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By Lloyd Mackey
ANYONE who has been involved in communication or social behavior workshops will know of the exercise that calls for participants to line up in a row and whisper a statement from ear to ear down the line.
The object of the exercise is to demonstrate that a statement whispered from the first person in line to the second will end up being quite different when it is whispered into the ear of the last person in line.
Elizabeth May's sermon, this past Sunday, to the congregation of Wesley-Knox United Church in London, Ontario, is the latest clear example of faith-based communication gone awry.
May, the leader of the Green Party, has made her Anglican credentials a matter of public record several times recently, even allowing it to be known that her second preference to being a party leader might be to gain ordination as a clergyperson in her denomination.
The purpose of this particular analysis is to explore, once again, the usefulness of communicating faith values with clarity and without bombast. The significance of good communication skills becomes more obvious as leaders emerge from the cocoons of fringe parties or edgy faith groups to become players in the political mainstream.
In this particular case, May was reported, apparently accurately, by Jonathan Sher in the London Free Press of April 30. That report quoted her as suggesting that while many evangelical Christians care about the Earth, a fundamentalist sect would rather see the planet destroyed.
"They are waiting for the end time in glee," she said.
But, by the time her quote was subjected to editorial analysis at the National Post, it was reinterpreted and, in effect, mish-mashed to suggest that "in referring to Evangelical Christians, Ms. May stated that some 'are waiting for the end (of) time in glee.'"
So the third ear -- the NP reader -- was treated to a distortion of a statement that was fed by the first mouth -- May -- into the first ear -- that of reporter Sher.
The distortion is understandable. Fundamentalists are often mistaken for evangelicals or vice versa, by journalists who do not sweat the fine points of theological definition.
The fact is that there are fundamentalists in most faiths -- people and leaders who insist that their version of the truth must be unquestioned by the rest of society. The least immoderate of such fundamentalists would insist that their followers not be permitted any dialogue with outsiders. The most radical might occasionally fly aircraft into tall buildings.
Evangelicals who enjoy sharing their faith with others, to the point of enthusiasm, might be mistaken for fundamentalists. But the mistake may be more one of perspective than reality.
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The point of this analysis, I would hope, is to engender some interest, on the part of Christian leaders, in tempering their public rhetoric with some sensitivity regarding the interpretation the second, third or tenth ear might get from the original statement.
When journalists are invited to listen to Sunday morning sermons, the inviters should be aware of the potential impact that a misunderstanding of their statements might create. And brief references to Nazism, such as that engaged in by May in last Sunday's sermon, are sure to get attention in the wider world.
Indeed, if May's intention was to get publicity among Christians for the doctrines of the Green Party, the Nazism reference -- and the presence of a newspaper reporter -- would guarantee success.
If that was her intention -- and I am not saying it was, necessarily -- May subtracted considerably from the opportunity for a faith-based approach to constructively influence the political process.
In effect, whether she realizes it or not, she was speaking in a way that she might find abhorrent, if similar words were coming from the mouth of a fundamentalist minister.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com. |  |
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PM's climate stance worse than appeasing Nazis: Green leader
Green leader Elizabeth May is standing by her comments over the weekend that condemn Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stance on climate change, comparing it to "a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis." . . . The longtime environmentalist, who said she was having "a lousy week" because of the federal government's weak action plan on the environment, was standing by comments she made on the weekend to a church congregation in London, Ont.
Ottawa Citizen, May 1
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