Saturday, February 21, 2009

Of Extremists and Militants

Seriously, if you were a reporter and you found out that a "Christian" film festival featured an independent "Christian" film that was the largest grossing independent film of 2008, and you found out that this film festival was offering a grand prize of $100,001 - wouldn't you be curious to know more about the groups and people organizing and funding such things? Not NPR, and definitely not Barbara Bradley Hagerty who apparently has never heard of Google or Lexis Nexis or investigative journalism.

She tells us that the festival is called the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and that Doug Phillips is its organizer. I'd call those leads, and with just a little research you can find some very interesting things about them.

Take the festival for example. Here's it's website, and you will notice in its header it states that it is a project of Vision Forum Ministries. Do a little poking around this "Christian" film festival website and you'll find some fascinating movies on the program page, including this culturally sensitive gem of a film set in Togo which "begins with the meeting and marriage of a young man and woman. After multiple miscarriages, the family asks for help from the local charlatan."

Don't stop at the festival site, though. Take a gander at the Vision Forum Ministries site and be sure to see what these "conservative Christians" (as Scott Simon calls them) believe about biblical patriarchy. And don't miss out on festival organizer and Vision Forum Ministries president, Doug Phillip' biography. If you still don't quite get what these Christofacists are up to you might want to read Doug's blog post from June 2004 where he notes - among other things -
  • "Vision Forum opposes the pagan notion of pluralism....America should serve only Jesus Christ and acknowledge Him alone as the true lawgiver."
  • "...we seek to drive from the land every manifestation of homosexuality. Furthermore, Sodomy was a punishable crime at common law and should remain such."
  • "The Bible makes no distinction between homosexuals, pedophiles, bestials and rapists. All are criminals, the toleration of which brings judgment on the land and devastation to children."
You have to wonder whether Hagerty is just lazy or if she and NPR are sympathetic to these kinds of Christian extremists. It's really a disservice to Christians to call them conservative Christians, especially when every other report on NPR regarding the US "war on terror" mentions Islamic militants and Islamic extremists.

11 comments:

Hubertg said...

After reading this post I checked out Doug's biography page.
This article reminds me of George Bush's face and God speaking to him. It is more than apparent that we have fanatics on both sides of the pond spewing ancient religious ideologies that are laced with fascism.
All very well hidden in those very tidy appearances pictured on the bio page.

Buzztree said...

Indeed, this piece came on the heels of another one about the Saudi religious "police." In NPR Land, there are ONLY Muslim extremists....

Anonymous said...

Yet another example of why I visit this non-funded blog in lieu of its funded source material.

Guess this is why my one buddy calls 'em 'Now Preaching Religion'?...

Jay McHue said...

Seriously, if you were a reporter and you found out that a "Christian" film festival featured an independent "Christian" film that

I guess they're not True Christians(TM). Nice use of quotation marks.

Anonymous said...

And here I was just thinking the film festival was a front group for right wing politics. Anti tax movies? C'mon, what about rendering unto Caesar?

Jay McHue said...

Anyone else notice that no where in the story does Ms. Hagerty site any numbers: How many were in attendance? How many copies sold? She store is entirely sourced by Right Wing Chrisitans with no one crital source cited.

My guess is that their numbers are so small, it would have proven how irrelevant this fringe market niche is and correspondingly how unimportant her story is.

How many do you think were in attendance? A few dozen? A couple hundred?

Anonymous said...

Jeez, you guys. She's a reporter, she reports the news. And that's it! She is NOT supposed to 'investigate' anything, that is clearly NOT her job.

I mean this is NPR we're talking about. Since when are they supposed to do anything other than recite superficial data as if it were 'news'?

National
Propaganda
Radio

Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!) said...

You cannot spell EITHER "republican" or "propaganda" without NPR.

Haggerty needs to join a convent...

Anonymous said...

Ahh, the pendulum swings both left and right.

Tommy Strange said...

isn't this the same wash they gave the minuteman 'movement' at the border?
..who had such obvious , easily googled, ties to nazis?????

Jay McHue said...

"isn't this the same wash they gave the minuteman 'movement' at the border?
..who had such obvious , easily googled, ties to nazis?????"

No, they actually didn't. Geez, even the Anti-Defamation League has said there is no official connection between the two. Did you ever see all the dangerous, radical nuts that showed up at anti-Bush rallies? Should we then link them to all the other groups there? Seriously, if you're going to smear someone or a group of someones, at least use facts and not easily debunked internet legends.