Bishop Duncan on the Anglican future

So, diversity in employees bad (per your earlier NPR post), diversity in interview subjects, good?

And if there's a link between those two. . . ?

Rod,

You write, "I wish she were more fair to thoughtful social and religious conservatives, and had them on her program more often."

I agree. However, if you're talking about guests who would advocate against gay marriage, and argue, in any form & in any way, that gays (including their sexual behavior) should not be given the full rights and approbations society gives to straight people, then your wish is unrealistic.

It's not committing a reductio ad Hitlerum to point out that to Terry Gross's ears (and many who feel like her), your wish is no different from what a slavery advocate in antebellum America might have wished of The Liberator (an abolitionist newspaper). How would the former's wish -- "why can't The Liberator provide more column inches to thoughtful pro-slavers?"

Gross et al do not believe there are any valid (including moral) perspectives from which gays do not deserve full rights and approval of society. Period.

I'd suggest trying to think of this in as positive a way as possible (and more broadly than only with respect to NPR), because if you don't it's just another source of simmering frustration (which we all have too much of in our lives); it's like that moment in childhood when you realize your dad is never, ever, ever going to take you to Disneyworld -- it's too d*** far away and too d*** expensive. In a sense you can relax and move onto other things (including appreciating dad for what he is, nonetheless, good at/able to do.)

-H

A Bishop and a Break-Away Group: This may be the referenced 2004 interview as a voice recording.
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=4210783&m=4210784

Since you went off on the NPR tangent..... Why can't you find the same level of discourse in extended interview form in the conservative media? There is nothing like that on talk radio or Fox that I can think of. You get the occasional 15 to 20 minute interview on Fox and the evening propaganda shows, but even they rarely do the extended, wonkish, detailed discussions. They tend to stay with high profile people so you don't seem them interviewing important military writers, historians or economists. Whe I wanted to hear an interview with McMaster, it was on Rose's show.

Steve

What is is about Duncan that Rod likes? The stance on gay marriage? Anything else?

There seem to be several possible threads here: to cheer standing up for the right regardless of cost, biased presentations in the press, the value of the press in letting people be heard (especially on public policy matters), how to determine right from wrong (slavery, killing of babies, how to treat others with whom one disagrees, government promotion of what the electorate sees as evil).

But the threads do converge, don’t they? Take an old issue, slavery. How was that settled? Recall the courts and the Dred Scott decision? How were abolitionists treated in the press, even those by those who sympathized? What status slavery (here) had not force of arms forced submission? Yet coercion does not change hearts and minds. One person at a time, and it took a while.

At the end of the day, I do believe in objective right and wrong. I also believe in free discussion, respectful of persons always, if not of their position. When someone’s position excludes people from full, human status, it’s hard to listen to that position. But to then treat the proponents as less than human actually reduces my own humanity, not theirs

Cheers to Bishop Duncan!

It's worth noting that progressives have similar criticisms of NPR: they go out of their way to interview conservatives, their correspondents lend credibility to FOX news by appearing on it, that they are too critical of progressive voices, that they are too mainstream, that their religion coverage--especially Barbara Bradley Hagerty--is too reverential to conservative voices and ideas.

Of course, my progressive friends say the same thing about the NYT--pro-war, pro-capitalism--and the Washington Post--too referential to the government, went out of the way to trash Clinton, editorial page has too many conservative voices.

Gross believes in the old journalism axiom: comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.

Ah, silly me. I thought journalism was about reporting on current events. What was I thinking?

Richard

Why should Terry Gross conceal her discomfort with social conservatives? Is there nobody whose views would make you uncomfortable in an interview? You want to be accepted among what you consider the smart crowd, Rod, and I don't blame you, but you can't just demand to be invited in if people genuinely find your views reprehensible and unworthy of serious treatment. People are entitled to think that about you, and I'm sure you think that about other people too. Would you be 100% comfortable interviewing Stari Momak? Warren Jeffs? Would you give their views a frequent and enthusiastic hearing? I doubt it.

Sorry talk radio and Fox News aren't any good, but that's really not any other station's problem. There's no obligation to compensate for the deterioration of journalism and dialog on the right.

Rod is uttering a prayer (note the subjunctive) not stating a fact.

Indeed. But only after expressing his aversion for the NPR presenter, and reassureing himself -- and those of his readers who care -- that she isn't lesbian. Apart from the its crude white populism, this sort of small-town censoriousness is probably the least attractive feature of conservatism.

It's 'national' because it is syndicated nationwide, broadcast in some form in every state. Do you feel the same way about Catholic University, which calls itself 'Of America'? Or the 'Catholic' church?

Religious belief is not going to conform to ANY kind of political correctness. Rod says what he says about his faith because that IS what he believes; it forms and shapes his own values, when he expresses his own opinions. Thanks to the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Great Awakening (none of those movements conforming entirely to the others), and the First Amendment, he can believe what he chooses and proclaim it, and anyone who believes differently can proclaim what they believe. As long as nobody is required to support, or pray in, this or that church, freedom of religion is as wide open as any freedom get in the United States of America.

