FGM
Last week the USA Today newspaper featured a picture of a ‘Christian’ in its story about female genital mutilation. The article-"Genital mutilation victims break their silence: ‘This is demonic.’" -featuring the increasing problem of FGM in America was carried by a number of major newspapers and websites across the country. The story came in response to the news a couple of weeks ago that three people including two doctors were arrested in Michigan for illegally performing FGM.
The problem is almost entirely contained within the American Muslim community including the three Muslims that were arrested, but you wouldn’t know that by the article. The USA Today feature implied that it was a practice and a problem also among ‘fundamentalist’ Christians.
Yet there is no teaching on this anywhere in the Christian community and I can’t find even one Christian leader, pastor, denomination, or church which actually teaches FGM. Nevertheless the article featured one Christian lady who said that her mother took her to a ‘fundamentalist Christian’ doctor who performed FGM on her over 60 years ago.
This is an outrageous example of how members of the media will go out of the way to present ‘facts’ in a lying way that imply the worst about Christians and the church while trying to make Muslims and Islam look a little better in the process. I agree- ‘This is Demonic’ both FGM and the way the story itself was written.
For more, here’s Charisma News on the USA Today article:
Facts don’t always line up to tell the truth—especially in today’s world of news, where facts are often used to lead the reader or viewer to believe a complete lie.
This is what happened last week when USA Today ran a front-page story headlined, "Genital mutilation victims break their silence: ‘This is demonic.’"
Under the headline was a picture of an elderly woman with a bolded statement, saying, "A. Renee Bergstrom, 72, said a fundamentalist Christian doctor mutilated her genitals in 1947 to prevent her from masturbating."
And there was her picture, on the front page under the headline, with the name "Christian" in bold.
We’re grateful USA Today took on this gruesome issue—an issue that exists primarily in extreme sects of the Islamic religion. But at first glance, you wouldn’t know that crucial fact, because the front cover only highlighted the word "Christian."
The truth is, neither the Bible nor any Christian doctrine or denomination condones female genital mutilation. As a matter of fact, the Christian faith not only elevates and celebrates women, it cherishes the pleasure of sexual intimacy.
But USA Today didn’t report those facts. It simply took one fact—one that is so extreme and opposed to the Christian faith—and positioned it on the front page, reporting in such a way as to lead the reader to believe fundamental Christian belief condones this practice.