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 as laid down by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. All the normal characteristics of human behavior — Christ stood them on their head. And journalists have the normal characteristics in the extreme. They’re aggressive, judgmental, and given to hyperventilating in public.
I fretted over this conflict when I became a Christian in 1980. 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. In fact, the only job I’d held in my adult life for more than a few months was as a newspaper reporter. I loved the work. 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.
Well, unless I’m self-deluded, it hasn’t. Nor, as I’ve discovered over the years, has it for many others. This was made amply clear to me at a three-day gathering of Christian journalists in London last week. The conference had a hifalutin title, “Journalism: Truth and the 21st Century.” But it really dealt with the practical matter of how Christians in journalism can simultaneously adhere to their faith and enhance their profession. 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.
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. 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. Rather, one of his ideas is to promote Christian fellowship among believing journalists and so reinforce their faith.
His bigger idea is to bring the Christian worldview to bear on journalism. 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. If David were a liberal, he might market this as diversity. His belief, however, is that Christians can play a far more important role, saving secular journalism from its self-destructive, amoral tendencies.
That’s the concept — a worthy one, I’d say. The problem comes in the execution, and this is what the London conference dwelt on. The truth is, Christian journalists in America have it relatively easy. Sure, journalism is a breathtakingly materialist profession. And, yes, newsrooms often are hostile environments to people who take their Christian faith seriously. I’ve talked to many young Christians who steer clear of mainstream journalism for exactly this reason. But Christ didn’t promise us a congenial environment — quite the contrary. My advice to young journalists is to gut it out. There will always be enough writers for Christian publications, but never enough Christian writers and reporters to go around in the secular media.
Besides, compared with those in the Third World, newsrooms here are hotbeds of tolerance and tranquillity. Imagine working in a Muslim country where, as one reporter recounted, armed commandos are familiar visitors to the newsroom. They come whenever they’re dissatisfied with a story in that day’s paper. (I’d be more specific, except the ground rules of the conference were that speeches and panel discussions were off the record.) 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.
Still, it’s no picnic for Christian journalists in the U.S. media. They are mocked and marginalized by co-workers who have no inkling that they’re dissing anyone. 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. Their ambitions are great, their faith intense, and it’s painful when the two clash. One woman at the conference said she goes home indignant every evening over the slights she’s endured. Another said she must self-censor her comments to get along amicably with other journalists. Serious talk of religion would not be welcome.
My guess is Christians in their twenties and thirties have a bigger impact than they think. Their candor and boldness in discussing their faith is impressive. Their commitment to Christ is so much more palpable than mine was at their age. Should their numbers swell, they have a real chance of changing journalism. For the better.
FRED BARNES
