What Do They Do When They Can’t Make a Scandal? 

In the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbits are being led by Aragorn across a swamp , and are basically being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  One of the hobbits complains bitterly “What do they eat when they can’t get hobbit?”

Ironically, that was the first thing that popped into my head when I noticed Media Matters trying to jump down Ann Coulter‘s throat for her comments that “Jews need to be perfected by becoming Christians”.   The question, is translated contextualy as… what would Media Matters do, if they didn’t have a manufactured scandal of the week to be harping on?

Forgive me, but this comment from Coulter they’re complaining about, doesn’t even rise to the level of scandal, unless you’re going to make comments about Media Matters and their activities.  Several rebuttals come to mind:

• Clearly, the people it media matters are ignorant of Christian theology, though I will grant that whether this ignorance is intentional or not is an arguable point. For one thing, apparently nobody at Media Matters has learned, much less taken to heart, the commandment of Christ himself to “go and make disciples of all nations”.
• Since converting to Christianity is a volunteer action, and by no means compulsory as it is in Iran, I fail to see where Coulter’s statement rises to the level of that of the little Iranian nut job, in whose country not converting to Islam is punishable by public hanging. Further, The Iranian President represents the government there; Ann Coulter, for all of her accuracy, does not represnt the government here.
• There’s a reason that there’s a constitutional protection as regards freedom of expression and freedom of religion.  It’s so that when Media Matters wonks get into power, they don’t get their way, as regards religion.
• Her offense, in the end, is being (gasp!) Christian, and (Gasp)taking it to heart, and (Double gasp!) having the courage to put her faith into words in public.

It strikes me as a worrisome thing, that a group of someones so tone deaf as regards the links between culture and religion in the west, should be so concerned about obtaining governmental power to work its ends.  Such a thing cannot bode well for the culture, or the country that was founded on it.

Addendum I:   (David L)  

The problem here is not what Ann Coulter said, but how the show’s host, Donny Deutsch’s, characterized Coulter’s remarks    Coulter basically said that Christians look upon themselves as perfected Jews.    It wsa Deuthsch was inserted the word need.

Examine, Christians consider the Old Testament holy.   Thus they can’t condemn Jews for professing a religion based on holy text.   So therefore how do Christians account for the fact that while they consider the Jewish religion to based on holy text, that they, Christians, don’t profess to be Jewish.

Simple, Christians consider the theology of the New Testiment to be an improvement over the Old Testiment.   To believe otherwise would be to reject the Christian faith.

I am agnostic, yet even I can understand this.    Given this concept seems several stories above Deutsch’s understanding of theology, I suggest that Deutsch avoid the subject of religion on all future interviews, if his employer, CNBC, is so stupid as to let him conduct any more.

Adendum II: (Bit)  Agreed, David, but I can see this requires further explaining to some readers.  I don’t intend to get dragged into a theological argument here, but to understand Coulter’s comment you must have at least a basic understanding of what I’m about to describe to you all.

The issue is the attainment of heaven… this is what Coulter is talking about when she says “Perfected”. 

To understand this comment, you must first understand that the old testiment contains the law, which no mere human can follow perfectly.  Yet, perfection in the eyes of God is the only way into heaven. The solution?

The New testiment supercedes the old and puts a new covenant in place of the old. And they are linked… the new covenant is promised in the old… Genesis chapter 2, if I’m not mistaken. The new covenant with God is Christ’s paying for our sins on the cross, by which payment, in the eyes of God, we are now viewed as having followed the law perfectly, because we’ve been forgiven our sins… our mistakes… in Christ.  This is what is meant by having been ‘perfected’.  This is a basic premise of Christianity that one needs understand if they’re to understand the origin of Coulter’s comment, here.

It is Deutsch’s total lack of understanding of all this that leads to his confusion. 

(Assuming that his ignorence is not intentional, which is perhaps another matter altogether.)

So, this uproar over Coulter’s statements is either based in Deutsch’s ignorance, or assuming he knows all this,  is based on pure donkey dung. Neither situation seems attractive to me.