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Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2019

Don't use Dead Christians to Score Political/Rhetorical Points

Over the past few days, I have seen a few disturbing Facebook posts about Christian's slaughtered in Nigeria and the Philippines. Of course, as a Christian and, frankly as a human, I am deeply saddened by this. But, these posts have been rhetorically dishonest and so devalue and dishonor those who have died.

The reports are not usually posted with a simple "this is sad, we should pray and remember Christians who live in hard places and have their lives taken from them." No, instead it's, "the media is falling all over themselves to report the massacre in New Zealand, but nary a word about the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria and the Philippines."  It's a rhetorical trick attempting to demonstrate that the media ("the left wing media") doesn't care about the plight of Christians. Problem is, the facts are very wrong.

First, consider what is being spread regarding the bombing in the Philippines; the following post is an example. This was posted on March 15th, shortly after the New Zealand mosque killings.

Indeed ISIS terrorists did attack two Catholic churches in the Philippines and killing at least twenty, wounding dozens. But this attacked happened in late January (not, as the post implies, in mid-March). And, the tragedy was covered by media when it actually happened, including CNN, Fox, NYTimes, BBC, Reuters and many more.


The killings in Nigeria are different, more complicated. The posts that have been circulating, often referencing a Breitbart headline, claim that Muslim militants have killed more than 120 Christians in Nigeria. Again, this is a mixture of truth and error. The numbers vary from agency to agency, but 120 is very likely. However, this is part of a larger feud between farmers and herders that is raging in Nigeria currently. Muslim nomadic herders (Fulani) have been in conflict with the ethnically Christian Adara people in Nigeria. Many on both sides have been killed. In February, Adara gunmen, in response to an attack by Fulani, targetted Fulani settlements and killed at least 130. In March, yes 120 Christians, or more, were killed as a part of this conflict. It's ugly. It is war. Which makes it categorically different than a white supremacist walking into a mosque and killing fifty, wounding more.  

The Christland shooting has received more attention than either of the other two events. I don't doubt that, but it seems completely understandable too. There is a 'first world bias' to events we read about or hear about from the media. A factory fire that kills 20 in Bangladesh won't make the news. Same fire in Chicago or Londo will. And, this kind of violence isn't expected in New Zealand, but we have become somewhat calloused to it in other parts of the country. A gangland shootout killing three or four people won't make the news if it's in Chicago or LA. If it's on the streets of Cape Cod or in Disneyland it would.

Let me be blunt, misrepresenting these horrific events to make the point that Christians are ignored by the media is dishonest. It is, in terms of the Ten Commandments, bearing false witness. And, it dishonors the dead - they aren't tools to be used in your war against the media. Shaping public opinion by using false data is, at best, manipulative. It feeds the "us vs. them" mentality that is doing so much harm in our nation and across the globe. Please stop.

Monday, December 08, 2014

Blogging Again

For the past...well, long time, I've been focusing on finishing up my ThM and getting the final project submitted. Now that I've checked that off my list, I'd like to get back to blogging. I enjoy it and it helps me think through issues as well as learn to articulate well. I hope it's been of some help to others in the past.

I have a truck load of things I'd like to write about - Revelation (of course), hermeneutics, Christians and culture, perseverance of the saints, union with Christ, men and women stuff, baseball (of course), etc.

I'd also like this to be a place to answer questions. I get a lot of them from friends, in ACGs, and just passing in the halls at church. Why not add to the list of things I don't know, but want to learn more about!? So shoot me questions using the form in the sidebar and I'll do my best - though if you start asking things like 'how does Hegel's philosophy dovetail with Barth's theology?', you'll have to be content with 'I have no earthly idea!'

Eager,
 Dan

Thursday, November 01, 2012

I'm Back

Well, after a three month break from blogging, I've decided to return from retirement. The break was good - it helped me, hopefully, be less obsessive about the blog. And, I was running out of things to say! My reading had been very technical (read 'boring') and wasn't sparking any good blog ideas.

I'm done with that reading now and am eager to dive into the books that have been piling up on my desk waiting for attention. Books you'll be hearing from soon include Poythress' Inerrancy and Worldview, Trueman's The Creedal Imperative, Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and maybe even some Church Marketing 101. 

I'm also planning on using the CGroup study on Jonah I wrote as a series of blog posts - hoping it will be a good resource for the cgroup leaders.

Lastly, you may notice a new button in the sidebar "Playlist Theology." I've always posted some of my favorite songs/songs-I'm-currently-listening-to. Now, inspired by my summer devotional with the boys (and Dr. Moore's 'The Cross and the Jukebox' podcast), I plan on posting reflections to go along with the songs on a weekly basis.

Monday, April 04, 2011

I'm going with this...

Again, I'm sorry for the confusion regarding this blog. There were serious bugs with the blogger site last week, so I began keeping the same blog over on wordpress. Blogger has since fixed the bugs, so I'm going to keep posting here on godentranced.blogspot.com. I've been using this for seven years, don't want to jump ship over a few pesky bugs! If you subscribed to the feed at the wordpress site, unsubscribe - it'll be lying dormant from here on out. You can subscribe to the posts or the comments to this site tot he right.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Blog Confusion

You may have noticed that there has been some confusion regarding the Godentranced blog. Right now, there are two Godentranced blogs - one on blogger and one on wordpress. The web address godentranced.com has been pointed you to the wordpress site and facebook posts are from the wordpress site too. I'm not sure it will stay that way, but hope to have it all figured out soon. There were some blogger bugs that got incredibly frustrating, so I put together a wordpress blog. I like it, but several things are much more difficult in the wordpress platform, so I don't love it. If the bugs get worked out in blogger (and it's not just me, lots of people are reporting the same issues), then I'll probably keep that one and let the wordpress blog fall dormant. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted.