After watching this video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/20/russell-brand-westboro-baptist-church-video_n_2166670.html
I find myself once again annoyed with how the popular media chooses to portay faith issues. The majority of the people at the Westboro Baptist church are family members. The only reason why they keep getting playing time is because they are ridiculious and we like to make fun of them.
It also allows secular people to reinforce their stereotypes of what a Bible believing Christian is....Russell Brand leaves us with two options, an extreme universalistic religious pluralism as defined by secular society, or someone who accepts that the whole of scripture is authoriative.
People who know scripture on a deeper level would never be welcomed into these convesations, because people have the attention span of 5 year olds and would fall asleep. Props to folks like Stephen Colbert and George Stroumboulopoulos for their willingess to put thinking Christians in front of the screen (N.T. Wright on Colbert, Alister McGrath with George) and thinking secular folk for that matter....Naomi Klein etc.....I doubt the ratings are the highest on these nights, and in the case of Colbert with Wright he didn't seem to have a clue what he was talking about, to even know how to contrast him with his conservative evangelical character. But I admire their courage none the less.
Neither WBC nor RB represent anything beyond themselves, expect perhaps for media sensationalism. I can't think of a more pointless interview.
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