Ryan Lizza's Michele Bachmann "Smear"
Sarah Pulliam Bailey has a list of complaints with Ryan Lizza’s buzz-gathering profile of Michele Bachmann in this week’s New Yorker. Overall, the long report is a pretty impressive piece of work that blends colorful campaign diary with a deeper exploration of Bachmann’s political formation and intellectual influences. As usual, there are certain details that strike people who grew up in the evangelical movement as oversimplifications. I concur with a couple of Sarah’s nitpicks, but I’m afraid that in general she has quite seriously mischaracterized Lizza’s reporting, both by reading in implications and criticisms of Bachmann that are not in the piece, and by overlooking how often Bachmann still references many of the thinkers cited as influences. Referring to the piece as a “smear” is particularly unfortunate. Even the New Yorker‘s investigative pieces on subjects to which it is clearly ideologically opposed can never be called smears; its efforts to present the most reliable picture based on facts has earned my full respect, and are as clear in this story as any other.
First, Sarah takes issue with where Lizza places Bachmann’s views on the American political-theological spectrum. Lizza writes that Bachmann, “belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians,“ and that, “Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature, including Sarah Palin.” (Sarah’s emphasis.)
Sarah suggests that Lizza has no basis for these claims, but I find her scorn somewhat inexplicable. True, it can be difficult for people who grew up in the evangelical world to imagine that other Christians have not heard of Francis Schaeffer. But conservative evangelicals are a fraction of American Christians, and not even all of them are very familiar with Schaeffer. I grew up with other home-schooled evangelicals who never read him, and neither had most people who attended my large, conservative Southern Baptist church. And it is indisputable that only a fraction of Christians have heard of R.J. Rushdoony, David Noebel, and John Eidsmoe. Lizza’s claim is precisely correct: Bachmann has been shaped by institutions and leaders with whom even many Christians are unfamiliar. And because her conservative evangelical education—her complete immersion in the alternative universe from the ground up—is so much deeper than that of other candidates who ostensibly share her ideas, it is absolutely fair to say that her beliefs are more extreme than those of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, et al, no matter what unhinged things the others may say.
One of Sarah’s major contentions is that Lizza is maliciously attempting to link Bachmann with the fringe thinkers she has read, recommended and worked for in the past. Sarah calls them “attempts to prove guilt by association,” that Lizza used to “take shots.” Based on what the piece actually says and what Lizza said today on NPR, I have to say I think that’s a false charge. In his interview on NPR yesterday, Lizza repeatedly—I mean, with nearly every other breath—said that it was unfair to assume Bachmann believes everything her former mentions and influences do. He even observed that he had wacky professors he wouldn’t want to be associated with. But he correctly observes that Bachmann still references most of the people he investigated. She still says on the stump that Shaeffer’s How Shall We Then Live? changed her life, and still recommends Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth as a “wonderful book.” She has talked about Eidsmoe, who she worked for at Oral Roberts, on the campaign trail this very year, saying her taught her “foundational” things. She was his researcher while his law school published Rushdoony, and her website recommended a pro-slavery revisionist Civil War history by J. Steven Wilkins while she was running for public office. Except for an in my opinion quite justified spike of alarm at the Wilkins book, Lizza lays all of this out quite neutrally, with scarcely a noticeable judgment. I read the blocks of his prose in question over several times, and the supposed malice and unfair suggestion is just not there.
The Francis Schaeffer part of the piece will obviously be the most controversial, and here I think Sarah may be more on the right track. First off, Lizza portrays Schaeffer as fringe because he was in fact fringe. By any measure, against the Western philosophical spectrum or the American religious one, Schaeffer cannot accurately be portrayed otherwise. I’m not sure why Sarah objects there. But she may be right that Lizza’s cursory treatment makes him sound more bizarre and extreme than he was. He spent most of his decades writing dense works of theological philosophy that, while they used as intellectual building blocks by many a modern fundamentalist, are not adequately captured by Lizza’s drive-by description of the How Shall We Then Live video series. As I’ve written before, it’s pretty clear Schaeffer became a political crackpot toward the end of his life. But I’m not sure it’s accurate to characterize A Christian Manifesto as promoting “the violent overthrow of the U.S. government,” as Lizza does, rather than recommending more garden-variety civil disobedience. (I can’t really say; I never read the copy my evangelical college gave me as a gift.) But the other Shaeffer quotes Sarah mentions that contest his support for violence, and my general sense of Schaeffer’s beliefs, suggests “violent overthrow” is an exaggeration. Coupled with a few crazy lines from How Shall We Then Live, it far from gives an adequate picture of who Schaeffer was and why Bachmann likely found him attractive.
I’m all for improving the generally overblown quality of mainstream media coverage of evangelicals. But it’s a mistake to take the inevitable condensations that are a part of journalism, or even a few genuine misunderstandings, as malice. The profoundly religious character of Bachmann’s campaigns, past and present, make it unthinkable for journalists not to explore her intellectual formation. I don’t expect them all to suddenly understand decades of evangelical culture and literature, and I respect serious, evenhanded-as-possible attempts to produce information the public needs to know. They can be critiqued, and their errors corrected, without unwarranted attacks on their motives.
Thanks David. Very interesting analysis.
