Christianity Today Assumes Tabloid Status and Reveals It's Anti-Catholic Bigotry
Melissa Steffan, of Christianity Today writes an article that links a story claiming to expose an affair that a married Dinesh D'Souza is allegedly having with a young woman he describes as his fiancee.
In case you have been out of town for a while, Dinesh D'Souza is a conservative political commentator, writer, former president of King's College, and responsible for the surprise box office hit, 2016 Obama's America.
Can anyone help me understand why it is important to include in this article about a well-known Christian's alleged affair that he is a Catholic? Why does the author need to point this out and get a quote from a Protestant theologian known for his strong anti-Catholic stance? I find it especially egregious since Dinesh has said himself he is not Catholic and has been attending Calvary Chapel in San Diego for 10 years with his evangelical wife Dixie for ten years before moving to NYC to take the position as President of an evangelical college.
Oh yeah, it turns out, none of the above story is true. Dinesh has denied the story in toto. It turns out that there was a huge vendetta against him by folks at King's College who were not happy about his new position there. I won't be surprised if I see copies of Christianity Today in the magazine rack at the check-out of my local supermarket soon next to magazines with pictures of Elvis Alien Abductions.
We have enough scandals of our own and don't need to be falsely linked to another one.
(File under "Not so blatant Anti-Catholicism in the media")
*Here is the Calvinist theologian's assessment of the Catholic faith spoken of on the "Reformation 21" blog: "...at ground level Catholicism looks like benighted old biddies doing homage before an amputated and pickled tongue". (Carl Trueman)
With those kind of comments above, I think it is doubtful that the CT author would get a positive comment about Dinesh from Dr. Trueman , even though his statement was completely false since Dinesh is a Protestant! We should expect better from our Protestant brethren in the media, they certainly do of us.
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 8:42 PM
7 Comments:
You are right. They certainly do of us. So having the Catholic part in bold means they think the Catholic part is worse than the adultery part? Julie
Ironically yes, since divorce and remarriage have been ok with non Catholic Christians since Good King Henry the 8th started his own religion over it. Sad that the author felt the need to point out he was Catholic( even though she is wrong) to some how make the readers think, oh well what would you expect? I still cant figure out in the context of the story why it was important to bring up Catholicism and quote a vitriolic calvinist to somehow lend creedence to her screedence.
I suspect the intent of the Christianity Today editors was to headline two pieces of surprise information about Mr. D'Souza, one of which is that he's not as much of a fallen-away Catholic as he previously suggested.
Micha: this is what the 2010 article says in Donesh's own words " I say I'm a nondenominational Christian, and I'm comfortable with born-again."
No Catholic would ever say that if he was indeed still Catholic.
Again I ask, what was the point of bringing that up? Especially since it was previously stated, he was an evangelical. Were they trying to save face by thinking "an evangelical wouldn't do this, but the Catholic Dinesh did"
I wonder if you are right. They are trying to save face. The whole thing is a slimey attempt to discredit Catholics. Once again. Julie
Julie, I initially was going to delete the post, I slept on it and decided it was too harsh, then I noted it had been linked by Big pulpit and I had like 700 hits to the page .
The reality is, it was an attempt to distance themselves from their "idol" who was evangelical by calling him Catholic. Very poor form and inaccurate journalism. I wrote to the author twice and she has ignored my requests to discuss it.
[I recently found this web item, for what it's worth. Nicole]
The Rapture Belief is Anti-Catholic
Many assert that the "rapture" promoted by evangelicals was first taught, at least seminally, by a Jesuit Catholic priest named Francisco Ribera in his 16th century commentary on the book of Revelation.
To see what is claimed, Google "Francisco Ribera taught a rapture 45 days before the end of Antichrist's future reign." (Oddly, many claimants are anti-Catholic and merely use Ribera in order to "find" much earlier historical support for their rapture which actually isn't found in any official Christian theology or organized church before 1830!)
After seeing this claim repeated endlessly without even one sentence from Ribera offered as proof, one widely known church historian decided to go over every page in Ribera's 640-page work published in Latin in 1593.
After laboriously searching for the Latin equivalent of "45 days" ("quadraginta quinque dies"), "rapture" ("raptu," "raptio," "rapiemur," etc.) and other related expressions, the same scholar revealed that he couldn't find anything in Ribera's work even remotely resembling a prior rapture! (Since the same scholar plans to publish his complete findings, I won't disclose his name.)
Are you curious about the real beginnings of this evangelical belief (a.k.a. the "pre-tribulation rapture") merchandised by Darby, Scofield, Lindsey, Falwell, LaHaye, Ice, Van Impe, Hagee and many others?
Google "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "X-Raying Margaret," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Wily Jeffrey," "Deceiving and Being Deceived" by D.M., "The Real Manuel Lacunza," "Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism," "Pretrib Rapture Politics," "Pretrib Hypocrisy" (anti-Catholic evangelical leaders), "Famous Rapture Watchers," and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" - most of these by the author of the 300-page nonfiction book "The Rapture Plot," the highly endorsed and most accurate documentation on the long hidden historical facts of the 182-year-old pre-tribulation rapture theory imported from Britain during the late 19th century.
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