CASUAL
BARNES, FRED
Casual THE MISFITS It's a bit of an oxymoron: Christian journalist. On the one hand, you're supposed to be meek, forgiving, and agreeable. Roughly speaking, those are the attributes of Christians...
...I loved the work...
...Rather, one of his ideas is to promote Christian fellowship among believing journalists and so reinforce their faith...
...There will always be enough writers for Christian publications, but never enough Christian writers and reporters to go around in the secular media...
...I'd be more specific, except the ground rules of the conference were that speeches and panel discussions were off the record...
...I've talked to many young Christians who steer clear of mainstream journalism for exactly this reason...
...Their commitment to Christ is so much more palpable than mine was at their age...
...Nor, as I've discovered over the years, has it for many others...
...No, not to impose it, but to present it in a way that might prompt more honesty, a better understanding of the human heart, and a fresh take, from time to time, on what's new and newsworthy...
...For the better...
...They are mocked and marginalized by co-workers who have no inkling that they're dissing anyone...
...Should their numbers swell, they have a real chance of changing journalism...
...Sure, journalism is a breathtakingly materialist profession...
...In fact, the only job I'd held in my adult life for more than a few months was as a newspaper reporter...
...David, more than anyone I know, has a passion for bringing Christian journalists together—and not to conspire on schemes for distributing tracts or evangelizing newsrooms...
...This was made amply clear to me at a three-day gathering of Christian journalists in London last week...
...Another said she must self-censor her comments to get along amicably with other journalists...
...His bigger idea is to bring the Christian worldview to bear on journalism...
...Roughly speaking, those are the attributes of Christians as laid down by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount...
...Still, it's no picnic for Christian journalists in the U.S...
...The guiding force behind the conference was David Aikman, a former foreign correspondent for Time who now has a perch at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington and contributes regularly to several publications, including The Weekly Standard...
...Their candor and boldness in discussing their faith is impressive...
...The truth is, Christian journalists in America have it relatively easy...
...FRED BARNES...
...My guess is Christians in their twenties and thirties have a bigger impact than they think...
...They're aggressive, judgmental, and given to hyperventilating in public...
...The problem comes in the execution, and this is what the London conference dwelt on...
...My advice to young journalists is to gut it out...
...Well, unless I'm self-deluded, it hasn't...
...Serious talk of religion would not be welcome...
...Their ambitions are great, their faith intense, and it's painful when the two clash...
...But Christ didn't promise us a congenial environment—quite the contrary...
...They come whenever they're dissatisfied with a story in that day's paper...
...If David were a liberal, he might market this as diversity...
...My conversion came relatively late in life—I was in my thirties, married with two kids—and I was well into a career in journalism...
...But I feared my advancement, indeed my ability to function effectively as a reporter, would be coming to an end, now that I'd chosen to follow Christ...
...media...
...The comparable situation here would be the dispatch of Green Berets to the Washington Post because President Clinton didn't care for a story about him and Monica...
...I can't say I've experienced much of this, at least face-to-face, but I don't doubt the tales I heard from other Christians, especially younger ones...
...I fretted over this conflict when I became a Christian in 1980...
...That's the concept—a worthy one, I'd say...
...Besides, compared with those in the Third World, newsrooms here are hotbeds of tolerance and tranquillity...
...All the normal characteristics of human behavior—Christ stood them on their head...
...Imagine working in a Muslim country where, as one reporter recounted, armed commandos are familiar visitors to the newsroom...
...The 50 or so journalists came from England, India, Finland, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Canada, Norway, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, Russia, Japan, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the United States...
...But it really dealt with the practical matter of how Christians in journalism can simultaneously adhere to their faith and enhance their profession...
...And journalists have the normal characteristics in the extreme...
...And, yes, newsrooms often are hostile environments to people who take their Christian faith seriously...
...One woman at the conference said she goes home indignant every evening over the slights she's endured...
...The conference had a hifalutin title, "Journalism: Truth and the 21st Century...
...His belief, however, is that Christians can play a far more important role, saving secular journalism from its self-destructive, amoral tendencies...
Vol. 3 • August 1998 • No. 47
