Gospel Preached to All Nations

Museum of the Bible, built by Hobby Lobby owner, opens in DC - AP
The AP reports: "The $500 million museum includes pieces from the family’s collection from the Dead Sea Scrolls, towering bronze gates inscribed with text from the Gutenberg Bible and a soundscape of the 10 plagues, enhanced by smog and a glowing red light to symbolize the Nile turned to blood. It is an ambitious attempt to appeal simultaneously to people of deep faith and no faith, and to stand out amid the impressive constellation of museums in Washington. The Bible exhibits are so extensive that administrators say it would take days to see everything."

Comment: This is an excellent article to point out to your liberal friends who scoff at the idea of media bias. Sure, we all accept there is bias in news media platforms, after all, no one watches MSNBC and expects a conservative slant or watches Fox News and expects a liberal slant or tunes in to CNN and expects to hear good things about President Trump. We have become accustomed to biased news presented on television. But bias in the legacy news media is often harder to pin down and that's especially true when it comes to what they used to call the "newswire" services, outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters news services. These kinds of services come closest to old school "just the facts" reporting. Yet, when you look closely there are examples of embedded cultural bias like the well documented bias educated Eastern liberals have towards organized religion.

Like a lawyer deposing a witness we are first given the facts of the case, a new museum has opened, but then the credibility of the witness is slowly attacked so that in the end, you start to suspect their motives. There is something fishy going on here.

So, this is where we are in America in the 21st Century. We live in a time when a wealthy celebrity (not naming names) can use his fortune to support a newfangled religion like Scientology but if a Christian entrepreneur uses his fortune to support his Christian faith it's presented as something sketchy. If you read between the lines of this article closely you see that the facts are presented clearly, that this is a privately funded museum that is going to great pains to present a book and not proselytize, that's clear, but the adept reader will note the underlying assumption that if they did attempt to do that it would somehow be bad.

Here we are in the West, what was once quaintly called Christendom, and it's as if the reporter has discovered a new religion that is being pushed on the people by an eccentric millionaire and she is doing a public service by warning us of this strange and possibly dangerous religion. Don't be hoodwinked by the snake-oil salesman, the reporter seems to caution, there is definitely some scary religious evangelism going on here. Beware!