Call it getting up on the wrong side of the bed - or maybe I am just a little bit grouchy this morning - but there are times when the Christian Marketing machine just makes me sick! I’m reading through my copy of Outreach magazine (great magazine by the way) and I came across one of the many ads found in there for various Christian ministries etc. This ad has this tagline:

Ever wonder if your sermons are connecting? Try the translation that speaks to the heart.

and goes on to say:

As a pastor, you want your messages to connect on the deepest possible level. Thankfully, the New Living Translation delivers living language that hits the target every time. Scripture comes to life. People pay attention. The message gets through. It’s the translation you can count on to connect, and that you can depend on for precise scholarship. Speak God’s Word to your congregation in language that they understand - and watch them wrap their hearts around God’s message.

And finally at the bottom of the ad they advertise that Pastor’s can get a free 4-week sermon series at pastorport.com - when I clicked to check it out I couldn’t find it.

In this article, Harry Antonides writes about the flaws that exist in the news reporting that takes place in the Middle East. His premise is that predisposed bias of western news agencies of secularism (there is no God), moral relativism (there is no truth), and tolerance (multi-cuturalism) has a profound affect on the prevailing opinion of the state of Israel in the hostile Arab/Muslim world of the Mid-East. He highlights that for the most part, western media covering the events taking place are overly pliant and willing to do “soft” reporting of the happenings which often means a failure to correctly report the facts and truth of terrorist vs. Israel military actions.

When reading an article like Harry’s one can’t help but see the focused efforts of militant terrorists to use the west’s own media as a form of propaganda machine to soften resistance to their violent and intolerant actions. What baffles me is that so many people are so quick to “buy into” what the media reports as “truth” without questioning the legitimacy of the reports.