Media wash-up

The newspapers are now silent on the induction of the new Australian Anglican Primate. The story has run its course and the weighty matters of Olympic Torch Relays, Telstra Shares, and State of Origin football have moved to centre stage.

Articles in recent Briefings have looked at the events, the issues and the implications, but what of the way those events were reported in the mainstream media? What does the media's handling of the ‘Carnley controversy’ tell us about how the media works, and in particular how it deals with Christianity?

Dave Andrew trawls through the headlines and by-lines, and makes an assessment.

When Dr Peter Carnley wrote his now infamous article in the Bulletin on April 23, it hardly seemed like the stuff of controversy. The article was a subtle exposition of views that Dr Carnley has long held. Admittedly, the fact that he was now advocating these views in his role as Anglican Primate made them more prominent, but even this is not particularly interesting to most people at my local pub.

The issue only became ‘news’ because of various related responses and an accident of geography. Firstly, the Archbishop of Australia's biggest and richest Anglican diocese (Archbishop Harry Goodhew of Sydney) responded that the article in the Bulletin was “unhelpful and misleading” in its treatment of material from the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles.¹

This was not exactly riveting stuff either, except that Dr Carnley was being inducted into his new role in a ceremony at the Anglican Cathedral in Sydney, in Archbishop's own diocese! This is the accident of geography that made Sydney journalists take a preliminary sniff of the air. But even this did not make it a ‘story’. Only when there were calls by Sydney Evangelicals to boycott the induction service did the newspapers take a genuine interest. Now the story had ‘legs’ because of Carnley's public profile, the response to the Bulletin article, and the prospects of (metaphorical!) blood on the floor of Sydney Cathedral. Nothing like an Anglican scrap in full robes to make good pictures for the front page.

There were now two interrelated driving issues. Firstly, media interest was largely driven by the conflict and potential further conflict between clerical members of the Anglican church. Secondly, the more basic issue of the truth of the position espoused by Dr Carnley and the rightness and wrongness of responses to his position was also debated. Some were only interested in the first ‘story’, some were only interested in the second, some were interested in both, and some weighed in with no idea about either.

Who is going to the party?

There was one urgent and immediate ‘news’ question: who was going and who was not going to the inauguration? Would the bishops be there? What would be their reasons for attending or not attending? This became ‘the issue’ despite attempts by evangelicals in Sydney to establish the more basic issue of the truth of the gospel itself.

The tabloids reported who was going and who wasn't. All the Bishops now made some statement about why they would or wouldn't be there. The newspapers also canvassed other clergy who they perceived to be the movers and shakers of the diocese.

In the end, the ceremony went ahead with a full house (it was open to the public) but without key Sydney evangelicals (and others). There were some demonstrators outside the cathedral (apparently not even Anglican!) and the whole thing faded from the papers within a week. But the underlying questions are still unresolved.

Underlying issues

During the furore, some of the media were prepared to canvass the crux of the debate rather then just the inauguration ceremony debacle. Rachel Morris in the Sydney Daily Telegraph covered most of the issues starting from Carnley's original Bulletin article:

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But according to the spiritual leader of Australia's Anglican Church, the crucifixion and resurrection could be viewed as just that—a story ... Peter Carnley has suggested that the resurrection is a metaphor. He also questioned whether Christ was the only way to reconcile with God and said the Bible's limited view was due to the authors' limited understanding of other religions.²

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Ms Morris also noted that “Dr Carnley's point is not new—the debate about the interpretation of the resurrection has been raging in the annals of Anglicanism for decades”.³ She said that Dr Carnley believed that his critics were “politically motivated” and were “bullying” people into accepting their point of view.⁴

The article went on to outline the roots of Sydney evangelicalism in the “early days of the NSW colony and the missionary zeal of Samuel Marsden and Richard Johnson, products of the 18th century evangelical revival”, and that “[w]ith its academic base located at Sydney University's Moore College, the Evangelists [sic] believe in the undisputed authority of the Bible”.⁵ It was also noted that “Sydney's_diocese has (also) recorded a 4 per cent growth in membership compared to a 4 per cent fall in other dioceses”.⁶

Other articles also attempted to at least cover some of the ground of the Bible and history. Steve Waldon suggested that “Matter is the Crux”.⁷ The question is “Spiritual or physical? The resurrection argument is 2000 years old.” Waldon however did not provide an analysis of any substance, merely a restatement of the positions held.⁸ In the same paper on the same day, Malcolm Brown seemed to at least know the name of Carnley's published work on the resurrection, but did not seem to be aware of evangelical scholarly material published by Dr Paul Barnett (for example) which directly deals with the same questions and is published and produced right here in Sydney.

