Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Studies Blog

The most fickle bunch of all.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

Rare is the issue of World Magazine where a letter from a reader doesn't call for their subscription to be canceled. I appreciate that World prints as many of those irate letters as they do.

World Magazine is, I should point out, a Christian version of magazines like Newsweek or Time. It runs a lot of good stories and has some fabulous columnists. It also tends to run serious news stories that the larger media outlets either won't touch or refuse to cover in a way that actually covers the story. Inevitably, since they run stories that don't shy from pointing out something negative in the Christian world, they make a few readers irate with each issue.

I have never seen readers calling for a subscription cancellation like I do in that magazine.

"Cancel my subscription, because I didn't like what you wrote," is basically what it always boils down to, no matter what terms or excuses the letter writer attempted to convey.

Is there any group of people more difficult to please than Christians? So easily offended, so worried that they might read something that steps on their toes or that they disagree with. Subscriptions canceled because of a positive review of a movie they didn't like, a Harry Potter book, a CD. Canceled because the Catholic Church was painted in too kind a light or not kind enough. Cancel my subscription, because you stepped on my toes.

A recent issue highlighted the financial abuses and questionable uses ("Big Bucks Ministry") at a number of ministries that are known for purveying the Health/Wealth gospel. Ministers with jets and mansions, calls for funding in "Jesus' name." The letters are still coming in to World Magazine, it seems, asking for cancellations to subscriptions.

I should think the staff at World Magazine has a great amount of faith, knowing that no matter what they write they are going to anger someone and hurt their circulation. I have to hand it to them that, despite knowing this, they don't seem to shy away from religious topics that cut to the heart of any of their readers at any given time. They don't just bash the Clintons or the homosexuals, safe topics that all Christians seem willing to rally behind.

My question, then, is that of the audience: Are all "audiences" as difficult to cater to, cajole, placate, keep in the flock -- whatever phrase you'd like to use -- as a Christian one seems to be?

Labels: christianity, media

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I'm not a dog person, anyway.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm sure regular readers of this particular blog have noticed by now that I link to a web site that is a response to what they call "attack dogs" or "watch dogs" of Christianity. Sometimes there are posts and comments there that get carried away as well, but I still enter that fray periodically.

I've been getting the magazine Christianity Today for almost half a year, though I don't know why. I enjoy it a great deal, but I never subscribed to it or paid for it, yet it just started arriving. Regardless, I noticed a column in the recent issue about these "watch dog" web sites and "ministries."

Read the column, and also check out the great links at the bottom. They've managed to find other sites that have blogged about the column, most of which...well, I can only say that it doesn't surprise me. They are the blogs and web sites that the article was discussing.

UPDATE: I have a theory about the internet, blogs, and and what it does to and for the Gospel of Christ...

Labels: christianity, critique, media, religion