Ross Douthat of the New York Times Corrects Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker About Francis Schaeffer

I was encouraged to come across this post by Ross Douthat (New York Times) setting some of the record straight on the swirling controversy about Michele Bachmann and Dominionism Paranoia stirred up by Ryan Lizza's article in the New Yorker (who apparently told his fact-checker to take the day off). Here is an excerpt:

"Schaeffer’s major contribution to American public life wasn’t any sort of sinister “dominionist” master plan, but rather a much more defensible blueprint for Christian political action: He argued that Christian values were under assault in contemporary American life, that the idea of secular “neutrality” was something of a sham, and that believers had an obligation to be 1) engaged with the culture rather than bunkered against it, and 2) engaged politically on issues (abortion, especially) where fundamental moral truths were at stake. One can dislike this blueprint and disagree with its premises, but its perspective on American politics is no more illiberal than the perspective of, say, the civil rights movement. And the fact that Schaeffer influenced a prominent evangelical politician like Bachmann isn’t nearly as surprising, strange or scary as Lizza’s piece often makes it sound."

Read the rest of Douthat's article.

Joe Carter of First Things offers "A Journalism Lesson for the New Yorker"

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