Something Wrong With This Picture

I was just at the website for Christianity Today magazine, looking to see if Philip Yancey, one of my favorite authors, had written any new articles recently. I didn't make it to searching for the article. I was stopped by the front page.

The website has a search feature, and based on that search feature, on the front page of the website, a list of "Hot Issues" appears, with links that will lead you to all of the articles on that topic. Heading the list was "Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI". Okay, that makes sense - the death of the pope and the election of a new one has been a major issue in "christendom" over the last month or so. What really caught me, though, was the seventh item in the list of twenty - "Sponge Bob Square Pants". Ironically, the last item on the list was "Sudan".

I think we might have a problem. When a semi-ridiculous controversy over a children's cartoon is generating greater interest than a genocide that has killed an estimated 200,000-300,000 people, we might need to stop and reconsider our priorities. Sudan was at the bottom of the list, below items such as "The Ten Commandments" (another American controversy) and "The Top 10 Films of 2004". There are 19 things we care more about then the loss of human life on a major scale. Ironically, when I quickly scanned the list of top films, "Hotel Rwanda" came in at number two for the year. I could probably rant forever, but I'll stop with this question - Assuming that Christians are the primary readers and accessers of this website, when did we start caring more about entertainment and debating its merits, than about human life?

With that said, I'm going back to read the articles on Sudan, and then (hopefully) find a new Philip Yancey article as well.