By Friday April 28, the Anglican Media website had published a lengthy response to the Carnley article from Phillip Jensen, Rector of St Matthias, Centennial Park, in Sydney. This was in addition to previous material Dr Paul Barnett had published on his web pages as Bishop of North Sydney. Both articles dealt with the central issues of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the uniqueness of Christ as forgiver of man's sins.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, there has been no response to these basic questions that lie at the centre of the dispute. No journalist bothered to pursue these matters as central to the discussion.

The hounds begin to bay

Sometimes gospel issues become a springboard for all sorts of other things. The Australian newspaper carried an editorial called ‘Anglicans wash dirty altar linen’.⁹ The article asserted that the debate had become personal and that it was sad that evangelicals had to become “abusive and insulting” to their opponents.¹⁰ The article noted that “Peter Carnley revealed an open mind on a series of doctrinal issues that trouble honest Christians. The Anglican Church prides itself on its comprehensiveness but there is a tendency for evangelicals to believe they are right and everybody else is either doctrinally defective or simply wrong ... the figure of Christ seems out of harmony with hierarchs who thunder anathemas ... the mainstream churches face diminished congregations ... enforced silence in the pews ... lack of charity ... contempt for unity ... fundamentalist attacks”. Finally the article noted that “the Primate's greatest offence seems to have been in recognising other ways to God than an exclusive Christian path. It is a view which multicultural Australia applauds.”¹¹

The Australian editorial was not just a rant; it was poor journalism. It claimed the central issue was tolerance—which was palpably not the central issue—in fact the tolerance shown by both sides in this debate was quite extraordinary by secular standards. Ironically, however, the writer of the editorial wouldn't tolerate the possibility that fundamentalist Christianity could be right, or even that it might be legitimate for them to express their view.

Ignorance and stereotyping reached full throttle when Mike Carlton hit the word processor for The_Sydney Morning Herald.¹² Sydney conservatives were now “arch-conservatives”; they were “grim”, “ugly”, “ayatollahs”, they “bark ... thunder ... spit ... hiss”; they are “odious” and “pharisaical”. Carlton's article was vitriolic in the extreme and without substance, even going so far as to argue that only people who are not evangelicals can be truly compassionate.

The Sydney Morning Herald published a letter from Narelle Jarrett, Principal of Mary Andrews College, in response to Carlton's article. She argued for the gospel as being the central issue, and that Carlton's argument was “a convenient tool for sidetracking an argument and for dismissing what is a matter of the greatest significance for all Christians”.¹³

Press fawning

Parallel to Mike Carlton's vitriol were those newspaper articles which were lavish in their praise of Dr Carnley. In The Australian, Colleen Egan gave a selection of anecdotes to illustrate Dr Carnley's personal qualities:

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Known as a considered and thoughtful man, he is also not adverse to a brawl if he thinks it will help the cause ... a widely admired scholar of huge intellect and tremendous ability ... champion of the underdog ... such great talent ... hero.¹⁴

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The question of intellectual credibility was often raised, with the point frequently made that Dr Carnley has an honours degree from Oxford. But then again, so do a few of his Sydney evangelical opponents. The faculty of Moore College abounds in doctorates from the sandstone universities. Dr Peter O'Brien (described by Mike Carlton as having “thundered” his views) is a leading New Testament scholar recognized worldwide.¹⁵ Not one newspaper gave any overview of the academic qualifications of the Sydney evangelicals, which in scope and reputation far outweigh Dr Carnley's.

One dissenter from the standard media line was Paddy McGuinness, who it must be said dissents from the standard line on most things. He thought it strange that journalists who complained about the church getting involved in politics and not sticking to theology were now complaining that the church was having a debate about theology!

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It should be perfectly understandable that members of the Anglican Church in Australia should be antagonistic to the appointment of a Primate who does not believe literally in the fundamental proposition of their faith. If you do not believe in the divine as well as the human nature of Christ, and in the bodily resurrection, what on earth are you doing in any of the Christian churches.¹⁶

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Some lessons

In reviewing this whole saga, some overall observations can be made.

1. Only conflict makes a story

The whole Carnley story was only newsworthy for as long as there was conflict. Once the ‘conflict’ was established as the central story, it became the paradigm for most of the ‘reporting’. Comments made by participants in the story were only used if they reinforced the ongoing ‘conflict’.

Evangelical Christians should never assume the media is simply a collection of ‘messengers’. The very nature of the gospel itself means that an unconverted journalist has a bias against the evangelical position as well as a professional predisposition to prolonging the conflict. Furthermore, it helps if the ‘conflict’ has a pictorial or personal angle. In this case, the conflict was portrayed in various terms and at various times as a power struggle, a sour grapes reaction, and even a personal vendetta. Of course if the media is scrutinized in any way, the response is that critics are “shooting the messenger”. Sometimes this is the case, but in most instances the problem is the failure of the messenger to actually be a competent messenger.

