JOURNALISM HAS A RELIGION PROBLEM

National Review

 

Journalism Has a Religion Problem

By ANDREW T. WALKER

March 10, 2024 6:30 AM

 

Media framing of recent controversies places an unjust burden on religiously informed beliefs in the public square.

 

Irecall hearing in college a little throwaway line: “Do you know what you get when you talk about religion and politics? Politics.”

 

This is an expression meant to cynically demonstrate how politics ends up infecting everything. But rather than go with cynicism, why not ask the obvious: If politics is about ordering our lives together in society, how could one’s deepest convictions, which are typically viewed as the province of religion, not spill over into political concerns?

 

Everyone, “secular” and “religious” alike, should state the foundations of their beliefs about morality and justice. If you are an atheist, just admit that your views on justice stem from figures such as David Hume and Charles Darwin. If you are a Christian, just admit that your views ultimately stem from the Judeo-Christian worldview. Being clear about those foundations allows us to go about the task of sorting out our real differences within a democracy. Fully airing our views allows us to be honest about the possibility of convergence or, instead, irreconcilable disagreement.

 

Which brings me to the purpose of this essay: Journalism has a religion problem. More specifically, journalists are either unaware or unwilling to admit that their own views, presumably untouched by “religion,” are nonetheless passionately held convictions grounded, well, somewhere. What do I mean by that? Well, journalism that touches on religion and politics tends to see religious viewpoints as carrying a special burden. It goes something like this: “Tell me, Mr. Pious, why a diverse population should accept your views on morality, considering they come from religion.”

 

I’ve had two interactions like this myself when speaking with journalists about religion, politics, and ethics. For example, I was once asked why it would be okay for a Christian florist to decline making flowers for a same-sex wedding. I was asked, “Is that not imposing someone’s religious values on someone else?” I recall telling this journalist, “Well, the florist’s views are surely grounded in religion, but her views about marriage are not exclusively religious. This is a debate about what marriage is, not whether my religious claim is accurate or immediately relevant to the conflict at hand. In effect, this is a debate about a moral good that surely is grounded in theological realities from my perspective, but not limited to theological realities alone.” The crux of the issue, however, is that because the reporter saw a bright “religion” sign hanging over my head, she used that to force her own biases about secular neutrality on me. She did not see that her secular viewpoint about gay marriage was an imposition on me, though it was. As these types of debates get framed, it was okay for the florist to have her conscience mocked and punished. What could not happen was expecting the same-sex couple to act like adults and patronize a different florist in the marketplace, one that had no scruples about arranging flowers for a same-sex wedding.

 

Then, just last week, I was interviewed by Vox about the IVF ruling in Alabama. The reporter framed my position as exclusively religious in nature. While I have no problem confessing that my viewpoint ultimately stems from a religious foundation, I was clear in my response that the issue at hand, the morality of IVF, can be debated without immediate reference to religion. That’s why in my response I focused less on the fact that I believe embryos are made in God’s image (someone may disagree with that on religious grounds) and more on the fact that, biologically and philosophically, the question of whether an embryo is a human being is not up for debate. As I said in my interview, everyone was once an embryo. That’s not a religious claim.

 

This sentiment also comes on the heels of a now much-discussed episode in which Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla put her foot in her mouth while scoffing at the idea of rights coming from God — you know, the very idea that our Declaration of Independence states at the outset. Przybyla has since tried to walk back her statements. But in doing so, she does the very thing that plagues journalism when it ventures into religion: She assumes that nonreligious viewpoints enjoy a special place of privilege and that religious viewpoints must clear a higher hurdle in order to enter the public arena (except in those areas, of course, where religious teaching aligns with a traditionally left-wing policy ideal). In effect, she seems unwilling to acknowledge that secular viewpoints come chock-full of their own assumptions about morality. Because these assumptions are untainted by God-talk, they immediately get moved to the front of the line for public discourse. The religious troglodytes need to stand in the back.

 

She writes, “No one gets to impose their wishes on others simply by asserting their confidence that heaven is on their side.” She continues:

 

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Every person’s spiritual motivations are entitled to respect. Once these motivations take them onto the stage of politics and lawmaking that will affect the lives of fellow citizens, however, they will be treated the same as any other political actor. That means they can expect journalistic scrutiny. They can expect fair and well-reported coverage of their political aims and the tactics used to advance them. They cannot expect exemption from criticism from people who oppose their agendas, nor any extra deference for their political words or actions simply because they are motivated by religious belief.

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She’s right in what she says above: Religious viewpoints do deserve scrutiny, as do all others. But note that the assumption is that public discourse, as she sees it, gives secular answers the advantage because they supposedly argue from a plane of pure neutrality. She goes on to argue that everyone in a democracy should honor the separation of church and state and that religious Americans should be willing to play by the rules of democracy: “Making arguments and presenting evidence in a truthful and transparent way is part of the process of winning democratic consent.”

 

I want to go on record agreeing with what Przybyla says here. I’ve tried to do the very thing she calls for. But guess what? No matter how reasonable, rational, and calm I may appear, journalists still want to treat the moral claim I’m making as some eccentric religious principle. She commits the very problem I’m speaking out against: She sees religious-based arguments as religious only. I understand why she might say this. But here’s what is also important to state: Christians believe that any moral claim the Bible makes can, in principle, be debated and understood by the non-Christian. Call this whatever you want — “creation order,” “general revelation,” “natural law” — Christians believe that in all persons a deposit of morality exists that allows them some access to moral realities.

 

Przybyla ends by saying something I want to affirm: “Those who complain must recognize that in a pluralistic society people on the other side of policy debates have religious or idealistic convictions every bit as sincere as their own.” She is right about this. The 20th century theologian Henry Van Til once observed that “culture is religion externalized.” His claim is relevant here. Culture is merely the outward movement of deep convictions. In that sense, everyone is religious, even if what counts as “religious” is not strictly divine. But every viewpoint about every debate on how to order our lives together in a liberal democracy comes from somewhere. Practically speaking, what this means is that I wish Przybyla and other journalists would understand that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s idea of “equality” in Obergefell has just as much substantive moral content as the “image of God” does in the decision of the Alabama supreme court on in vitro fertilization. If you do not believe me, that just goes to show how effectively you have been catechized by Saint John Rawls of Cambridge.