I sometimes hear critics refer to conservative blogs as echo chambers, as if we just say the same things to each other to reinforce our views.  That is a wildly ironic claim.

The worldview I was brought up in was indeed that of Christian parents and a Christian church, but neither trafficked in apologetics and neither were conservative. I thoroughly rejected it all.  The denomination I grew up in (Disciples of Christ) is such that I wouldn’t send my dogs to it now.  It is a mockery of authentic Christianity — pro-abortion, pro-square circles (oops, I mean “same-sex marriage”), anti-Jesus is the only way to salvation, anti-authority of scripture, etc. — your basic apostate denomination.

The media I was raised around was wildly liberal — your basic Big 3 of ABC, NBC and CBS plus liberal newspapers.  I didn’t know any better, and bought the lie that journalists were some sort of noble, unbiased group that could be trusted.

My entertainment and reading were purely secular, where God was either mocked or ignored.  I consumed massive amounts of TV that was designed to push a liberal agenda.

My parents are wonderful and intelligent people, but they grew up in the Great Depression (one of them was literally in Grapes of Wrath Oklahoma).  Therefore, they tend to think we need government to save us and have been life-long Democrats.

My education was completely secular, including rabidly pro-Darwinian science teachers. Ironically, as pagan as I was, even in 9th grade I realized something was amiss when the biology teacher was so visibly hostile to religion.  He was obviously pushing an ideology and not just science.  From elementary school through college, once again God was either mocked or ignored.

I was nominally pro-choice when I was younger, intuitively realizing that killing unborn human beings was wrong but that there might be larger downside to making abortion illegal (for example, I initially bought the “back alley butchers” lie).

In my late 20′s I came across massive amounts of evidence and logic for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the accuracy of the Bible, etc.  God opened my eyes to his truth and I became a Christian.

I came across the facts about abortion and realized that every pro-choice canard could be annihilated.  I take on any pro-choice arguments I come across when teaching pro-life reasoning.  I learned about Intelligent Design and realized the great hoax that Darwinian evolution is.

Facts and logic brought me to where I am, not my broader environment.  My beliefs are the opposite of what my environment would have led me to.  These views make me less popular by the day with a world that holds the Christian worldview in contempt.  That’s part of the deal, as Jesus so accurately warned us.

So is my Christian / conservative blog an echo chamber?  Heh.  I’ll be glad to mock that sentiment until my fingertips are raw.  Yes, I have a well-defined commenting policy, but to say it is an echo chamber is a concession speech.  I am a conservative Christian in spite of every brainwashing attempt the world has thrown at me, and I am glad to defend that worldview.

I came out of the echo chamber, not into it.  Woo-hoo!

1 John 2:15-16 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.

—–

Additional thoughts from an old post:

I had interesting discussion I had with a liberal over the holidays.  I just let him ramble with his pro-liberal, pro-Obama, anti-business rant for a while.

Instead of pointing out the flaws in his facts and logic, which history demonstrates he would have ignored, I just asked a simple question: How much conservative media do you view or listen to?

His answer?   ”None.”  It spoke volumes, and he knew it.

I calmly pointed out that I consume plenty of liberal media: My Yahoo feed is from Reuters and I update it many times each day, I read the very liberal Houston Chronicle, etc.

Does that make me right?  No, but it proved beyond all doubt that only one of us takes the time to listen to both sides.

That response saved me a lot of time and frustration.  I hope it planted a seed with him as well.  If he has any intellectual honesty he’ll realize that if he only consumes liberal media then his views are likely to mirror their output.  Brainwashing and indoctrination, anyone?  Any critical thinking going on?