The Worldliness of the Media

Media Hypocrisy on Russian Election Interference, Claims Regarding Biden and China, and Some General Comments on the Moral Spectrum of Western News Coverage

In this polarised and increasingly insane social climate it is important (even critical) for Christians to understand what is happening. It's affecting the Church and its testimony in the larger culture. Like it or not we are being identified with one of the political factions involved in the present conflagration and it would serve us well to be able to explain what is happening and why we reject the dominant narratives.

First, it must be acknowledged that both political factions are utterly hypocritical, corrupt and misleading. If you can't see this, then you need to re-think your life, how you think, what you've learned and go back to the basics and start over again. You've made a wrong turn, it's affected your thinking and has landed you in a bad and even dangerous place. By danger I refer not just to physical danger (which at present is only on the horizon), but I also refer to real spiritual dangers as such factional thinking risks the suspension of judgment and moral discernment.

And this present danger is doubly true given the current climate of Christian news. It attempts to theologize the politics and put an ethical spin on the factional infighting – when the truth is both parties and indeed the entire system reeks of brimstone and sewage. It's a fiery morass of lies, deceit, avarice, hate and destruction – Romans 1 applied to a power struggle. No Christian can swim in this mire and come out clean. No Christian can drink of these waters and not be poisoned. Your very senses and intuitions will be affected by it and you will no longer be able to discern your right hand from your left, up from down, right from wrong, truth and goodness versus lies and evil. It is a road to reprobation.

I see this happening all around me – and I'm not just referring to the world but specifically to the Church – the same Church that has under the tutelage of its false shepherds become all but indistinguishable from the world, its thoughts, goals, attitudes, and its wielding of evil to attain and hold power.

Has the Mainstream media argued that this election result was affected by Russian meddling? Not this time. This is not because of the vigilance of the American security services. No, it's simply because the phony narrative had no utility in this instance. Trump legitimately lost (even though it's staggering to consider how many voted for him) and so the last thing the DNC and its affiliates want to do is call the integrity of the election into question. The media's utter hypocrisy has been exposed on this point. The Russia-angle was always a hoax and thus they have conveniently dropped it.

What about Right-wing claims that Biden was a China sycophant, that Beijing wanted Biden to win because he would submit the United States to Chinese domination? One of my neighbours even put up a large banner in his yard saying that a vote for Biden was a vote for China.

Apart from the number of prima facie absurdities coming out of these quarters and the media that supports them, the truth is quite different. Biden was Obama's bulldog in the Asia-Pacific region. He gave speech after speech threatening nations, sometimes to their face – telling them not to sign on with Beijing but to remain loyal to Washington. Obama was attempting to 'pivot' US military, economic, and diplomatic might toward the Asia-Pacific region in an attempt to counter and contain China but he failed to do so. The Middle East, set on fire by George Bush wouldn't quit burning and he was sidetracked by the Arab Spring, the US-backed (and Clinton inspired) overthrow and murder of Qaddafi, the war in Syria, and ISIS.

And yet Obama and Biden helped to construct the TPP agreement which was meant to form an anti-Beijing economic bloc. Opposed by liberals, the move was a bald assertion of American power in the region. Too complex and multifaceted for Trump to understand and opposed to his nativist intuitions, it was quickly dropped in January 2017 and has since all but collapsed. Biden, rather than 'bow' to China will most likely attempt to revive the plan – a thorn in Beijing's side and a threat to their OBOR project.

Contrary to Right-wing claims, the Chinese Establishment wanted Trump to win (this was even reported by the BBC) because far from making America great again, Trump was dismantling and breaking the US-dominated Western order – marginalising US power and leaving the door wide open to Chinese expansion across Eurasia and Africa. The tariffs hurt only slightly as the real bulk of the cost is passed on to the American consumer – something that will be felt even more in 2021. And you can be sure the economic numbers will be blamed on Biden.

The instability and collapse of American leadership and assertiveness has been a gift to Beijing. They would have been happy to have another four years of Trump. By 2024 the US would have risked losing its 'superpower' status altogether.

Both sides of the media spectrum are corrupt and dominated by corporate interests. Listening to the BBC or NPR, one is assailed by sodomite and feminist ideology but this is coupled with capitalism and Western imperialism under the guise of humanitarianism and liberal values. The socially left-ward leaning posture is combined with right-wing assumptions about economics and Western power. This is the norm, the Centrist-default setting that governs the Establishment. It is both Right and Left in its outlook but seeks to avoid the extremes because more than anything the people at the top of the power structure want stability.

