Wednesday, May 4,
2005.Irritated Again by "Conservative" Talk
Radio
By Pascal Fervor
Wednesday, for one hour: Michael Medved Show.
Interviewee: Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong with new book "Sins of Scripture."
A reason for the interview: Official who derides his church, indeed all Judeo-Christian core thought, for being hopelessly stuck with traditional dogmas.
Provocative statement: Paraphrased from memory:
"God is about love. The God of the Bible commands us to be fruitful and multiply. This is not a loving God because his commandment is absurd. Following that command would have people overpopulate the earth leading to its destruction and theirs. Thus the commandment discredits the compiler of that text. The commandment is hopelessly outdated. This proves all Bible text needs to be seen from modern viewpoints and adapted to modern mores."
Core of my irritation: Mr. Medved let the assertion stand unchallenged.
Commentary: Mr. Medved is a tremendously effective debater. There are few commentators who I've heard who can pick up the polemics of any adversary and counter their words with his own polemic so instantaneously. When he moved from Left to Right he brought all of his skills and passions. But I have to ask: so what?
Medved could have turned the Bishop's beliefs into hash instantly by pointing out so many things of which I know he is aware: 1. That Thomas Malthus' thesis has been disproved time and again. Malthus at least admitted his error. But not those who picked up his baton. 2.That the modern Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, also was challenged in his time and proven completely wrong in his predictions of world-wide famine. It pains me so in no small part because I am sure that Mr. Medved could quickly add to my meager list. 3. There have been many other thinkers afflicted with the Malthusian bug in between Malthus and Erhlich; and they persist still. I believe they'll continue to be proven wrong but they will doggedly pursue this rotten remedy of theirs believing that otherwise they must eventually be right.
This means that those who disagree with this vision mustn't shy away from battling the pessimists. I am absolutely sure that Mr. Medved is wonderfully situated to do so, and to do it with a flourish I lack. And he may reach so many more than I could ever hope.
But Mr. Medved remained silent.
If I recall correctly he typically reaches, on his show, at least 300,000 listeners every 15 minutes. It could easily be much more, but nevertheless let's say it is that. That 300,000 could not hear me yelling at the radio (please forgive my frustration Michael): "You useless tool Medved: What good are you to the values you claim to stand for? You just sit there and say nothing?”
Don't you see, Mr. Medved, that you let this dehumanizer spread his life-poisoning messages to ears you cannot presume understand the threat to them? When one leader (you, Mr Medved) remains silent whilst another “leader” asserts the most damning of all his assertions, your followers will think there is something worthwhile in that basic premise? You, by not cutting out from under him his flawed foundation, allowed the stinking poison to seep passed your filter into the minds of your own followers. “Oh, the words of God regarding the sacredness of human life must be reconsidered in light of modern human 'wisdom.'”
Medved's listeners are not hearing the others who understand the threat this sort of thinking portends, indeed, is in alliance with those who advance it across the globe. Only Mr. Medved could have, should have, oh how I wish he would have instantly informed maybe over half of his then active listeners that this thinking carries with it a death wish for a very large number of people.
Death wish for a large number of people? Yes. The bishop is an outspoken proponent of a “new” paradigm, against which I've railed before, “that, for the good of the world, large numbers of people be encouraged to engage in activities that assure negative population growth.”
For instance, this bishop wishes to promote homosexuality as a legitimate choice of lifestyle. I say it is obvious that he sees that homosexual interests redirects the normal life-sustaining forces endemic to any living thing from the lowest plant to the most complex animal. Anything that dissipates the non-corrupted sexual urge to couple with the opposite sex and waste that energy on liaisons that have no chance of resulting in a new human being he sees as beneficial to the new world's (read his) societal goal.
Another idea is that he wishes to promote abortion as a heroine's choice: ending her child's life so others may live in a less cluttered world.
Another idea is the altering of medical ethics to allow incipient forces to end the lives of people who are deemed nothing but a burden to the rest of society of their brave new world.
Please Medved: let nobody be mistaken. I do not understand how you don't alert your listeners as to how the death cult theme runs rampant through all this. This Bishop's comments seem to me so emblematic of many little men who wish to play God. How can you continue to remain silent? You say you love the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible pledged that He will provide. Do you think He is untrustworthy? Men like this Bishop, firmly convinced of and corrupted by Malthusian pessimism, will work -- usually with far less candor than this Bishop -- to see to it that the world of the future, with the help of their duplicities and machinations, will indeed be able to provide for those people worthy of surviving.
They, unlike moral men of the past, will not work to save troubled individuals from their worst excesses. But as if that isn't betrayal enough to what most people innocently expect of kindly seeming leaders, these people cannot even be satisfied that many individuals, even after numerous warnings from true friends and without anyone deliberately misleading them, will entangle themselves in activities that lead towards their own destruction.
Those who precisely wish to promote destructive activities frequently enjoy accolades as grand benefactors to society. Meanwhile, in our traditional moral code, such schemers are easily identified as evil. How can there be any wonder, therefore, that the secular giants have been actively seeking to silence those who wish our society to sustain its moral codes which clearly didn't hinder our country's rise to greatness, and argues greatly for its goodness?
But please let there be no mistake about the sadness of the vision of which I am so dismayed was not deflated in a timely manner. The pessimistic thinking, revealed by this bishop but held in semi-secrecy by so many others, plans the death of the common man. It may take many more men who are willing to admit their aims as this bishop has before the threat becomes clearer. Such men need to be identified and forced to argue their positions out in the open where the common man may judge for himself whether their plans for him are just. Let us see if the common man worships the demigod as much as the demigod worships himself.
Will someone who speaks better than I and thinks comfortably and clearly in debate, please challenge Michael Medved with this critique of his silence? Thursday is disagreement day.
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