Christian Media Schizophrenia on Display

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/moms-expose-librarys-shocking-lgbt-youth-pride-event-homosexuality-transgenderism-drag-queens

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/trumps-4th-of-july-celebration-highlighted-everything-liberals-hate-about-america

On the one hand LifeSite, an Evangelical-style Catholic news outlet has done us a service in revealing the repugnant horrors of homosexual recruitment at work in connection with libraries and other public institutions. It truly was disturbing to read just how debauched and depraved these people are and how blatantly they are attempting to recruit the young into their evil sphere.

This sort of information has a real value for Christians and of course it's something the mainstream won't touch. They avoid it due to ideology but even more due to simple practical causes. They don't want the controversy. They don't want to risk losing advertisers. Even if they want to cover topics related to homosexuality, they as profit-based organisations are better served by running human interest type stories which engender pity and empathy. This sort of story is shameful and most people know it. It will generate anger, disgust and suspicion. This library outreach isn't about getting information out to the public or the youth for the purposes of education. As much as we might disagree with even that, that's not what this is. It's something far more sinister.

But then on the other hand LifeSite then barrages us with pro-Trump militarist propaganda. It avoids the controversial aspects of Trump's parade and seeks at every turn to defend and promote him, his ideology and even his style.

I for one was not scandalised by the display of US militarism. I know better. I know what the US is and how its empire functions. And yet for many in the American Establishment, that face, that evil but very real aspect of the US imperial war machine is not to be put on display. Trump represents that face, that ugly aspect of American power and ever present corrupt character but it's always remained hidden and thus masked by plausible deniability. Trump has wrecked the narrative.

Perhaps even more than this, there are some that are disturbed by the politicisation of what had been unifying episodes of civic life, non-partisan celebrations of American symbolism and (from my perspective) myth. Trump appropriated the event and used it as a political platform marking a shift in both US politics and in one's understanding of patriotism and how it ought to be expressed.

But do we get insight or reflection from LifeSite? Do we get even a modicum of Biblical wisdom or consideration? Not a chance. We get rank propaganda of the most base, prosaic and feeble sort. In fact this piece is but an extension or endorsement of the very controversy Trump was generating. LifeSite in this case is not news but a partisan advocate for the administration.

If that's what the site and its authors want to be, then fine. At least have the integrity to say so. Don't pretend like what you're offering is news.

Aside from the foolish endorsement of Julia Ward Child's heretical Battle Hymn of the Republic, it's implied the Democrats don't properly love America. Such argumentation is typical if lame and panders to a base and ignorant sort of audience... apparently the average LifeSite reader. While I have no love or regard for the Democratic Party I will at least acknowledge that an idea of America as becoming as opposed to an unreflective celebration of a mythologised past does not mean that someone is unpatriotic.

I am in fact unabashedly unpatriotic (even anti-patriotic) and that out of Biblical conviction. And thus I'm far more troubled by the erroneous views of the LifeSite commentator than I am by such pseudo-leftist worldlings like Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders.

Trump's 'Salute to America' was a charade of lies and from a Christian perspective... deeply idolatrous and something every Christian should renounce and find deeply offensive. Christian participants ought to rebuked by their churches.

But in this age of apostasy, that's too much to hope for.

LifeSite typifies the Christian News experience. There are tiny fragments of useful information, the occasional bit of helpful commentary and even some rare acumen. Or to put it another way, one finds some truth, some half-truths and some outright lies. On the one hand it provides an interesting occasion to reflect on just how far the Evangelical-Catholic alliance has progressed. Additionally as time passes I find myself actually more keen to listen to Catholic voices than Evangelical ones. This is not because I am even remotely flirting with Rome. God forbid. Rather, there seems to be a little more depth and even intellectual consistency in their circles, LifeSite excepted. But the fact that it runs 'Standard' and 'Catholic' editions is also interesting.

But whatever good can be said about LifeSite and the many news outlets like it, is buried beneath piles of filth, lies and misinformation. Any Christian who consistently imbibes this sort of 'media' will be sure to slip down a road that ranges very far indeed from both the Kingdom of Christ and the ethics and wisdom of the New Testament.