Three Types of Religion Stories

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAND: You tell us in this book, Marvin, that there are three types of stories. Briefly describe those types and how are the religions reflected in them.

OLASKY: In my classroom, I talk about type-I articles that are public relations for the religion: customs, ceremonies, sunny side of the religion, how sweet and kind these religions are. It is interesting that most stories about Islam have been accentuating the positive over the past couple of years. There is almost a sense of the reporters, that well, readers might feel animosity towards Islam because of terrorism, and so we are going to accentuate the positive. And Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism have almost entirely type-I articles about them.

LAND: And then tell us about type-II and type-III.

OLASKY: Well, type-II is a story that goes beyond public relations to critique a religion based on today’s politically correct analysis. For example, when Islam has some negative stories attached to it, it is usually because of the treatment of women in Islam, and there is criticism of that. There is certainly a lot of criticism of the attitude toward homosexuality among Bible-believing Christians. So, it is going beyond public relations. It is actually engaging in some criticism but it is not getting into the deeper parts of the religion. It is just looking at, well, here are the current hot buttons of our day and we are just going to look at what the religion says about those. And I contrast those with type-III stories or level-III stories that go beyond either the happy talk, public relations stuff, or the conventional politically-correct analysis to depict in a sense how the downsides of some religions are embedded in their positives. Buddhism is very appealing in some ways to lots of students and to lots of other people who have house payments or car payments, because of it’s anti-materialism; but Buddhism actually practices non-attachment to people as well as to things. Let me just explain how this works: In a classroom I had a Buddhist monk in there once, and he was explaining the basic Buddhist principles of non-attachment—we are not supposed to get involved with our material possessions. We know these things are all going to rust and in Christianity that says the same thing. These are not the things we are supposed to put our hopes in. So, the students were enjoying it—I mean he was colorful there in his saffron robes and very nice kindly person and so forth, so they really liked that. But then, students and I, if the students weren’t asking, well how far does this principle of non-attachment go? How far does that go? And he said, “Well, you know, we should be non-attached to our pets because if our dog dies we feel very sad about it; we shouldn’t get attached to the pets, we shouldn’t feel sad. That can hold us back from higher spiritual attainment. So, some of the students started to waiver a little bit about that, well, I’m not supposed to be attached to my dog? Then, he pushed it a little further. You are not supposed to be attached to people. I don’t know how far to go on this. But, for example, let’s say there is a young lady and a young gentlemen. I hope he’s a young gentleman, and they are physically getting close; you know, this may be a good teaching devise. The Buddhist young man at that point is supposed to imagine, when he is very attracted to this young lady; he is supposed to imagine, one, what is going on inside her kidneys or stomach at that point. He is supposed to visualize some of the fairly nauseating stuff that is going on inside. Two, he is supposed to imagine her as she will look when she has been dead for three days. This is all supposed to be non-attachment. Well, that can be very good in a “just say no” campaign involving premarital sex. When it gets to the question of non-attachment of husbands and wives, for example, a husband is not really supposed to love his wife. You are not supposed to be attached to her in that way because if you are attached to her, then your spirit isn’t soaring to higher things. You know, you carry it far enough and you go into what this means deep down.

LAND: What about parents and children?

OLASKY: Parents are not to be attached to their children. Buddha himself abandoned his young wife and child in order to go off and search for spiritual attainment under a Bodhi tree in India. And this is seen as a great thing that he did, to abandon his family.

LAND: You suggest that newspaper should offer more of what St. Augustine seventeen centuries ago has been leading human-interest genre; realistic conversation stories. Talk to us about that.

OLASKY: Oh, if listeners haven’t read St. Augustine’s confessions, this is great stuff, up close and personal as journalists would say. The most interesting stories of conversion that I’ve heard, I mean, I’ve spent a lot of hours at inner city Christian missions, homeless shelters, listening to people who have been homeless and really down at the bottom and have turned their lives around and are now working their way up and they are getting jobs. They are building relationships, and they owe it all to Christ. I mean, the people who have been addicted to drugs and alcohol, these are fascinating human interest stories that religion reporters should certainly get it, but often they don’t want to, at least in relation to Christianity because it would tend to make people feel warm and cuddly about Christianity, and their goal, for the most part, there are exceptions, but the goal of most religion reporters is to be warm and cuddly perhaps about other religions like Buddhism, but not anything like that in relation to Christianity, perhaps, even to increase the general antagonism and fear and suspicion of Christianity.