Back in the days when I ran major-market daily newspapers for a living, I remember looking around a newsroom of around 200 people and coming to a startling conclusion.
I knew these people pretty well. I worked with them every day. And it occurred to me that I was the only one who regularly attended church, worshipped God, prayed and read the Bible.
Not much has changed in America's newsrooms since then, I explain in my new book, "Stop The Presses! The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution." Maybe the situation is even a little worse.
I give you this background as a prelude to a story about evangelicals reported recently by ABC News.
Now, I've been an evangelical for a long time, so you can imagine my surprise to learn that until recently, my fellow believers did not support adoption! I'm shocked. I'm appalled. I'm stunned.
That's what ABC News reported.
"Now there are evangelicals speaking out on global warming and supporting adoption," reported Bill Redeker. "Neither would have been endorsed only a few years ago."
Where on Earth did ABC News ever come up with the idea that evangelicals did not support adoption? If not Earth, which planet?
I challenge ABC News, with all of its resources, to defend this unequivocal, unsubstantiated, non-supported and non-supportable statement with even a shred of evidence.
For instance, produce for me one or two evangelicals who do not support adoption or who did not in the past. That would be a good start.
Honestly, I know of no evangelical in history who hasn't supported adoption.
In fact, if ABC News were to find some, I think the network would have quite a news story. Instead, what it is spreading is absolute fiction by a reporter, editors and producers who obviously have no knowledge or experience whatsoever with the church - or with adoption.
The agenda of this alleged news story is to show "Republicans can no longer count on evangelical votes falling into their laps." Actually, they never could. Nor would it be a good thing if they could. But as evidence for this previously unobserved sea change of opinion among evangelicals, ABC News uses the adoption "issue."
"The latest example is adoption," explains Redeker. "Prominent evangelical Christians are telling their followers to strongly consider adoption or foster care. But they deny suggestions they are doing so to answer criticism that their movement hasn't done enough for children without families."
Of course, ABC News does not cite any specific criticism of evangelicals for not doing enough for children without families. The network just throws that charge out there like we've all heard it before.
Who says this? What evidence is there to support such an irresponsible and outrageous attack on evangelicals? No clue is provided.
From there we're told evangelicals are loosening up their objections to same-sex marriage and embracing the secular doomsday fantasies of global warming.
Let me say this about that.
So-called "evangelicals" who embrace same-sex marriage are apostates. They are in direct contradiction to the Bible, which is the moral standard for evangelicals. They are disobeying the very words of Jesus himself, who described God's view of marriage as between one man and one woman and used it as an illustration of His own relationship to the church.
So-called evangelicals who believe the Earth is warming as a result of man's activities have very little respect for the planet their God created for them. They are deceived. And if they preach this humanistic gospel to others, they are deceivers.
I hope this clears up matters for ABC News.
Having served for 30 years as a journalist and for even longer as an evangelical, I am uniquely positioned to understand the way both see the world. I would be more than happy to serve as a translator for the two camps in the future.