2. Media analysis is superficial

Dr Carnley's views have been published for some time in his book The Structure of Resurrection Belief. Evangelicals have published scholarly material opposing Dr Carnley and similar views. The media did not engage with any_of the primary source material at any time.

The very dynamics of newspaper, radio and television journalism means that analysis is always superficial. Deadlines mean that intelligent reflection on an issue is rare. Neale Postman calls it ‘And now this ...’—a world where all news has to be immediate, discrete and unrelated to any wider or eternal issues. Information becomes like answers in a game of Trivial Pursuit: just data that is interesting to know for its own sake. As noted above, the paradigm of conflict predisposes any analysis to be in terms of personalities, economics and power rather then deep reflection around an issue. In other words, it is too easy to take the easy way out.

3. Evangelicals are demonised and stereotyped

There is a need to have goodies and baddies in the conflict paradigm, so if they don't exist they are made up. Mike Carlton is the best example of this in the Carnley story, but Carnley himself was happy to collectively dismiss people on the basis of stereotypes and dubious motives.

4. Evangelicals are not as intelligent as liberals

Several journalists made much of Carnley's Oxford doctorate. No mention was made of the academic qualifications and output of his opponents. Thus The Australian could conclude that Carnley had taken the intellectual high ground.

But how would they know if this is the case? It was quite apparent that the journalists had not read the primary material, and equally clear that Carnley himself had not answered the evangelical scholarly material.

Like Bishop John Selby Spong, the ‘intellectual high ground’ is asserted but never actually argued.

In reality, a quick review of the literature indicates that the Sydney evangelicals are more productive in their output then their current opponents.

5. Christians must not disagree about anything

As far as demonstrations go, the ‘boycott’ was hardly a threat to civil liberty. Those who did not go were making a clear statement, but it was never a case of pistols at dawn or a public burning. Yet the press seemed to have a problem with the Anglican church even having the disagreement.

It is when the journalists call for ‘tolerance’ that they most show their hypocrisy and their ignorance of the subject matter and the subjects. They simply cannot tolerate the possibility that Sydney Anglicans may be right.

6. Gospel work goes on

It is easy to be disheartened when these issues arise and all the coverage seems so negative, uninformed and unprofessional. But the work of the gospel is not the same as other work. It is not a question of marketing, of selling a product, of making everybody feel warm and fuzzy because they have got it together morally. It is about the gospel—it is about Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?”

The uncomfortable and rankling fact for many is that evangelical churches are growing and liberal churches are going backwards. Perhaps the media might investigate why this is the case—why this is really the case, rather then compounding their poor analysis with poor sociology, poor psychology and poor marketing theories.

Endnotes

¹ Archbishop Goodhew posted his letter on the Anglican Media (Sydney) website and it was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald of April 26th and The Daily Telegraph of April 27th in the first instance, and repeated in most other newspapers over the next two weeks.

² Rachel Morris, Daily Telegraph, April 27th, 2000. p. 20.

³ Rachel Morris, Daily Telegraph, April 27th, 2000. p. 20.

⁴ Rachel Morris, Daily Telegraph, April 27th, 2000. p. 20.

⁵ Rachel Morris, Daily Telegraph, April 27th, 2000. p. 20.

⁶ Rachel Morris, Daily Telegraph, April 27th, 2000. p. 20.

⁷ Sydney Morning Herald, April 29th, 2000. p. 45.

⁸ Waldon quotes Francis McNab, a Melbourne cleric, who depicted Sydney Anglicans as “a small group of hard-liners who cannot accept modern scholarship, or any belief in the resurrection other than the literal”. Surprisingly (or maybe not), Waldon does not bother to research the accurateness of McNab's statement. Barnett, O'Brien, Goldsworthy, Dumbrell, etc. of past and present Moore College faculty can hardly be described as opponents of ‘scholarship’. It is a feature of liberal scholarship that on the whole it does not get around to engaging with evangelical scholarship.

⁹ The Australian, April 27th, 2000. Editorial.

¹⁰ The Australian, April 27th, 2000. Editorial.

¹¹ The Australian, April 27th, 2000. Editorial.

¹² Sydney Morning Herald, April 29th, 2000. ‘Judgement Day Looms’.

¹³ Sydney Morning Herald, May 3rd, 2000. Letters.

¹⁴ The Weekend Australian, April 29-30, 2000.

¹⁵ For those who know Dr O’Brien, it is amusing to read Carlton's ‘thundered’ line. His gentleness is legendary. See his most recent commentary The Letter to the Ephesians, Eerdmans, 1999.

¹⁶ Sydney Morning Herald, April 27th, 2000. ‘Keepers of the faith put politics first’.