SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home NYT Mislabels “Christians”

TIMOTHY NOAH APRIL 12, 2012

NYT Mislabels “Christians”

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

I’ve been monitoring the New York Times on the who’s-a-Christian question. An April 4 Page One story about the new anti-abortion film October Baby made initial reference to the film’s genre (and market niche) as “socially-conservative religious fare,” which is accurate. But subsequently the story made reference to "Christian-oriented movies," to the filmmakers’ “Christian household,” to “a Christian values group,” and to “Christian music stars like Amy Grant.” An April 12 story about Christian conservatives making their peace with Mitt Romney did somewhat better. Several initial references were made to “Christian conservatives,” but later the writer used the shorthand “Christian,” as in “Christian advocacy,” “Christian leaders,” and “Christian legal group.”

This latter usage is inaccurate and propagandistic. A 78-percent majority of Americans is Christian. Only about a third of them self-identify as evangelical, which is a very rough proxy for the Christian conservative minority that increasingly insists on being called, simply, “Christian.” Such totum pro parte synecdoche de-legitimizes mainline Protestantism, historically black Protestantism, and Catholicism, which account, combined, for most of the other two-thirds of all Christians. The de-legitimization is why Christian conservatives favor it. Mainstream news organizations like the New York Times, ever-fearful of being branded anti-religious, have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the Christian right’s implicit suggestion that the only true Christian is a Christian conservative member of an evangelical or fundamentalist congregation.

The Times would seem to have a policy requiring that the first reference make clear that such self-identified “Christians” are in fact Christian conservatives. Subsequent references, however may call them simply, “Christian.” Probably that’s because “Christian conservative” is a mouthful. “Christian right” is much better in that regard, but Christian conservatives don’t like being called that, presumably because “right” sounds more extremist than “conservative” (just as “left” sounds more extremist than “liberal” or “progressive”). But Christian conservatives are more extremist than plain-vanilla conservatives. That’s why they have to struggle a bit to make their peace with Mitt Romney, a mere conservative. Today’s Times piece therefore explains, inadvertently, why “Christian right” would be a much better way than “Christian” for the Times to describe Christian conservatives. Henceforth it should follow its own advice.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 26 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

26 comments

"totum pro parte synecdoche" Man, I wonder what percentage of the American population could even understand that phrase. Never use a simple explanation when 4 words of latin will obscure the point, eh?

- IowaBeauty

April 12, 2012 at 4:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Also, it's redundant. Either synecdoche or totum pro parte would have conveyed the meaning. Noah's turn of phrase amounts to "such 'whole for the part' whole for the part language ...."

- IowaBeauty

April 12, 2012 at 4:32pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Oh, give it a rest. If one reads to the point the Latin appears, the simple explanation has already been made. And since it's a blog post, the entire resources of the internet are available to anyone reading it. Three mouse clicks will get you to an explanation of the 'totum pro parte' fallacy, and of synecdoche. Readers might learn something. Back on topic - this is an excellent point, well worth flogging. When the worst of Christianity monopolizes the term "Christian", it's not good for most Christians, nor for the rest of us.

- K_Wilson

April 12, 2012 at 4:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

As a liberal Scandinavian Lutheran regular churchgoer (straight out of Lake Wobegon), I applaud Mr. Noah's post. The word "Christian" has been highjacked and now gives me the willies, just like "patriot" and "liberty." Ah, convervatives! Patriots who don't want to pay taxes and Christians who have no compassion! I thought the latin and the literary term were kind of fun, so lighten up, IowaBeauty.

- NR141480

April 12, 2012 at 4:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I wonder what a good metonym would be for evangelical christians. We use White House to substitute for the American government. What would work for evangelicals? Andrew Sullivan just uses a neologism (you see what I did there?) to denote this group: Christianists. Doesn't seem to have caught on, however.

- propjoe

April 12, 2012 at 4:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

How about leaving out "Christian". However one describes Jesus, conservative isn't it; Christian conservative is equivalent to devout atheist. I recently commented that it is ironic that 77% of Jews believe in evolution, but only 58% of Catholics, 51% of mainline protestants, and 24% of evangelical protestants, considering that creationism is in "our book" and not in "your book" (as Lewis Black would say). All those "conservative Christians" seem to prefer "our book" over "your book", which makes them, what, not Christians?

- rayward

April 12, 2012 at 5:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I like Christianist. or Fundamentalist Christian

- subterran

April 12, 2012 at 5:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I was wondering about fundamentalist, but are all evangelicals fundamentalist? You don't have to take a literal reading of the bible to question evolution or to focus on spreading the faith, for example.

