Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 05:1 (Summer 2000)
Article: Ungentlemanly Conduct
Author: David Bayly

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Ungentlemanly Conduct

David Bayly

Marvin Olasky Draws Twisted Criticism From National Columnist

From the Editor: Mainstream press attention was caught by an interview with World Magazine editor and University of Texas journalism professor Marvin Olasky in the Winter 1998 issue of JBMW. Interest in the interview focused on Olasky’s comments about women in positions of political leadership and appeared to be an attack-by-proxy on presidential candidate George W. Bush sparked by Olasky’s role as an adviser to the Bush election campaign. The first national news organization to quote the interview was the Washington Post. The quote subsequently appeared in Newsweek, and even CBS News called CBMW to confirm the quote. In the midst of the national news attention, syndicated national columnist Garry Wills devoted his April 1 column to an attack on Marvin Olasky. The article, ostensibly a warning to George W. Bush about extremist advisers in his camp, appeared in papers around the country. Below, David Bayly reflects on Wills’s column on Olasky from his personal perspective as a student at Macalester College in the late 1970s.

Twenty years ago on a tour as scholar-in-residence at Macalester College, Pulitzer Prize- winning columnist Garry Wills sought to speak as a Christian journalist to the campus chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. One might think that Wills, author of a recent biography of Augustine and a self-proclaimed Roman Catholic, believes in the right of journalists to publicly acknowledge their faith. But apparently, as Wills views it, faith has its limits… .

In his April 1, 2000 syndicated column Wills lambastes University of Texas journalism professor and George W. Bush adviser Marvin Olasky for allowing private faith to intrude upon public life. Olasky’s offense according to Wills? Being an “energetic evangelist” of his Christian faith: “He even tried to convert a reporter from the New York Times.”

Wills’s faith is apparently constrained by a deeper commitment to gentlemanly behaviour than Olasky’s. King Charles II, the seventeenth-century English king who presided over the Great Ejection of 2,000 Puritan ministers from their parishes, complained of Presbyterianism, “It was not a religion for gentlemen.” The same might be said of Olasky’s Presbyterianism by Wills.

But there is an even more important lesson Wills would teach Olasky, and that is to be careful not to make religious faith a matter of public record. Why? Because public words are capable of being twisted to suit the purpose of opportunistic journalists.

Certainly, that is Wills’s approach to Olasky. Olasky’s offense? Merely stating as a professing Christian in a Christian forum (JBMW) what most ...

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