NPR Reporter Says Christians Should Burn

Hateful voice mail message to conservative group leads to resignation. A National Public Radio (NPR) reporter has resigned after a hateful voice mail message she left for a conservative group was made public.

Rachel Buchman worked for WHYY in Philadelphia, an NPR affiliate, when she called the offices of the Web site laptoplobbyist.com to express her outrage over an e-mail the group sent to her opposing special rights for homosexuals.

"You're evil, horrible people. You're awful people," she said, identifying herself only as "Rachel." "You represent horrible ideas. God hates you and He wants to kill your children. You should all burn."

Chris Carmouche, publisher of laptoplobbyist.com, said he's accustomed to liberals being offended by his group's moral stands—but added that Buchman's message was over the top.

"We want people to know that this is not an isolated incident," he said. "People have to realize there's not just a media bias, but in many cases there is a media hatred, toward anything conservative, Christian or traditional."

After Carmouche posted a recording of Buchman's message on his Web site, she apologized for "a personal matter that was turned into a public issue."

"Rather than call my journalistic integrity into question," she said. "I decided to resign for personal reasons." Carmouche said it's too late for her professional reputation to be salvaged.

"Conservatives will no longer tolerate the reporting of liberal vitriol as fact," he told The Washington Times. "We will not tolerate the Dan Rathers of the world spoon-feeding the public liberal propaganda. And we will call the 'old media' to account when they make their biases and bigotries obvious and deviate from commonly acceptable standards of journalism."

FOR MORE INFORMATION Take a closer look at the mainstream media's liberal bias by reading the CitizenLink commentary "Cheering in the Press Box" by Gary Schneeberger.

Thanks for the pings, BraveMan and Minuteman.

Although I detest what this woman said, I have somewhat mixed emotions about this kind of 'anti-Christian' behavior in general.

A personal aside that will hopefully illustrate what I mean …

I have a very small framed parchment/calligraphy copy of the twenty-third Psalm on the wall above my desk at my office. It was given to me many years ago by a friend forty years my senior who has probably had more positive influence on my life than any woman I have ever known. Her name was Naomi. She passed away in 1999, but in the years leading up to her death she used to agonize over the fact that the portion of my work that doesn't involve direct contact with the public I often choose to do in the wee hours of the morning when the building in which I work is empty. That way, I can work uninterrupted by people who, during the day, will often wander into my office to chat. (My over-protective friend had visions of me being accosted in the dark parking lot some night/early morning as I was leaving for home. :)

These days, as I am preparing to leave my office in the wee hours of the morning, I will often glance (warmly, and with some regret) at that little parchment, and reminisce about the anguish I used to cause my dear friend by working such late hours.

Back to my point (I appear to have wandered off a bit :) … that little piece of calligraphy is so small that anyone wandering into my office would need to lean well over my large desk in order to even read the small words that are contained within the frame. It should be obvious that it hangs there simply for my own reading and personal reflection. It is not on display. My office wall is also covered with many other, larger things, all of which make this little framed scripture appear relatively insignificant to all but me.

Only twice in all the years that it has hung there has anyone ever made a negative comment about it.

The most recent was this past summer, when a woman (a new resident of our township, having recently relocated here from Philadelphia) came in to transact some business. During our conversation, she had occasion to look at the small frame, and leaned forward to see what it read – after which, her comment was something like, 'I don’t believe that has a place in a government office. Do you know what separation of church and state means?'

I informed her that I knew probably as well as she does what that phrase means, but that it appears neither in the US Constitution nor in the constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. To which she replied something like, 'Perhaps your superiors understand the phrase better than you do.'

I informed her that, being an elected official, I answer only to the voters of our township and the law. I have no other 'superiors'.

Considering her attitude, and her unwillingness to back down, I fully expected that she would call someone she considered to be my 'superior', but I have had no feedback from anyone, so I am assuming that she either dropped the issue, or she contacted someone who supported my position, and who never said anything to me about her call (two of our three township supervisors attend my church and are members of my choir or adult Sunday school class, and I am certain that both of them would have diplomatically told her that her complaint was without foundation).

After she left my office, I remember sitting back and wondering exactly what in her life may have caused her to respond so negatively to what so many others who have walked in and out of that office over the years have never viewed as offensive. And I came away feeling that, depending on those life experiences, I might well understand her mindset.

Some 'Christians' leave a lot to be desired in their interactions with non-believers. I have met countless such 'Christians' myself, and, were I not immersed in a church in which the large majority of members bear no resemblance to the 'Christians' to whom I am referring, I, too, might well have a very negative opinion of Christianity.