Episcopalians do have a source of new blood: mixed marriages. Marriages of Congregationalists to Roman Catholics, Presbyterians to Roman Catholics, and similar combinations, often end up worshipping and raising the kids Episcopalian as a reasonable compromise. We've come some distance since a person in Massachusetts who chose not to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church would be issued a certificate reading "This is to certify that ________________________ has abandoned the Christian religion and joined the Episcopal Church."

Now one more time, everyone who favors expanding the definition of marriage to license same-sex couples, please plead your case on its own merits, instead of taking refuge in analogies to slavery. Providing for same sex marriage, like slavery, is a matter of "positive law." Each can exist only by passing a law to create it, and neither exists naturally. (Heterosexual marriage is also a matter of positive law, whether divine, theocratic, or secular, otherwise it would not exist.) So, agitating to abolish laws which create and provide for slavery, is very different from agitating to adopt laws which create and provide for an expanded definition of marriage. As to who should provide column inches to advocate for what, The Liberator was an advocacy paper for a movement, not unlike Rush Limbaugh, but with a different point of view. NPR is a publicly financed service justified by the claim, which Rod sustains, that it improves the quality of radio programming over what the market alone will dish out. As such, its not bad to ask that a wide variety of viewpoints be represented, even if the host of the show is understandably critical in her line of questions. It really is good to hear other viewpoints -- you don't have to agree with everything that reaches your ears.

Nowadays, the government actually provides a very small portion of their overall funding.

"Approximately half of NPR's annual operating revenue is contributed from the private sector, primarily from corporations and foundations. NPR receives no direct support from the federal government; typically one to two percent of our annual budget comes from grants from government agencies, for which we must apply. The remaining half of NPR's budget comes from member stations and the fees paid by stations to purchase our programming. More financial information is available in NPR's most recent financial statements, based upon annual audits."

From here: http://www.npr.org/about/place/corpsupport/majordonor.html

Funny story about Terry Gross:

I listened to her interview with Quentin Tarantino recently, on the occasion of his new film. They started talking about the quotation from Ezekiel that Jules recites in Pulp Fiction. They even played a clip of it.

It was quite evident from the questions that Terry had no idea that the quote is not actually from the Bible. Tarantino eventually admitted that he had gotten it from an old Kung Fu movie, but even then Terry was completely oblivious to the fact that it's a made up quote. It seemed to me, listening, that Tarantino thought this was funny, too, but he wasn't letting on.

And I can hardly imagine any Pulp Fiction fan, however irreligious, not being curious enough to try to look that verse up. Especially if you think it's interesting enough to prepare that particular question, with a clip and everything.

NPR=prep school Bolshevism.

"They may get the past, but we've got the future."

I don't see much of a future in the declining influence of the Mythology that his particular variation of Religion pitches.

but hey, let's agree to disagree.

myth faith hope love joy peace to all...
though God just can't seem to give any good solid reasoning for any purpose to Eternal Life... oh well.

Agn Stoic, of itself it's not a problem; when those who belong to that group act and speak as if they're automatically representing everyone else, then others will probably have a problem.
When they say one thing but do another ("Celebrate Diversity-while you live in a town 98% White/upper middle class")then you're either oblivious to yourself or a hypocrite.
Please don't tell me that "I wrestle with the decision to send my kids to private school. I'm wrestling with belonging to a denomination/church that's 95% white". That's just begging to enjoy preaching while everything stays the same. You want to talk like Che Guevara while living like Cato Kaelin. Pitiful. No wonder Mainline Protestantism is viewed as irrelevant.

Agn Stoic, of itself it's not a problem; when those who belong to that group act and speak as if they're automatically representing everyone else, then others will probably have a problem.

Is that what they do?

I'm not saying they don't, I just haven't seen anything much like that, since I don't frequent mainline Protestant churches.

I listen to NPR but don't hear much of what you are talking about.

Sometimes I wonder if many of us aren't just responding to caricatures of what we think the 'other side' does and thinks.

For what it may or may not be worth, Terry Gross alluded to the fact that she was Jewish during her infamous interview with Gene Simmons.

As an someone still inside the Episcopal Church, it has no future and is dying off and collapsing. Face it, nobody wants a watered down Christianity, you either believe that stuff or you don't. The Episcopal Church sold her soul to impress people who don't give a crap one way or another.

The membership many not do it that often (claim to speak for everyone)but the policy papers and statements of most Mainline Protestant denominations sound as if the Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians and so forth are America's last chance against hordes of baptist and mormon fundiegelical nutjobs. Diane Butler Bass has expressed this idea as "The Mainline is America's Conscience", which is rather hard on the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, not to mention the largest growing segement of the US population: None of the Above.
I used to frequent the Mainline and the attitudes of clergy were generally a mixture of obliviousness to what anyone not in the membership's social strata was up to or into, condescension ("If we could just dialogue with our opponents")and snide or hysterical panic at signs of their denomination's decline and signs that others in the country disagreed strongly with what denominational leadership wanted us to do or whom to vote for.
A sort of "Take up the (upper middle class/Northwest European)White Man's Burden" feeling.

Rod,

I laughed out loud when I read this line from you: "but the two topics she returns to over and over again are homosexuality and..."

You definitely have something in common with Terry Gross!