Lazy Journalism or Salt and Light?

I have a confession to make ... This week I reacted to something in the press which many other Christians had already responded to, believing that what I had read was true and putting aside one of my life traits of trying to find out both sides of things before making any decision on the "truth".


The case of the couple which led to the headlines, stated that a High Court judgment had decreed that there was no place in law for Christian views. I commented on this article in the Telegraph on their web site. Later in the week I read another article which exposed this as "lazy journalism" - not reporting what had actually been decreed.

This week also saw a web frenzy of "Christians" hammering Rob Bell and his soon to be released book Love Wins. The bloggers, twitterers and others have concluded that Bell's new book shows that he is now preaching universalism. Given that most have not been able to read the book, cos its not released yet, many are relying on the reporting of those with advanced copies or the short video publicising the book. They may be right but then they could also be wrong and it might also be a great publicity exercise to sell lots of books.

That is not to say that Christians are not persecuted as the example we saw this week of the Pakistani Minister Sharaz Bhatti, who stood against the blasphemy laws in that country and died as a result, gave the world. Here we saw a life, the life we are called to live in faith no matter the cost, call attention to it.

What, I wonder, do the non Christians make of all of our arguing, getting it wrong, not checking our facts before we pronounce or jump onto something?

One blogger recently commented on the need for the church to re-engage with its community as it used to and the opportunities for this that the current cut-backs in government spending offer.


What the world needs to see is a Church that gets on with transforming the communities in which it is; winning folks hearts and minds by its faith in action rather than spending its resources fighting court cases and producing millions of wasted moments reacting to news paper articles and potential publicity stunts. As James reminds us, the truth of our faith is shown in the action that results from it.


If we did more of this and less fighting among ourselves, if we did more of this and spent less time commenting on incorrect articles which seem to exaggerate differences, just maybe the salt and light we are, would have more impact and cause others to recognise the values and standards that Christ expects his people to show in the world.