Winter 2005 « Biola Magazine « Biola University

Why the Media Misrepresents Christianity

Everybody complains about the media. It’s either too conservative or too liberal, or journalists are seen as consciously setting out to misrepresent viewpoints with which they disagree. Media treatment of religion is no exception to this view, as USC media scholar Diane Winston recently observed, “everyone thinks that their own religious beliefs are misrepresented in the media.” Evangelical Christians share this perspective, and tend to see the press as either maligning or belittling their beliefs in news and editorial accounts. Indeed among evangelicals the view has been popularized that the press, while originally Christian, became secularized as Christian ideas lost out to secular ideas when they came into conflict in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The story however, is more complex — and more interesting — than that religious ideas were simply displaced in important American institutions during that time period.

From the 1870s through the 1920s, institutions such as higher education, law, journalism, and even Christianity, were being organized around the ideas of rationality, objectivity and science. As these ideas became increasingly dominant, they inevitably came into conflict with the teachings of historic Christianity, both within these institutions and in the larger culture.

The newly developing institution of journalism was no exception in this regard. As key media personnel such as publishers, editors, and university journalism professors worked toward both the establishment and expansion of their media enterprises, and the establishment of the profession of journalism, they actively sought to minimize and undermine traditional Christianity. In comparison to modern science, which was presented as the authoritative voice for modern life in all things, including moral teachings, historic Christianity was presented as being too sectarian and lacking in modern understanding to guide the modern person.

As media organizers sought the authority of science to legitimate their claims to moral authority in society, they viewed religion as a competitor to those moral claims and worked to undermine traditional Christianity and its role in American society arguing that journalism, with its rational, objective and scientific sensibilities, was the ideal successor to religion in the modern world. Religion and the media then, can be seen as offering competing views of the world, one representing the rational, objective, scientific approach to knowledge and enlightenment, the other representing an understanding of reality that goes beyond science and rationality, and which acknowledges a world that is beyond our attempts as humans to codify and categorize our knowledge.

The legacy of this conflict remains with us today. The limitations of the media, the overriding economic interests of publishers and editors, and their interest in maintaining cultural authority work against stories about religion that go beyond a surface treatment of real beliefs and focus, instead, on scandal and conflict in religious organizations or between fellow believers. This is not, however, an unchangeable situation in which believers must settle for either being misunderstood or misrepresented in the media. Indeed, many insightful stories about religion are being published regularly in major media outlets such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among others, so it is possible to have good, in-depth reporting about religion in America.

What then, can individual Christians, or organizations, such as churches or schools, do to help improve media coverage of Christianity? Here are several practical suggestions:

Focus on what it is about Christianity that compels a particular action or ministry.
Don’t use “Christian-eze” in speaking with the press. Make clear what you mean by the terms we take for granted.
Have a well-articulated and concise response to queries from the press.
Be open and honest in dealings with the press.
Be non-defensive in dealing with the press, even if they get the story wrong.
Understand the limits of the journalistic enterprise, and be willing to work with what it can provide.
If you believe that a story misrepresents Christian beliefs, call the editor to express not only that you believe the story missed, but why it missed.

To conclude, it is good to remember that journalists are open and engaged with their subject matter; they want to understand what it is they are writing about and to publish an accurate and compelling account. By helping the journalist to understand the story you are trying to tell, the journalistic account will be better and more accurate as a result, and in the end, allow for a better understanding of Christianity in the modern world.

Richard Flory, Ph.D., is associate professor of sociology at Biola University and a research associate in the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is the author of the recently published article, “Promoting a Secular Standard: Secularization and Modern Journalism, 1870-1930.” He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.