in a desperate attempt to figure out what is going on in the world."6

Another pertinent factor, Murphy said, is the profit motive in American journalism. With falling ad revenues and increasing competition, newspapers, magazines, and other media are looking for ways to tap into neglected markets. As evangelical columnist and journalism professor Terry Mattingly said to MSNBC's on-air host during a break in coverage of the Promise Keepers rally in Washington, D.C., "You've just hit a big new demographic. They're there, if you want them."

Given this opportune moment in American journalism, Olasky's strategy of constructive engagement seems to be a good first step, but it's a bit small in scale coming from a leader of an influential and dynamic Christian newsweekly. Lamentably, this book on journalism is also short on interviews, research, and documentation. (There are no footnotes or endnotes, and few real-world examples illustrate his advice.)

While Olasky, almost as an aside, calls for more "salty journalists" who know the difference between the God of the Bible and the Allah of Islam, he doesn't discuss how to produce them. (I wish he had mentioned the World Journalism Institute, for which he is an instructor—perhaps he was seeking to avoid the appearance of self-promotion. The WJI, as its mission statement explains, provides "college level courses in journalism with transferable academic credit to many colleges and universities, with the view to place aspiring evangelical journalists in the mainstream newsrooms of this country." That is certainly a worthy initiative.) Nor does he discuss the tensions they will face, given the realities that Kristof and others have acknowledged. Perhaps that will be a subject for Olasky's next book.

We need to train and deploy more journalistic missionaries—those with a Christian worldview who have the skills to communicate truth both to their colleagues (secular and otherwise) and to the general public. Christians cannot hope to win the culture without reaching a critical mass in the Fourth Estate. Despite Christian tensions with the press, journalism is a high calling. And doors appear to be opening.

As Terry Mattingly told National Review Online's Rod Dreher in a piece reacting to Kristof's column, religious conservatives "have the information in their heads to see stories, valid journalistic stories, that need to be reported, that others will not see, stories that will help those newspapers to be more balanced, fair and competitive."7

Stan Guthrie is associate news editor of Christianity Today and author of Missions in the Third Millennium (Paternoster, 2000).

1. Nicholas D. Kristof, "God, Satan, and the Media," The New York Times, March 4, 2003; see also Mark Noll, "What Evangelical Media?", Books & Culture, May/June 2003, p. 6.

2. Marvin Olasky, Telling the Truth: How to Revitalize Christian Journalism (Crossway, 1996).

3. Doug Underwood, From Yahweh to Yahoo! The Religious Roots of the Secular Press (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2002).

4. Marvin Olasky, Prodigal Press: The Anti-Christian Bias of the American News Media (Crossway, 1988).

5. Cullen Murphy, "Religion and the Cultural Elite," www.theatlantic.com/unbound/cullen/cmrel. htm

6. David Brooks, "Kicking the Secularist Habit," www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/03/brooks.htm

7. Rod Dreher, "God in the Newsroom," www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher030703.asp.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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