by James R. Edwards, Jr.

"They could call Jesus a terrorist, too." So said former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark at an antiwar news conference at the National Press Club in the spring of 2003.

Most people probably did not hear about Clark’s remark, because only a handful of news outlets apparently thought it newsworthy. The Wall Street Journal noted that only CNS-News.com and Brit Hume of Fox News mentioned the statement.

Numerous studies have documented that the vast majority of reporters, editors, and producers in the mainstream media are far more secular and liberal than their audience. For example, benchmark surveys by researchers Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman found half of news media elites have no religious affiliation, with 86 percent of elite journalists attending religious services seldom or never. Fifty-four percent of working journalists described themselves to Lichter and Rothman as liberals; a similar survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors found 62 percent of reporters and editors to be liberals.

Many Christians have come to expect religious slanders from prominent media figures. Ted Turner famously said that Christianity is “for losers” and is “very intolerant.” In 1993, Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf insulted evangelical Christians as “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

Could this attitude be enough to explain why Clark’s bigoted comment failed to make an impression on the watchdogs of the public’s right to know?

Perhaps, but the trend now appears to be moving in the opposite direction.

In spring 2002, Nicholas D. Kristof wrote in the New York Times that evangelical Christians “have become the newest internationalists” because of their religious beliefs. He pointed to legislative victories over policies aimed at fighting sex trafficking, religious persecution in places like North Korea, and AIDS in Africa.

Tish Durkin’s column in the April 20, 2002, National Journal examined in depth the theological motivation of many American Christians for their unwavering support of Israel. Hers was everything one could ask for in superior journalism: fair, accurate, and unbiased.

The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story on May 23, 2002, titled “How Israel Became a Favorite Cause of the Christian Right.” It chronicled the strong support Israel routinely enjoys from conservative Christian Republicans such as U.S. Representatives Tom DeLay and Ed Bryant, and Senator Jesse Helms.

The Washington Times routinely treats Christianity and Christians fairly. The Wall Street Journal regularly runs a faith-based feature on its Friday Weekend Journal editorial page. An editorial in the January 17 Journal discussed the nobility of Christian missionary work in foreign lands, even at the cost of martyrdom.

Perhaps the rise of outspoken Christians to key positions of political leadership over the past decade has instilled some respect in secular members of the press inclined to belittle people of faith. An orthodox Christian ethos permeates the newest Republicans in Congress, particularly from the class of 1994, the year of the GOP takeover. President George Bush, during the 2000 campaign, named Jesus Christ his favorite philosopher.

At the grassroots level, Christianity influences millions of Americans in “fly-over country.” The Left Behind series of end-time novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins has sold more than thirty-five million copies. The latest installment, The Remnant, topped the New York Times bestseller list immediately.

On talk radio, James Dobson’s 7.5 million listeners nationwide hear his weekly “Focus on the Family” broadcast. Janet Parshall reaches 3.5 million listeners five days a week. And Christian radio includes commentaries by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas and the Prison Fellowship’s Charles Colson.

As Nina J. Easton reported in the May 20, 2002, American Prospect about Dobson’s Christian conservative supporters, “[A] huge and politically astute army of activists is at the ready, available to follow a compelling general, should George Bush lose or forsake his position as their leader.”

In addition to the growing political power and grassroots strength of Christianity, it remains the faith of the predominant majority of Americans. A recent U.S. News and World Report poll showed that 84.2 percent of Americans belong to a Christian denomination. At some point, secular journalists had to come to terms with that reality.

Something of a landmark in elites’ treatment of Christianity in American public life was set in 1999. That year, the Brookings Institution’s influential magazine, the Brookings Review, ran in its spring issue a series of essays under the cover headline, “What’s God Got to Do With the American Experiment?” This serious treatment of faith—from the founding of America to the Clinton impeachment—by America’s leading liberal think tank blew fresh air into a disparaging environment.

In addition, the prominence of Christian thinkers such as author Os Guinness, Father Richard John Neuhaus (who edits the Christian journal First Things), Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, and internationally renowned lecturer Ravi Zacharias command respect for Christian views in the public arena from non-Christian intellectuals.

Part of the glimmer of change in many secularists’ attitudes seems to have come from the Christian Right’s decision to shift some of its energy from fights over school prayer, abortion, and creationism to issues that secularists could feel comfortable with—the “new internationalist” agenda in foreign policy, for instance.

Nonetheless, many non-Christian elites still come down hard on Christians whom they consider to be too vocal about their beliefs. For example, a spring 2002 Washington Post “story” was devoted to the fact that then-House Majority Whip DeLay spoke at a Texas Baptist church’s Worldview Weekend and—unsurprisingly—called Christianity “true.” Similarly, the Reverend Franklin Graham has caught flak in the press for his statements asserting Christianity’s truth, and it is common for Christians, particularly Southern Baptists, to be attacked or viewed suspiciously in the press for evangelizing.

However, given that the postmodern, politically correct canon of tolerance regnant in American mainstream journalism today generally does not tolerate any truth claims, the fact that Christianity gets any good press at all is a remarkable development.

James Edwards, Jr. is an Adjunct Fellow with Hudson Institute.

Click here to view a full list of American Outlook Magazine Issues