I’m always intrigued anytime Francis Schaeffer gets major media attention. For me, he represents the paradoxical nature of the American evangelicalism I grew up with. Like Bachmann, my mom’s life was changed by reading Schaeffer’s “How Should We Then Live?” It really represented a turning point for her, sweeping my parents up in an evangelical movement I long assumed most Christians shared. I was later sent to Noebel’s Summit Ministries and my parents continue to read books by Schaeffer proteges like Pearcey and Chuck Colson. I can’t say I’m familiar with Rushdoony, Eidsmoe, or Wilkins, but I’d hazard to say that Bachmann and I come from very, very similar backgrounds. So I feel justified in saying that Lizza’s treatment still lacks in understanding even if the motivation and tone weren’t as bad as Get Religion’s writers make it out to be.
I think what’s missing from most of the coverage of evangelicals like Bachmann that I’ve read is just how profoundly Schaeffer moved those who read his books or visited L’abri. It enabled many to feel intellectually-respectable as Christians. It gave them a bigger view of faith and theology. It caused them to think through injustice in new ways and overcome some of Christianity’s traditional pitfalls like fatalism (I’m thinking here of Schaeffer’s comparison of Camus’s characterization of the fatalist Catholic priest in “La Peste” with Schaeffer’s interpretation of the Christian imperative to try to heal and prevent disease).
Schaeffer’s call that all things in life should be thought out from a Christian worldview covered many different areas, not just politics. Unfortunately his political engagements and those of evangelicals are the ones that get the most attention. I appreciated that Lizza mentioned some of the positive, non-political ways Bachmann’s beliefs affected her actions. But take for example the verb he uses when talking about Bachmann’s foster parenting:
“Bachmann’s motivation seems to have been to save the girls, in the same way that she had been saved”.
Not “She was motivated by…” or “Her religious experience encouraged her…” or “She refers to her own experience in…” It’s just one word, but it still casts doubt on the one positive, non-political effect of her beliefs that he mentions.
I’ve seen those evangelical Christians I grew up with go many different directions. Some become hardened in their beliefs, less open to engagement, and more politicized. Others keep searching—many go to graduate school where they are forced to engage with empirical evidence in their field that seemingly contradicts their beliefs. Others leave the faith and become hardened anti-evangelicals. In my mind, Schaeffer did evangelicals and American society a great favor by trying to rouse them out of their anti-intellectualism and move them to understand the rest of the world through their Christian faith. You see the positive results in global religious freedom legislation and Bush’s AIDS initiatives—the things Nick Kristof likes to praise. And there are many, many more positive aspects that go under the media’s radar simply because they’re not traditional news. At the same time, however, when it came to politics, such Christian engagement somehow became warped.
That’s a paradox I haven’t quite worked through yet. But it’s one I think any good journalism has to deal with in its coverage. And until it’s better resolved on the evangelical end of things, I probably won’t be voting for candidates like Bachmann. I also grew up with Mormons and, despite their strange theology, have no problems with them politically.
— Chris · Aug 10, 12:12 PM · #
In general, I’m a fan of the New Yorker, and not a fan of Bachmann’s. That being said, the arguments in this post are wanting. You might be able to fix them. If so, please do. E.g.:
“And it is indisputable that only a fraction of Christians have heard of R.J. Rushdoony, David Noebel, and John Eidsmoe. Lizza’s claim is precisely correct: Bachmann has been shaped by institutions and leaders with whom even many Christians are unfamiliar.”
Well, only a fraction of Christians have heart of C.S. Lewis, but that doesn’t make him a fringe writer. Indeed, he must be the most mainstream of writers. I think this just illustrates that the key premise of this argument is flawed: the fact that most Christians haven’t heard of you doesn’t make you fringe. Most Christians—most people—are pretty ignorant. Most atheists haven’t heard of Sam Harris, but that doesn’t make him a fringe atheist.
“And because her conservative evangelical education—her complete immersion in the alternative universe from the ground up—is so much deeper than that of other candidates who ostensibly share her ideas, it is absolutely fair to say that her beliefs are more extreme than those of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, et al, no matter what unhinged things the others may say.”
I’m sorry, but this is just a non-sequiter. Bachmann’s beliefs are more extreme if and only if they’re, well, more extreme. One could have a very immersive and conservative education and not have extreme views, and one can have extreme views without such an education. She may well have extreme views—I don’t know, and with any luck it won’t ever be important for me to find out. But the fact that she was had a more immersive conservative education than Palin etc., doesn’t show, or even hint, that her views are more extreme.
Finally, I don’t know what to say about the “linking with crackpots” charge, but it has to be noted that your defense appeals almost entirely to a radio interview, which isn’t what Bailey was complaining about.
— John4 · Aug 10, 12:38 PM · #
I find Joe Carter’s response to the Lizza article at First Things pretty persuasive: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/08/a-journalism-lesson-for-the-new-yorker
No idea why you automatically give The New Yorker such benefit of the doubt.
— Ethan C. · Aug 10, 09:40 PM · #
Lizza’s reporting on Obama was pretty good.
— Steve Sailer · Aug 11, 04:04 AM · #
Alan Jacobs new post on Sullivan and Christianism is far less dickish. The no comment thing is still weak.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 11, 09:00 PM · #
Yet, no less stupid.
— Ch3t · Aug 12, 07:01 PM · #
Having read the piece, it feels less like a hatchet job to me and more like an explanation of where Michelle Bachman’s convictions come from. It left me with a greater appreciation of her position, although no less in disagreement with her.
— John Spragge · Aug 16, 10:10 PM · #