The more things change...

Why am I writing this in Life Changing? There are only three things that are supposed to radically change a person: a frontal lobotomy, deep psychoanalysis, or a religious conversation. Since this is somewhat on the topic of religion even though it is more about how human nature is unchanging, hence the title "the more things change ...," this entry is made here. (The full quote is "The more things change the more they stay the same." According to Yahoo Answers, it is a Proverb attributed to French novelist Alphonse Karr (1808-90).)

During a recent "long" drive through Portland, where I didn't stop at my favorite book store, Powell's Books, I happened to listen to at least a portion of a segment on a radio channel that I no longer remember, if I ever knew. (This I do not attribute to age but rather the effect of hitting seek and not noticing the channel it lit upon.)

Anyway, there was this female radio personality interviewing a male representative of the Culture and Media Institute who was waxing long, if not eloquently on the anti-Christian bias of HuffingtonPost's new religion tab. Now, I like HuffingtonPost and its format/forum which generally presents both news and a collection of generally well written blogs about a variety of topics and allows comments to both.

While I can agree that most of the blogs are of a liberal bias and the commenters seem to be a plurality of liberals, I had not actually gone to the "Religion" tab/page to get any impression of its bias, if any. And while I have done so now, I don't think that the HuffingtonPost is all that selective in its "news" so as to be biased or slanted in a way to be anti-Christian. I do think that the news that is current casts religion, and particularly, Christianity in a less than favorable light but this is not of HuffingtonPost's manufacture.

The current stories headlined there are of the potential Catholic coverup of Priests committing long-term acts of pedophilia. Rather than their removal from the situation that allowed such acts, they were believed to be contrite, committed to "sin no more," and forgiven. Another is of the Hutaree, a self-proclaimed Christian Militia. But there are also stories on the "news" of religions, namely: Easter and Passover, as well as acts of faith and charity. Admittedly fewer of the latter than the former but the HuffingtonPost is about presenting all the news and like most news organizations with a more conservative bias, i.e., Fox News, it is also about controversy and traffic, ratings.

For the most part, except for many of the comments, I have found HuffingtonPost's written contributions to be well thought out and worded. Many of them do express the authors' opinions of the facts, generally also well presented, If, as I've already admitted, this is a liberal bias, then it's because the facts tend to support that bias or that the subjects selected naturally have those kinds of facts.

What really got me in the interview was the Culture and Media representative going one step further and saying that HuffingtonPost was attacking prominent Christians, mentioning Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum specifically. His advocacy for anyone who chooses to call themselves Christian is worse than blind, particularly when that reinforces equally strongly their blatant non-Christian actions as role models.

My mother always used to say, "Christian is as Christian does." Pointing out the blatant lies and hypocrisy of such "prominent" self-proclaimed Christians is not an attack on Christianity but rather its only hope for salvation. Allowing anyone to practice uncaring greed, lying to deceive, and portraying those acts as Christianity to the world is horrendously damaging to Christianity. If those public figures want the mantle of Christianity, then they should act like Christians.

Blindly supporting any conservative, who is generally only conservative about their own power and money and not conservative in any other way, because they also "say" they are a Christian, fails to promote either conservatism or Christianity.