Some 'Christians' use their religion as a didactic club with which to beat non-believers over the head. Some 'Christians' use their religion as a badge of honor with which to portray a sense of personal superiority over non-believers. Some 'Christians' use their religion as an excuse for bad behavior, because they believe they have connections that make them somehow more forgivable than their non-Christian counterparts. And some 'Christians' believe that there is no room in life for anything but the outward accoutrements of their religion.

And I am afraid that, for every Christian I know who recognizes that goodness, humility, and respect for others are a non-negotiable part of a Christian life, there is another 'Christian' who believes that arrogance, closed-mindedness, and intolerance of others' genuinely-held beliefs are effective tools with which to build a God-centered life.

The 'best' (by my own personal … and therefore fallible … definition) Christians I have ever known (Naomi being among that group) were people who rarely spoke of their religion, but who instead exemplified it every day, simply in the way they lived their lives … with courage, humility, goodness, kindness, and compassion. They made me say 'there is something different about that person.' And they made me want to know what it was.

I'm afraid that that kind of Christian is harmed by his counterparts whose good personal attributes may be overshadowed by a perceived 'calling to save the world' through strong and fearful words, and thoughtless and self-aggrandizing behaviors. When such behaviors are perpetrated under the name of 'Christianity,' it is no wonder so much of the world dislikes what 'Christianity' seems to represent.

After some reflection, I couldn't help but wonder whether the woman who responded so negatively to the twenty-third Psalm on my office wall might have reacted so negatively, not because she has been brainwashed by anti-Christian forces in politics, the media, and the entertainment industry, but because 'Christians' themselves, by their own words and actions, have succeeded in depicting their religion as something entirely worthy of her scorn.

Rachel Buchman's comments go way over the edge. But for every Rachel Buchman whose hatred is venomous and probably politically or ideologically motivated, there is probably another who bristles at the thought of dealing with 'Christians' simply because he or she has generally dealt with 'Christians' who themselves don't reflect the teachings of Christ.

~ joanie

After some reflection, I couldn't help but wonder whether the woman who responded so negatively to the twenty-third Psalm on my office wall might have reacted so negatively, not because she has been brainwashed by anti-Christian forces in politics, the media, and the entertainment industry, but because 'Christians' themselves, by their own words and actions, have succeeded in depicting their religion as something entirely worthy of her scorn.

May be, that she is a beneficiary in perpetuity of the leftists' imposition that all dislike, a.k.a. "hate," of western and / or Christian values is earned.

Yet, I make a motion that her scorn was more, the traditional leftist invocation of superiority, including in her vision, that others also superior (the council of "likeminded"), must certainly be somewhere in the general government administration, and collectively, they mean to rule, and, that their rule, in this case (as in all cases governing every possible aspect of human and natural behavior), shall be ... that there will be a wall wherever they will have it, for repelling all suggestion of authority that is not of, by, and for them.

Whether leftwing dictatrix or as an American citizen and resident of your county, she was ordering you to comply; exercising her soverignty, but not realizing that an order to a government agent, to take action that is not authorized (enumerated), is no order at all, because it does not obtain.

That's the great thing about government limited to only being able to do what is on a list. Each authority on the list, is a handle, something to grip, with which to take action. Otherwise, no handle, no action.

You properly informed her, that you had no authority to act upon, what in fact, in truth, is not in our Constitution.

That was an affront to the leftwing's superiority that cannot tolerate, cannot honor, cannot bring itself to be disciplined by, and with, adherence to the rule of law that is agreed upon and set down in writing, in words that were agreed upon according to the meaning of such words at the time of the agreement's foundation.

The leftwing demands that our Constituion have no fixed meaning, but, that our Constitution is supposed to reflect the [political] will [of the moment] of what [their] "polls show" and thus be a "living document," symbolic of government authority, but void of the lasting words of which it was made. (Which again begs the question, Why does a liberal write a "last will and testament? when the liberal's premise is that original intent should not be honored?)

In a word, they wish our Constitution to become "secular," with walls separating what is pleasing from what is not pleasing in their state of like-minded-ness.

To make such walls, they need handles, and so they find a judge here and there, who will form a handle ... to the chains of government power, but not in our Constitution.

Joanie, you may not immediately see it, in our leftwing opponents' faces, but I am reasonably certain that your words are much more able to make an impression that causes them to be shaken from their absolutism in due time.

God Bless

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