Silence on Syrian Christians, Journalistic and Political

on September 9, 2013

The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher has enthusiastically covered the American response to Syria over the past week or so. Himself a Christian of the Eastern Orthodox variety, the noted writer worries about the possible effect that mostly symbolic strikes against Syrian forces could have on religious minorities in the country. Christians make about about 13 percent of Syria’s 20 million population. When Islamists get provoked by the West, they tend to channel their rage against native Christian populations (see Egypt for a recent example).

In one particularly dynamic post, Dreher defended Senator Rand Paul’s belligerent statesmanship regarding the safety of Arab Christians. Right now, Paul thinks non-intervention by the U. S. military offers the best hope for Christian survival. Detractors cried, “Religious Right!” as a sufficient argument against the Kentucky senator’s stance. Andrew Sullivan thought Rand’s religious overtones heedlessly muddied the political waters, Dreher disagreed, and Sullivan responded in kind.

Using his journalistic platform, Dreher raked Beltway opposition over the coals: “For some American liberals, any fact or policy proposal that might give aid and comfort to some redneck Baptist must be opposed. The culture war in America is more important that the actual war in places like Syria; Syria’s Christians, like Iraq’s Christians and Egypt’s Christians, are just collateral damage.”

To his fellow American Christians, Dreher declares, “It is a scandal that we American Christians are so ignorant of and indifferent to the suffering of our fellow Christians around the world, and it is especially shameful that we do not know or care about the role US foreign policy plays in making that suffering worse.” “On the matter of Syria, Rand Paul is trying to change that. Seventy-five percent of the US population identifies as Christian, and almost 90 percent of the US Congress does,” Dreher observed, “Yet there is only one voice in official Washington advocating for the interests of Syria’s Christians right now.”

Dreher’s next target was the liberal behemoth, The New York Times. He noted that two prominent stories in the Sunday edition followed along LGBT themes. One article dealt with “an all-nude gay resort in the Ozarks, a story that led its homepage for the last day, and that appears in the A section of the print paper.” The front page of the Metro section featured a piece on an old gay couple who used to cruise public toilets for anonymous sex (aside: the NYT, no longer safe for work or the kids).

More importantly, there were no NYT stories at all on Christians in Syria, even after several important developments had occurred over the weekend. It seems we desire hardcore pornographic themes over hard news.

Complains Dreher,

Maybe if the Metropolitan Community Church or Bishop Gene Robinson speaks out against the war, the demented New York Times will deign to pay attention to a major religion story unfolding in real time in this country. Maybe if a gay bathhouse in the outskirts of Aleppo gets grenaded by the Syrian rebels, Times editors will cock an eyebrow. Or something.

This is beyond frustrating.

Yes, indeed, Mr. Dreher. But know you aren’t alone in your frustrations.

  1. Comment by Karl Kroger on September 17, 2013 at 11:57 am

    Is this what love looks like? Demonizing and mocking your opponents.

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