If I think National Public Radio is so liberal and biased why then do I listen to it almost exclusively?
Good question. Usually I have an answer but not today.
(Scratch that. The answer is that NPR provides so much solid reporting and interesting information that generally I regard it as worth {it despite} the bias.)
Terry Gross of “Fresh Air” is supposed to be a great interviewer. I neither affirm nor dispute that assertion. (I listen to “Fresh Air” nearly every Friday night while driving to English Conversation.) But at times she disappoints not so much because of whom but rather because of how she interviews.
An unfortunate example is the recent interview of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori of the Episcopal Church. Who (supposedly) deposed the bishop of Pittsburgh Bob Duncan. Who better to ask how she feels now that – a few days after the alleged and highly uncanonical deposition – the Diocese of Pittsburgh has said sayonara to the Episcopal Church and has decided to align with the more conservative Southern Cone?
Why… Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori of course.
You can listen to the interview here. You do not have to register.
“How do you feel now that the Smith family has decided to move out of your neighborhood just a few days after you beat up their daughter and threatened to sue them?”
“Sad.”
There are several deeply disappointing and troubling aspects of the interview. The most obvious is why do you ask the Presiding Bishop why these people are not happy with the Episcopal Church or with her? why not ask them? Of course the Presiding Bishop misunderstands and/or misrepresents the nature of the objections to her leadership and to the direction of the national church.
“They say we do not believe Jesus is the son of God.”
Oh puh-leez. What a straw man. And – please note – Terry Gross accepts at face value how Jefferts-Schori portrays the conflict.
Later Gross plays a clip from an earlier interview with Bob Duncan (still) bishop of Pittsburgh in which she argues with +Duncan using a quote from Gene Robinson. Poor Bishop Duncan – Gross does not think he gets it regarding same-sex relations or Christian practice and doctrine. Of course you can love the person even when you wish to see them delivered from an illness or disorder.
It is a long interview and one could devote a huge amount of space dissecting what the Presiding Bishop says. About theology. About Christian practice. About Anglicanism. About the nature and function of tradition. She sounds so reasonable. (I have given the Presiding Bishop credit for being remarkably calm even in hostile settings. She presents herself well. Heck I agree with her on some stuff.) Reasonable as long as you do not compare what she says with history, facts, and with what her opponents truly say and think.
What disappoints me is that Terry Gross openly if politely argues with more conservative Christians like Bob Duncan. And then gives people like the Presiding Bishop pretty much a free ride.