- propjoe

April 12, 2012 at 5:12pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I'm Catholic. That means I can call myself a Christian? I am a liberal, so the NYT is obviously like God's Word to me. Who should I believe? I am going to have to sit down and think long and hard about this. Hmmm.... @rayward--You lost me at "Christian conservative is equivalent to devout atheist"... @propjoe--Very good point. There are liberal evangelicals and they were an important influence in American history (until lately, that is..).

- mcmahon.an

April 12, 2012 at 7:36pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Synecdoche: a mid-sized city in upper NY state, right? (Ka-boom!) Mr. Noah writes: ".... Christian conservatives .... have to struggle a bit to make their peace with Mitt Romney, a mere conservative." One part of that being that many of those Christian conservatives consider that Mormonism only masquerades as a form of Christianity, but isn't, in their eyes.

- Haole45

April 12, 2012 at 8:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I don't really get how Mormons aren't Christian. They recognize the divinity of Christ and his position as the son of God, so doesn't that make them Christian by definition? Once you have those ideas in place, isn't everything else detail?

- propjoe

April 12, 2012 at 8:43pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

prop joe, nah, Mormons are not Christians in the sense we understand it. They believe that if you are a true Mormon you can go to the celestial heaven and become a god yourself and souls are created by celestial copulating and we all get our own little planet to populate. Polytheism is not traditional Christianity. They also believe that Satan is Jesus brother. The LDS Church teaches that everyone, Jesus and Lucifer included, had a pre-mortal existence where we were born as spirit children of God and his wife. Yes, God has a wife and has sex. Look, a lot of commonly understood Christianity has a lot that is hard to grasp so it is not a question of judgment, but Mormonism is really different.

- blackton

April 12, 2012 at 10:33pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Excellent post, K_Wilson.

- liberalref

April 12, 2012 at 10:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

propjoe - not much of a theologian myself, so the reasoning of the "Mormons aren't really Christians" tendency isn't entirely clear to me either - I just know that such a tendency exists among the fundamentalists. Maybe they're just jealous, because the Mormon Jesus (as depicted in illustrated Mormon literature I've seen in various & sundry motels throughout the inter-mountain west) is very buff, looks to stand about 6'4'', & has a lustrous reddish-blonde head of hair & beard. The Jesus I recall from the stations of the cross in the churches of my youth (before apostasy set in) tends to be a rather scrawny little Semitic-looking fellow by comparison, & I think that Jesus is closer to the one usually imagined by most Christians as their Lord & Savior. So maybe that's a source of envy. Just a guess.

- Haole45

April 12, 2012 at 10:40pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

blackton - thanks for the quick explication of Mormon cosmology. I'd heard some of that before, but had never really studied it. Catholicism is often criticized by Protestants, as I'm sure you know, for also skirting dangerously close to polytheism, what with the Blessed Virgin & all those other saints & their representations being objects of veneration & providing miracles to those who pray for them to intercede on their behalf, & so on. But, as you say, Mormonism really is a different belief system, from what Christians accept. It is not hard to understand why Romney would just as soon steer clear of discussing the finer points of his religion's theology - he has to be sensitive to fact that many non-Mormons would have a hard time just accepting it as just another wrinkle in the fabric of Christianity.

- Haole45

April 12, 2012 at 11:02pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I don't see how you can say that Mormons are Christians, unless you also say that Muslims are Christians. Both Mormons and Muslims recognize that Jesus was a great prophet, but also believe in a later prophet who completes God's revelation. To be a Christian, in the strict sense of the world, you cannot believe that the message delivered by Jesus from God was incomplete, and that another prophet was required to complete the message. (And no, I am not a fundamentalist Christian; I am a progressive, secular Jew.)

- NateG

April 12, 2012 at 11:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I was listening to the religious radio down here in Nashville during my commute the other day, and the preacher was making a very big point that for Christians there is only one Holy Scripture, and that it's the Bible, and that anyone who claims there are supplemental scriptures with divine authority is trying to mislead you to Hell. It was a sermon directed simultaneously against Muslims who believe the Koran is inspired and Mormons who believe the Book of Mormon is inspired. I think that most Mormons think of themselves as Christians for the basic reason you cited, propjoe, and fundamentalists (or Biblical literalists, who are deeply invested in salvation by the Book) think they aren't, because of the supplemental Revelation that can only come from the Devil.

