Well Done

Watching "The Beltway Boys" on Fox News this weekend, I was suprised and saddened to hear Fred Barnes mention that Diane Knippers had died the previous week, at the age of 53.

Though she made many media appearances, it's very possible you've never heard of her, since much of the effective work she did was "under the radar." But Diane Knippers was the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington D.C., and was a pivotal figure in the conservative reform movement in the mainline church. In February, she was named one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America by TIME magazine.

Last December, a few months before the TIME list came out, I had the opportunity to meet and interview Mrs. Knippers at her office in Washington. She was unfailingly gracious and kind. We had a major technical problem at the outset of the interview which would not allow us to continue, and she graciously adjusted her schedule so that we could leave her office, run to Virginia to get the equipment we needed, and come back to continue the interview a couple of hours later, a level of accomodation which is unusual, to say the least.

According to her friends and coworkers, she was known for her quiet savvy and persistence. She wasn't even remotely bombastic, but steadily pushed ahead against the tide of feminism and liberalism in the church, as well as calling attention to the dire persecution of Christians in places like Sudan.

An example of her shrewdness:

Just before George W. Bush's reelection, in October 2004, when the media was trying to understand the exotic animal called the "evangelical Christian," Diane appeared in a CNN special on the topic, called "The Fight Over Faith." At some point in the interview, she told me, she realized that they were persistently coming back to one particular issue, which they asked about a dozen different ways: the "exclusivity" of Christianity.

Though Mrs. Knippers was a firm believer in the evangelical doctrines of Heaven, Hell, and salvation through Christ alone, she also realized that the CNN producer was casting about for that preconceived soundbite with which to demonize the "Christian right." It was obvious by the myriad ways the question was asked that the producer desperately wanted her to say something about only Christians going to Heaven. Knowing how it would be used, she wisely refused to take the bait.

Predictably, however, CNN found someone else to be the "bad guy"--a pretty, 11-year-old girl, obviously meant to appear as a brainwashed dupe. They used her quote twice--once for the opening tease of the show (meant to draw viewers into the program with controversy), and again later in the body of the program. We're clearly supposed to be shocked and horrified:

CNN REPORTER CAROL MARIN (voice-over): When the church doors open, the Carlisles are there. Caitlin and Rick, Cassidy and Robin, who have instilled their faith in their children.

CASSIDY CARLISLE: We thank you for this food and we ask that you bless it. In Jesus name, amen.

MARIN (on camera): For people who don't embrace Jesus, what happens to them?

11-YEAR OLD CAITLIN CARLISLE: They go to hell.

MARIN: For sure?

CAITLIN CARLISLE: For sure. There's no other way to heaven except through Jesus.

MARIN (voiceover): If you don't accept Jesus as your savior, and you don't believe it in your hear that he's died for you, then you're going to go to hell.

And there's no alternative.

Diane Knippers knew what Jerry Falwell and others have yet to discover: there is a time for truth spoken boldly, but there is also a time to refrain from giving the hangman the rope with which he will hang you. An 11-year-old couldn't possibly know that, and God bless her for clearly and guilelessly stating the truth of her faith. But many more adults need to learn when the enemy deserves truth and when he deserves silence. Because of Mrs. Knippers acumen in areas like this, she was able to accomplish much in her brief time.

When I met with her, there was no indication she was ill whatsoever, though she had evidently been diagnosed with cancer more than a year previously. The news came as a shock, and my prayers go out to her family.