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Meet the Press excludes mainline church voices

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by

mwkruse
in ,

Meet the Press excludes mainline church voices is an interesting commentary at Spero News.

NBC's Meet the Press is wrong to ignore leaders of the nation's 45 million mainline Protestant, Orthodox and African American Christians, says the communications director of the 1.3-million-member United Church of Christ.

The Rev. Robert Chase says the annual "Faith in America" installment on Meet the Press, which aired on Easter Sunday, April 16, "totally shut out any representation from the nation's mainline churches."

For at least the second year in a row, NBC's invited panel of religious leaders included no representative from the National Council of Churches or any of its 35 member communions, such as the UCC, Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Reformed Church in America, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.

Of course, the interesting question that so many of us mainline types refuse to ask is, "If we are so 'mainline,' how can the media be so dismissive without impunity?" Maybe it is because we have become the sideline instead.

Comments

9 responses to “Meet the Press excludes mainline church voices”

  1. neil Avatar
    neil

    Mainline – hardly. Sideline – could be. Maybe all that is left is an outline.

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Hehehe… And maybe if we don’t wake up, flatline.

    Reply
  3. Quotidian Grace Avatar
    Quotidian Grace

    Because we lost sight of the goaline?

    Reply
  4. Denis Hancock Avatar
    Denis Hancock

    Are we paying attention to the deadline?

    Reply
  5. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    I’ve created a monster! Don’t make me draw the line.

    Reply
  6. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    The same phenomenon could be observed when Benedict XVI was elected pope. When JPII was elected, “mainline” representatives were interviewed repeatedly. I watched all of the major news networks during the last papal election – not once did I see an appearance by a “mainline” church leader. Several “mega-church” leaders, however, *were* interviewed.

    Reply
  7. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    The MSM has built up its ratings by dramatizing the culture war. On the frontlines of this war are the secularists and the conservatives. According to this version of reality the Catholics and the evangelicals have joined forces and sided with the republicans lock, stock and barrell. There is no room in that narrative for the mailine protestant churches some of which embrace homosexuality have more flexible opinions on abortion, etc. There is also no room in that narrative for the rest of the doctrine of the Culture of Life which favors protecting ministering to the poor and opposes the death penalty and war. You could see this in the lead up to the Iraq war and prior to the election. Every network mentioned the President’s visits to the Vatican, but not one mentioned the Pope John Paul’s statement that the war was “a defeat for humanity” nor are they now covering Pope Benedict’s calls for peace. It just doesn’t make for a good sound bite and the news channels are afraid their ratings might drop if they report something that doesn’t fit with what the perceive is the worldview of the majority of their viewers.

    Reply
  8. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Thanks for those observations, Chris. Your comments also remind me of 1998 when Clinton took a religious delegation to China that included an archbishop, a rabbi, and two National Association of Evangelical reps. The NCC lobbied to no avail to be included. Clinton has to be one of the most perceptive politicians of the past few decades when it comes to identifying rising power blocks and I think this event said a lot for what he thought about evnagelicals at least in the near future.
    This marginalization of mainliners has been going on for a least a decade or more.

    Reply
  9. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Thanks for your thoughts Kathy. I agree with you that conservative Christianity (less so Catholics) has over identified with the Republican party but the other reality is that the institutional structures of mainline denomination are sold out “lock stock and barrell” to the Democrat party. Yet there is a profound difference here.
    The leadership of evangelical insitutions are usually reflecting a broad majority of their followers. There followers embody what is is being advocated and politicians understand this. In the PCUSA, of those who claim a party affliation, it is two to one Republican yet look at the political statements that come from the institutional arm of the church. There is little embodiment in the rank and file of the values expressed politicians know this.
    I don’t believe you would find PCUSA Republicans on the whole to be as right-wing as some of the evangelical expressions but they would be far more to the center than the insitutional structures allow. If you are a politician counting votes, which are you going to pay more attention to? The values emodied by the masses or the values tauted by organizational operatives.
    Mainliners have no voice because members do not, on the whole, embody the values articulated by their leaders. I am NOT saying the answer is a swing to the far right from the far left. But if we are ever to have a credible voice again, embodiment is going to have to correspond with institutional voice. Evangelicals and Catholics have this.
    Most importantly, we all need to quit basing our policy decisions on political party loyalty and look to God and His Word.
    (end of sermon)*grin*

    Reply

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