Issues, Etc. Makes the Wall Street Journal

Check out this on the Wall Street Journal (CLICK HERE). Excerpt:

Radio Silence

By MOLLIE ZIEGLER HEMINGWAY
March 28, 2008

Usually radio hosts have to offend sacred moral sensibilities to be thrown off the air. Opie and Anthony were fired after they encouraged a couple to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Don Imus lost his job after using racist and sexist epithets against the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

What would Martin Luther do?

But when the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod canceled its popular, nationally syndicated radio program "Issues, Etc.," listeners were baffled. Billed as "talk radio for the thinking Christian," the show was known for its lively discussions analyzing cultural influences on the American church. It seemed like precisely the thing that the Missouri Synod, a 2.4-million-member denomination whose system of belief is firmly grounded in Scripture and an intellectually rigorous theology, would enthusiastically support.

Broadcast from the nation's oldest continuously run religious radio station, KFUO-AM in St. Louis, and syndicated throughout the country, "Issues, Etc." had an even larger audience world-wide, thanks to its podcast's devoted following. With 14 hours of fresh programming each week, the show was on the leading edge of what's happening in culture, politics and broader church life. The Rev. Todd Wilken interviewed the brightest lights from across the theological spectrum on news of the day. Guests included Oxford University's Dr. Alister McGrath, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Albert Mohler and more postmodern types, like Tony Jones, national coordinator for a church network called Emergent Village.

This is a fantastic article that lays the whole issue on the line and, in all likelihood, the real reason behind the cancellation.

First Things also has a good article today although it sounds like the author doesn't believe in Genesis, as does Get Religion.

Labels: issuesetc, LCMS, Todd Wilken, Wall Street Journal

posted by Bob Hunter @ Friday, March 28, 2008