A few years ago I heard a socially active and politically progressive individual voice a less-then-entirely-positive-opinion of the Jim Engster Show on local public radio station WRKF. I wondered “hunh? why do you say that?” but did not ask. I listen to almost nothing but public radio and I have sometimes caught the Jim Engster Show (which comes on mid-morning).
Okay guys time for Rick to sound like a typical whiny conservative – aside from other critiques the show frequently strikes me as biased. As in (for lack of a better term) “liberal”. This morning’s show really got my dander up.
Judge White and Rabbi Barry Weinstein. Decided to listen because I know Barry somewhat from the Interfaith Federation (formerly known as the Greater Baton Rouge Federation of Churches and Synagogues) and I like to be familiar with local synagogues and their rabbis (I have attended events and even services at Beth Shalom) and ran into him a couple weeks ago at a chapel dedication. Decided to listen in for a bit.
Turns out Judge White is one of those cultural conservative judges… Louisiana Family Forum… yadda yadda yadda. Not my cup of tea. In his opening remarks he brought up Jim Stein’s recent “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” about problems with Darwinian theory and more importantly how contrary views are regularly suppressed. And how he and others (including new Governor Bobby Jindal) think “weaknesses in evolutionary theory” (code language?) should be taught in schools. Jim mentioned that Governor Jindal “thinks like you do… the earth is six thousand years old…” (hunh???) and the judge quickly and gently replied “well I don’t think he’s quite said that”. To which Jim replied “be he supports your plan” (my emphasis) and continued to talk about how “some people think the earth is older… the Bible is allegorical… ” and so on.
I was quite perturbed. Jim was trying a little too hard to paint those who dispute evolutionary theory as “six thousand year old Earth people… Bible not allegorical”. And more to the point the Judge did not mention that but Jim just kept plugging away – neatly confusing (on purpose?) the distinction between “he supports your plan” and “Earth is six thousand years old”. (One can support a plan without necessary every view of some behind said plan.) Basically Jim was not listening to his guest and misrepresenting the views of many on an issue with sweeping generalizations.
Plenty of people who have objections to (Dawrinian?) evolutionary theory do not believe in a six thousand year old Earth and do allow of different literary genres in the Bible (and so allow room for some allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1-2 and so on). (By the way – not all Young Earth advocates say “six thousand years”. Some go for ten thousand… or several million. I think they are completely wrong. But represent their views fairly and accurately!) It’s easy to dismiss them the way Jim Engster did (does?).
For the record – I am on record as being opposed to the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Baton Rouge Advocate. It was printed. I am rather proud of that letter. I have no problems with evolutionary theory as such (although I would assert that God was involved in that process). The universe is billions of years old? Sure. No problem. All truth is God’s truth and that includes scientific truth. (Where Dawkins screws up is in attempting to extrapolate religious truth from scientific truth – namely that science demonstrates there is no God.) I can even hack the Big Bang Theory. Deal with it.
Jim – you must not misrepresent the views of your guests. Especially when they are sitting in your studio and just told you “wait a sec – that’s not what I think” and you ignore it and keeping pushing on with misrepresentations and overgeneralizations. Or is this evidence of open bias?
Speaking of bias. How often does Jim have a guest who is “liberal” (a sloppy term but what else do we have?) without someone on the “opposite side”? Judge White… oh gotta have Barry Weinstein here to present the other point of view. 10/10 for fairness. Minus several million for (lack of) consistency.
Dominic Crossan is in town? Have him on with no one to present a different point of view. I remember someone on the show who was arguing that Christians should ignore the Old Testament… because it is full of horrible awful stuff… but the New Testament is hunky dory… Which of course is implicitly if unintentionally anti-Jewish and supercessionist – which is odd coming from someone who clearly was not a conservative Christian. I almost called in. Oddly enough when I ran into Rabbi S_ Z_ at the prayer breakfast the next morning I mentioned the show… and he quickly said “yeah I heard that too… almost called in… I mean what does that say about Judaism?!?” Ding ding ding. Straight from the rabbi.
And who did Jim have on to refute this fellow? Nobody. Peruse the archives of guests and topics and see for yourself.
(Fortunately we did not say this right in front of the fellow’s wife who apparently was present at the prayer breakfast about two meters away! Phew!)
