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From: rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob])
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: American Almanac, Christian Rock, and BJU
Message-ID: <1756@akgua.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 12:31:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: akgua.1756
Posted: Wed Oct 23 12:31:14 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 00:49:55 EDT
Organization: AT&T Technologies/Bell Labs, Atlanta
Lines: 38

Recently, on the news magazine program American Almanac
one of the features was on Christian Rock music.  The report
featured some the better known groups/persons: Petra, Amy Grant,
Stryper....  The network people ever conscious of money and the
prejudiced view that religions are really scams to amass $$ for
nefarious purposes stated that Christian Music generated $75 million
last year.  I think that figure is low since Jimmy Swaggart alone
probably brings in that much :-) :-).

But the main point is that guess who they went to for the "con"
point of view ???  BOB JONES UNIVERSITY !!!!!

Now that has to be calculated from a show biz perspective because
they were hoping the BJU folks would say something outrageous.
They really didn't say anything but the predictable - that Rock
is evil and that "Christian Rock" (a term they would probably
class an oxymoron) is seven times more evil because it purports
to be part of the Good News.

We can argue their contention some other day but the point I want to
dwell on is why did the network choose a fringe element for their
opinion ??  Some of the possibilities are: one I already mentioned
(makes good show biz), another is they were attempting to characterize
the two viewpoints as polar opposites.  For instance, if we hear a view
that's 20 miles left of center and we are only presented with an opposing
one that is 150 miles right of center we may be mentally nudged into
moving the center position to make the two views appear polar opposites.

I think the media does this on a lot of issues which in essence presents
us with false dichotomies.  I don't know that they have an ax to grind
against Christian Rock other than their general anti-religious one
...and so much the better if they can play one group agin' the other.

Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}

P.S. For those of the net who like Christian Contemporary - Steve
Taylor has a song that pokes at BJU a little called "Honky if you 
love Jesus."