It’s Like A Guy Flying To France Who Doesn’t Like Food, Art or Sex

FRANK SCHAEFFER (former Evangelical Christian): Given you voted for him, do you worry that Trump may turn out to not be a legitimate American leader in any traditional sense but (crazy as this would have sounded last year!) a Russian “IED” (as it were) planted in our national life with hostile intent? It seems to me Putin sees Trump as a useful idiot and backed him as such. BTW this is not a trap… if Hillary had won, believe me I would have had plenty of misgivings… though to be honest not of the world-ending kind I have looking at Trump the man, leader and crony of climate change deniers and fake news purveyors… not to mention Russian intel…

LUKE MOON (Evangelical Christian): I’ve been thinking a lot about why Putin would have preferred Trump over Clinton. I think it has less to do with Trump being a “useful idiot” and more him being a non-interventionist. The non-intervention should excite the Left and the libertarians, but since it’s a ready-made opportunity to berate Trump, the media is going after Trump.

Frank: You may be right on the non-intervention deal. I wonder why Julian Assange turned out to be such a Trump little helper? It seems that WikiLeaks worked with the Russians pretty directly to help Trump.

Luke: Julian supposedly hated the Clintons, but he is denying that he got the hacked emails from the Russians. It was simultaneously intriguing and disturbing. Intriguing because we got to see the inner-workings of the Clinton machine. Disturbing, because it made me really nervous about what I write online in private chat rooms.

Frank: You didn’t answer my other question re worry about Trump if any. Are you happy and ready to own the Trump years?

Luke: I am hopeful for the best, but preparing for the worst. I am pretty happy with the cabinet picks so far. My particular concern is the Middle East. I work on support Christians who are being persecuted. I also am work to encourage support for Israel. The rise of the Russia, Iran, Syria bloc on one side and the Saudi, Jordan, Egypt bloc on the other will require a commitment to stay engaged that I’m not sure Trump has any interest in pursuing.

Frank: If that is all that worries you re Trump we are on different planets. It’s like being on a plane next to an American guy flying to France for the first time who tells you he doesn’t like food, art or sex then trying to figure out what to say since he asked me what to do in Paris. Then you ask him about his kids and he says he hates children. Like what’s left to say?

Luke: Lol. What worries me more is “fake news.” As a man who articulates the myth of certainty better than anyone, how do you determine the trustworthiness of your information sources? I mean, I’ve read that the Russians were totally involved in hacking the election and I’ve read stuff that says the exact opposite? One would be considered fake news by the other…maybe.

Frank: I’m pretty conventional. The press like the Times makes mistakes but not that often on basic facts. The Earth is round, we evolved from single cell creatures, slavery and the Holocaust happened… There was someone called Napoleon, and for that matter Jesus… I don’t put much store in private “special” information. As to sources I tend to measure this way: When I read a story or report about something I have personal experience of in a source and every time that happens they are accurate I can assume what I don’t know as well may be accurate too when they write about it. I’m not in any way open to special “inside” Breitbart-type crap… maybe because I produced such materials myself (the “Christian Activist” newspaper) when defending the indefensible, like evangelical ideas against settled science back in the 1970s and 1980s. It may be boring, but if the Times and the Wash Post say so and so does the Economist, the Guardian and the LA Times and NPR… the story may have a liberal slant and they get stuff wrong factually once in a while (like Bush’s WMD), but only a moron doesn’t understand the difference between some guy with a laptop and an office full of serious longtime professional journalists.

And by the way, when I get sick, I go to Mass General for the same reason. There is a reason the word “expert” means something. If evangelicals picked cardiologists the way they pick news that suits them, they’d all be dead. I also know that you as an evangelical are bent on defending biblical myth and thus maybe have a soft spot for alternative sources… because that’s all evangelicals have. “How do we know?” and “Who says so?” are the oldest evangelical dodges in the world… as in “evolution is only a theory” etc… carried on to global warming and all the rest. I’ll stick with NASA scientists as it were.

Luke: In their report on the Heartbeat bill in Ohio, NPR said it was just “sounds from the fetus” as a way to deny it was the heartbeat. That is just one example, but I could fill this blog with others. The “experts” have serious bias. My problem is that they have repeatedly undermined their profession by ignoring information, facts — truth if you will — in defense of their bias.

The established media used to be gatekeepers of information. The internet destroyed the gate. There will eventually be new gates built, but until then, we watch the hordes run free.

Frank: I think there is a huge difference between say choices in wording “fetus” v. “unborn child” and made up facts, as in there is no such thing as the Holocaust or manmade climate change. I agree though that the liberal bias and use of language when it comes to the abortion issue is as close as the liberal press gets to lying (often via omission) as there is. On that “happy” note shall we call it a day? Would you like a last word?

Luke: The “fake news” problem is the result of the loss in belief of objective truth. Sophistry has replaced truth, and each side has their favorite sophist. Brietbart or the Daily Kos. Vox or The Federalist, WSJ or NYT. If other culture and civilizations are a guide for how this ends, it won’t be good. At least the Christians will be there to point the way to the one who is Truth.

Frank: Okay I did say so have a last, last word if you like… but I can’t let that go. There is no moral equivalency here between the NY Times and the “other side.” Nice try. I’d say the WSJ is the respectable conservative voice. I’d trust their facts if not their editorial page. And Brietbart should not be mentioned in an “on the one hand, and on the other hand” statement.

Luke: Well, till next week…

Schaeffer & Moon is written on the fly in a real-time chat room format and lightly proofed by Patheos editors.

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