- rmutt

April 12, 2012 at 11:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I just saw that NateG made the same point while I was typing mine. Sorry for the redundancy.

- rmutt

April 12, 2012 at 11:28pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Those who identify themselves as Christian conservatives in America have become, over time, extremists. Cable TV and the Internet have allowed them to flog each other into a self-righteous frenzy over the last few decades with issues like abortion and gay marriage. I've been calling them the Christian Right for years, because that's what they are--Right wingnuts. And this group is not as esoteric as some think. Karl Rove made a point of inflaming Catholics before the 2004 election, and many Catholics are now religious wingnuts. But the majority of Christian extremists in America are still Born Againers and idiot Rapturists.

- magboy47.

April 13, 2012 at 2:45am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Bravo, all. Myself, I lurch between mildly entertained and outraged at how some of these folks can call themselves Christian. Not that any one of us is perfect by any means, but jeez. "I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts, people who continually provoke Me to My face....who say to their neighbor "Stand not near me, for I am holier than thou!" "

- Tristan

April 13, 2012 at 10:35am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I think the term should be "conservative Christians", implying very properly that one needs two adjectives (at least) to describe the person. 'Evangelical' will not do, because all Christians are supposed to be evangelists. I still smart from the easy use of the term 'Catholic' to mean 'Roman Catholic'. There are many Christians calling themselves Catholics who do not fall under the auspices of Rome. ('Catholic' means the universal church. By using 'Catholic' to mean "Roman Catholic", one accepts Rome's co-opting of the one true church as meaning only the Pope's one true church.) I am a 'Christian' who thinks much of what is preached in conservative Christian churches is just plain heresy.

- polijunky

April 13, 2012 at 10:36am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

NY Times mislabels lots of things White Hispanic when referring to Zimmerman. Yet they don't refer to Obama as White African.

- mr_rationale

April 13, 2012 at 11:16am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Hey, mr_rationale made a good point! Are you feeling ok, dude?

rmutt, it's all good; your own personal insight is quite appreciated, and makes it somewhat less than redundant.

- GSpinks

April 13, 2012 at 12:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Mr_rationale had a lucid (rational) moment? Jolly for him. Maybe he’s having an off day. Or maybe he's getting better. (Lord knows, I have been praying for him.) But, joking aside, just to riff on his point a bit - Hispanic is sort of a funny term. It is actually technically a linguistic, not racial, designation. There are many people of primarily/exclusively European descent who consider themselves, or are considered to be, Hispanic. Marco Rubio, for instance, is often described as Hispanic. It would be accurate to describe him as a White Hispanic American, as he is of purely Spanish (via Cuba) heritage - at least as far as I can tell. If one were to describe Obama as a White African, wouldn’t that maybe suggest that he speaks Afrikaans, & is a descendant of the Voortrekkers? Which would clearly be off the beam. I don't think Obama would particularly object if you described him as an Afro-Euro American, though. But he identifies as African American because that’s how our society at large identifies him –many African Americans included. The famous “one drop” rule & all its corollaries & derivatives, still alive & well.

- Haole45

April 13, 2012 at 4:22pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

As a very hard core non-religious person, I ask again, what is the difference between a "good" Christian and a not good Christian (or good and not good any other religious believer)? As far as I can figure out, many people have a kind of "meta-values" system which transcends religious belief. Generally it argues for tolerance, kindness, charity, altruism, peacefulness, with a healthy leavening of mundane, realistic empiricism. Although I identify myself with no religious belief, I was married in a Unitarian Church and do some volunteer work for a Lutheran ELCA church (where I do not attend their services). The other volunteers assured me that I am welcome -- "We have other atheists who attend our services. Our minister as a special funeral service he delivers for atheists." They are nice people. I would certainly categorize them as "good Christians." But I will pass on the atheist funeral service, unless my daughter wants to have a service over my dead body. I won't be worrying about it, and I doubt the worms will rolling me over in my grave.

- skahn

April 13, 2012 at 11:59pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

skahn: 'As a very hard core non-religious person' So does that make you a non-religious fundamentalist? Seems to have more than a touch of dogma. As boring as monotheist fundamentalism can be I find atheist fundamentalism even more tedious. It looks like the same old teter-totter to me. Apparently some people never tire of it and take a bit of perverse pleasure in jumping off mid ride to watch their counterpart come crashing their asses to the ground. Oh that gravity and its wonderful ways.

- jacko

April 14, 2012 at 8:44am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close