Is Jonathan Merritt a Reporter or Church Growth Consultant?

Last updated on: January 6, 2017 at 4:31 pm by D. G. Hart

Is Jonathan Merritt a Reporter or Church Growth Consultant? 2017-01-06T16:31:55-04:00 D. G. Hart

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Journalists have had some ‘splainin’ to do of late after the presidential contest, accusations of media bias, and worries about fake news. Some of us (okay, me) are also concerned that reporters who cover religion choose stories that are more endearing to editors than actually cover what’s happening. Case in point: Jonathan Merritt and his recent chiding of the Southern Baptist Convention for those critics in its ranks who objected to Russell Moore’s anti-Trump statements during the campaign:

In recent years, the denomination has gone to war over private prayer languages, the consumption of alcohol, renaming the denomination, the rise of Calvinism, flying the Confederate flag and how to atone for its racist roots. There’s a reason the SBC has been dubbed “the battling Baptists.”

In the midst of its tumult, Moore has brought a sense of calm and conviction.

When critics claim Southern Baptists are bombastic and angry, a level-headed Moore appears in television interviews speaking in a measured tone and never losing his temper.

When haters argue that Southern Baptists are extreme and irrelevant, Moore tweets about the TV show “Stranger Things” and hip-hop albums.

When some claim that Southern Baptists are partisan hacks, Moore finds a way to challenge the Republican establishment while holding the line on cornerstone conservative issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

But in recent months, the last asset has become a liability. Because Moore opposed Trump from the start, and despite much pressure from fellow evangelicals, he never wavered.

Whether Southern Baptists will regard Merritt as a credible interpreter (his father was a president of the national convention) or as another journalist who picks stories to take swipes at the politicians he or she opposes is a judgment above this Orthodox Presbyterian’s pay grade. But Southern Baptists and those who read Merritt should also keep in mind the following:

In the summer of 2015 Merritt wrote critically about evangelicals who were opposed to the normalization of homosexuality. He singled out Moore’s former boss at Southern Baptist Seminary, Al Mohler, but he also included a report from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:

In the fight over gay rights, conservative Christians have a new enemy. No, it isn’t a politician or activist or organization. It isn’t a noun at all, in fact, but rather a verb: normalize. Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler’s forthcoming book, “We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong.” The conservative leader discusses the normalization of same-sex relationships a whopping 39 times throughout the book’s 256 pages. “The normalization of homosexual relationships and the legalization of same-sex marriage” is, in Mohler’s words, “the debate of greatest intensity of our time.”

He is not the only one calling conservative Christians to fight against the normalization of same-sex relationships—not by a long shot.

An article released by The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, for example, calls believers to “consider what is at stake in the movement afoot to normalize homosexuality.”

That is the same ERLC chaired by Russell Moore.

In fact, the report that Moore must have approved said much that Merritt must found objectionable:

HOW IS HOMOSEXUALITY BEING NORMALIZED IN AMERICAN CULTURE?

Even a casual observer would agree that homosexuality has made major strides toward being normalized in our culture today. The evidence is all around us in entertainment, news media, education, politics, and even the business world. Misrepresentation of scientific research on homosexuality is prominent and widely accepted as fact.

The emphasis is the same in each of these areas: Tolerance and compassion demand that we accept homosexuality as the moral equivalent of heterosexuality. Terms like “bigot” and “homophobic” are thrown around loosely and usually incorrectly. Slogans and pithy sayings take the place of reasoned discourse.

But when Russell Moore takes on Trump, he is the greatest asset the SBC has? Shouldn’t Jonathan Merritt’s reporting on the Southern Baptist Convention be fair and balanced? Shouldn’t he take his own rooting interests out of his “journalism”?

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