Both sides of the Establishment spectrum are opposed to everything I as a Christian am all about.

Isn't Right-wing FOX an alternative? Isn't the network against feminism? Not really. Lipstick feminism is still feminism and often the femininity expressed by FOX (and increasingly in Evangelical circles) reminds one of the Tasmanian She-Devil of Looney Toons fame. Inappropriately dressed career women acting like men (and barking like dogs) are not role models for Christian women, nor are they conservative. They may represent Right-wing values – nationalism, capitalism and the like but they do not represent traditional values or roles.

Aren't FOX (and other networks like OAN and Newsmax) against sodomy? Again not really, not at a substantive level, because they represent the absolutising of consumerism and the self – the very idolatrous love of money that leads to evil, the seeds of decadence – that Ezekiel 16 tells us leads to actual sodomy. The evil that was Sodom cannot be restricted to its sexual perversion but it represents a comprehensive worldliness, a form of reprobation in which the conscience is seared and the self is absolutised and thus all forms of self-empowerment and pleasure are reckoned as desirable, moral and legitimate ends. It is worldliness enshrined – fallen man in bondage to sin and Satan, placed over and above God. The American Right has embraced this just as heartily as the Left, especially in the realm of economics and all its corollaries – and the Church has been led down the same evil path.

These news outlets may claim to be conservative but that concept has no real meaning in the context of Western Liberalism and increasingly it is little more than a moniker applied to Right-wing ideology which can (very easily) incorporate and re-cast anti-conservative ideals in nationalist, nativist, and capitalist packaging enabling it to appear as 'conservative' to the ignorant sheep within its larger movement.

And in terms of economics, foreign policy and the like – the Right-wing is just plain evil. It's every bit as bad and immoral as the Democratic faction they so viciously despise.

No Christian can ally with any of these news sources or the ideologies they represent. None of them present a Christian worldview. What's worse? What's more dangerous? – to listen or watch something you know isn't Christian or to listen or watch something you think is Christian – but really isn't?

The spectrum that is before us has one thing in common. It promotes and projects the world system. The fact that lost people are fighting for their piece of the pie shouldn't surprise us. Let them chase their vapours and empty dreams, their riches and power which will rust and fade. Let them clamour for Caesar's bloody coin. It's lost people chasing after things that passing away. It's to be expected. It's a fight Christians shouldn't be part of. We have to live in their world but we don't let them frame the way in which we see it. But money does that and Church leaders have been corrupted and they've made 'true believers' out of their underlings and the people in the pews. The Church has been sold a lie and its being used by these same forces.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their means and my people love to have it so. (Jeremiah 5.31)

At best we seek a modicum of objectivity – something that simply does not exist on either political extreme. FOX and CNN are not viable options. OAN and Newsmax are absurd and while some Left-wing outlets such as Democracy Now! retain a little value, they too are becoming increasingly irrelevant and unhelpful.

Genuine mainstream outlets like the BBC or NPR have some value but it must be understood that you're getting Right-wing values and assumptions on economics and foreign policy (even when those on the Far Right don't think so) and you're getting Left-wing 'progressive' views when it comes to society and the culture. They're wrong on all fronts but once this is understood their basic commitments to reporting result in news that has some value – albeit limited. Remember too, for the most part mainstream media is about making money. That drives everything they do.

The only solution is to read widely, pull from different sectors that are both outside your immediate cultural and political climate and your so-called 'comfort zone'. In other words Americans would do well to read the assessments of those outside their country – the reporting is often far more insightful and better at summarizing and contextualising. And Christians need to read and understand the Scriptures – not through American or Western eyes – but as revealed from on high. A proper understanding of doctrine will provide a filter by which the world can be interacted with.

Talking to other Christians I am always aware that I am at war with the voices that influence them – the media figures they have chosen to believe. Don't believe any of them. None of them share our interests. And don't be fooled by the supposed Christian testimonies of people working at FOX and other such outlets – let alone the charlatans who have entered politics. They're deceiving themselves and deceiving you.

And it is also my hope that more Christians will question their leaders – the Church has been infiltrated by Satan's ministers and false shepherds just as the apostles warned us. It has always been so but there are times (such as the present) when it becomes overwhelming.