Sunday, October 9, 2011

SI: Censorship by Omission?

Citizens and visitors from another planet, please pay very close attention to the opening paragraph.

Twice, in the last two days, I sent to Aaron Blumer (SI Site Publisher) and certain others connected to SI the story of Calvary Baptist Seminary (Lansdale, PA) to host New Evangelical Dr. Haddon Robinson at the March 2012 Spring Forum. I included the promotional copy from and a direct link to Calvary’s website.

On Sunday I, furthermore, utilized SI’s Contact Form, completed the required fields and submitted it to SI for their attention. There is no way SI can claim they were not aware of this important news item, which has been circulating in various spheres of fellowship since as early as September 24. SI gives this description About Filings:
SharperIron Filings are links to bits of news around the world and the “blogosphere.”  The items linked to are not published by SI and do not necessarily express the opinions of anyone at SharperIron. They’re chosen because we believe they may be of interest to SI readers. (As is customary on the ‘Net, we do not seek permission to link to Web content.) If you have suggestions or tips for Filings items, please use the contact form and select “Filings item suggestion” as the category.
SI routinely publishes “bits of news [from] around the world” on any number of topics that may be of significant, little or nearly no interest to SI readers. The invitation of Haddon Robinson by Calvary Baptist Seminary would without question qualify as news “of interest to SI readers.” SI claims,
SI is a fundamentalist place. We welcome readers of every kind, but remember that SI is about how fundamentalists see the world.”
Without a doubt the news from Calvary Baptist Seminary (CBS) is significant and certainly of interest to fundamentalists. SI says it is “a fundamentalist place [and] about how Fundamentalists see the world.” Is it?

If SI is what it claims to be and if SI offers Filings, “because we believe they may be of interest to SI readers” then they have no excuse for ignoring or refusing to publish the story out of Calvary Baptist Seminary in their Filings section.

I do, however, have a possible reason for why SI will not run this story. If you review their list of advertisers you will note that Calvary Baptist Seminary is among the regular advertisers at SI. CBS pays to have their ads placed in rotation at SI.

Is it possible that the site publisher’s decision to ignore and bury the Haddon Robinson/CBS story may be due to the fact that they accept advertising revenue form CBS? Isn’t it possible that SI will not risk putting up a story of interest to readers because they fear the subsequent reaction might generate sharp criticism of Calvary? Isn’t it possible that SI is practicing censorship by omission to protect a source of sorely needed revenue to keep the site viable?

I believe it is more than reasonable to believe censorship-by-omission to protect a needed source of revenue is why SI will not publish this story from Calvary Baptist Seminary.

This afternoon at my primary blog, In Defense of the Gospel I have published, Calvary Baptist Seminary (Lansdale) to Host Dr. Haddon Robinson for your consideration.

If you are visiting for the first time, or the first time in a long time, I encourage you to review and read any of the other articles you will find in the right column of the Iron Skillet.  There are numerous, thoroughly documented articles that irrefutably detail SI’s bias and hostility toward historic, balanced Fundamentalism and its corporate favoritism toward the so-called “conservative” evangelicalism, its star personalities and their fellowships.


LM

Site Publisher Addendum:
I expect SI to offer some logistical excuse for the absence of the CBS story and then, to save face, just might make some mention in Filings. For related reading see, The Invitation to Larry Pettegrew: Will Central Seminary Continue the Drift Away From It’s Historic Moorings?

SI: You guys just kill me!

UPDATE:
Shazaam!!! In less than an hour, after I posted my new article on Central Seminary inviting Haddon Robinson, SI has the news in their Filings section. What happened to the 36 hours previous that they have been aware of the Calvary Baptist Seminary news? One thing you gotta like about SI’s leadership: Their anti-fundamentalism bias and favoritism on behalf of evangelicalism is predictable, and they are easily manipulated with the right kind of outside pressure. Oh, and this time there is no journalistic malfeasance by SI, I told them in my email they did not have to hat tip (HT) my blog.

3 comments:

  1. Yawn. Really, Lou. You MUST have better things to do...

    ReplyDelete
  2. MShep2:



    Normally I might have deleted and ignored your comment, but I decided to post it so that I can give it a clear, unvarnished answer. IMO this blog, while secondary to my primary blog IDOTG, is a needed and very worthwhile undertaking. If it weren’t I would not bother with it.

    

Sharper Iron is a pseudo- Fundamentalist site. Many recognized the fraud at SI from very early on and either never joined in the first place or put up with the bias, favoritism and moderator gang-tackling (Blumer, Rogier, Peet and SusanR) as long as they could stand it and finally left SI for good. 

SI is dedicated to the advancement of non-separatist evangelicalism, its star personalities and fellowships.

    SI is dedicated to the castigating, besmirchment and demonizing of historic fundamentalism with the broad brush. The only kind of fundamentalism that SI will get behind is one redefined into a mushy, let's all get along almost no matter what my Calvinistic, Lordship Salvation counterparts in evangelicalism otherwise believe, say and do.

    

The ONLY time Aaron Blumer was ever honest about the real purpose of SI is when he at the site defined SI as a place for conservative evangelicals of the fundamentalist variety. Aaron did, however, yank it soon after I e-mailed him to thank him for finally being honest about who and what movement SI is meant to promote and support.

    

The evidence of bias and favoritism is so overwhelming at the SI site itself that to deny it is to be either willfully ignorant, delusional or a liar.

    

It is my desire that any and every person and/or institution that appreciates what can be the best of Fundamentalism never begin and/or immediately cease from participating at SI. To cease from submitting comments and/or sending it revenue through advertising. I don't understand why a Fundamentalist would want to invest time and/or funds to prop up a site that is bent on denigrating Fundamentalism and propagating evangelicalism's compromised doctrine, men and conferences.



    That's why I find Sharper Iron: In the Iron Skillet a very worthwhile undertaking.





    LM

    ReplyDelete
  3. For those visiting through a link from Jim Peet's blog, the following is the comment I left in his thread.

    1) I do not accept and do not publish any comments submitted by you Jim Peet at either of my blogs. With maybe one exception no matter what the content I have not posted anything from you for many months.

    2) Any one who were to closely read the very first paragraph of my article (that you link to above) will immediately realize that you were not the first and not the only SI representative to be informed of, given links to and copy from the Calvary Baptist Seminary website from me directly so that SI could not only run the news, but be the first as well.


    LM

    ReplyDelete