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Christianity may be a "harder sell" on the newsstands, but "harder sell" doesn't translate into "irrelevant."
"Well, certainly we are in an international era, we are in an era of globalization, and we discovered from our reader research back in 1991 that our international stories were on the same level with our domestic stories in terms of reader interest. And so we feel that we now have a major responsibility to tell American Christian readers about what's going on around the world that has either strongly moral implications or things that will affect the life of the church in one way or another. So, now we're comparing our cover story, which is at press right now, of Congo with the Time Magazine cover from last week. We started down on ours long before we knew they were doing theirs and it just happened, but I think in the case of both magazines we consider this and underreported story. All the attention has been going to other sort of hot spots, particularly the Sudan, and we felt that there was a real need to tell the story of the carnage going on in Congo. I think if you compare the two stories, you'll find that, of course, Time always has more muscle in reporting, but we were able to field three people into the country. We were able to focus on specific efforts of Christians on the ground in Congo, indigenous Christians, doing things that bring hope into their very otherwise dark situations. And so, when we got our story together and our editors who were working on it showed it to me, I was thrilled that they got a good, strong, positive angle in terms of what people feel called to do and sacrifices they make in order to make a difference and save lives in that context. And that's reflected in the two covers because I think Time's story reported broadly on political and military kinds of events, and we went to grass roots efforts; on a people to people basis, which gives you a very different feel. The Time picture on their cover is black and white, it's silhouetted, it's low contrast, it's depressing. We use the word hope in the phrase "Hope in the Heart of Darkness" on our cover, and if you look at the cover itself, you see that we've got a colorful logo. We have a woman with a colorful scarf on her head and she's carrying a baby on her back. The baby is a sign of the future, a sign of hope. The baby has his neck turned around so he's looking directly at the camera, directly at our reader. All of that says a world of difference to me between Time's approach and our approach on this story."
And Christianity Today's approach to the way they work doesn't end with story angles. While magazines like Time may strictly report the news, Christianity Today reports the news as it relates to Christians, often times taking a stance.
"We do take stands on issues; that's what our editorial page is for. And we have taken stands that resonate with both the left and the right, depending on what the issue is. We certainly have been supportive of the pro-life movement consistently throughout the past 20 years. On the other hand we've taken a stand that we think that people need to take the threat of global warming seriously, and that's something that hasn't resonated much on the right. So I think it all depends on what the issue is. In the last election when John Kerry's religion became an issue with some of the Catholic bishops, particularly the Catholic bishop of St. Louis. We took a stand and said that that bishop was right in denying him communion. So, there's an example of something that should resonate with the right. On the other hand, we'll just as often say things that might get the write-ups and, for example, on the current push to put the Ten Commandments everywhere they possibly can put it. We've tried to take a more nuance stand on that and suggest that maybe the approach of Judge Roy Moore wasn't entirely flawless, and it had some problems. So I could probably balance one left issue for every right issue, evenly. But that's what an editorial page is for, to get readers' perspective on issues like that as well as some of the op-ed columns, which allow people who are not speaking officially for the magazine to express a separate viewpoint. I think what you'll find though is that one reason that the mainstream media often come to us for a quote is because they know they can look to us as non-ideologically knee-jerked in our reaction, but as a Christian voice that has tried to weigh each issue on its own merit and not a set of principles that we can open up on and discuss. But its not always these left and right issues either. Just this week in the Dallas Morning News, they cited us. They have in the Dallas area a lawsuit going on right now over a church discipline issue. Someone claiming his privacy has been invaded, because he has been placed under church discipline, is suing a pastor in the church. Now, that's not a political issue left or right. But, last October we did a cover story on the state of church discipline and so the Dallas Morning News cited us because, well, where else were they going to go for that kind of material?"
To learn more about CT and its sister publications, please visit their web site at www.christianitytoday.com.
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