Bartholomew's Notes

Crosstalk is a Christian radio programme described as a ministry of “VCY America“, “VCY” standing for “Voice of Christian Youth”. According to a blurb on its website:

Crosstalk covers the issues that affect our world, our nation, our families and the Christian church from a perspective centered in the Word of God. Whether we discuss the economy, the political scene, the continuing moral collapse of our nation, legislation that affects the family, or the state of evangelicalism, our authority is found in the unchanging standard of the Holy Scriptures. Veteran co-hosts Dr. Vic Eliason, Jim Schneider, and Ingrid Schlueter have worked as a team for over 20 years to bring solid information to the body of Christ.

This “solid information” now includes the remarkable conspiracy  theory that Madelyn Dunham was the true mother of Barack Obama, and that her daughter Ann colluded in a cover-up by pretending to be the one who gave birth. The theory is propounded by a studio guest, Joseph Farah; curiously, despite running WorldNetDaily (which the Crosstalk website describes, absurdly, as “the world’s leading independent Internet news source”), this is the only outlet where Farah has chosen to discuss the conspiracy:

Well, Madelyn Dunham is a very interesting person.  As you know, Barack … the … and I want to be careful when he identify people as “mother,” “father,” “grandmother,” and so forth because honestly I don’t think we know with any certainty whatsoever who those players are in Barack Obama’s life. And perhaps he doesn’t either. I suspect he does, but it’s possible he doesn’t know. And it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Madelyn Dunham was his mother and there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that.

Schneider responds (at 36:31) by calling these “interesting thoughts”.

VCY promotes old-school fundamentalism;  its latest show is a critique of animal rights with the gloriously Landover-esque title “Worship Not the Creature“; other recent offerings include “Growing Government Tyranny” (“The Obama health care logo looks similar to the Nazi logo”); “Spiritual Warfare and New Ageism” (including the “role of the Jesuit Priests” and how Oprah Winfrey is “helping to lay the foundation for the coming of a one world religion, a one world political structure, a one world leader, and the new world order”); and an attack on Rick Warren entitled “Purpose Driven Islam: Rick Warren and the Muslims“. There is an associated blog here.

Schneider himself is rather obscure, although he did gain some attention last year, when he was moved to wrath against a “Wacky Week” event at an elementary school:

An elementary-school event in which kids were encouraged to dress as members of the opposite gender drew the ire of a Christian radio group, whose angry broadcast prompted outraged calls to the district office.

“We believe it’s the wrong message to send to elementary students,” said Jim Schneider, the network’s program director. “Our station is one that promotes traditional family values. It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary-school students is a great error.”

The station’s founder, Vic Eliason, has been involved in various public campaigns in Wisconsin over many years; in 1990 he persuaded the UPI to fire a lesbian reporter on the grounds that as a UPI subscriber he should not be “helping finance Brienza’s work for a publication aimed at homosexuals” (although he has also spoken against Rev Moon, who now owns UPI).

But Crosstalk and VYC are not without critics; this blog believes the station is too liberal:

Why is it that Vic would not have Ron Paul, or even a Paul representative (I offered Vic several alternatives) on CrossTalk, but he does have Alan Keyes? Ron Paul is a Baptist, who believes the things Eliason purports to believe himself and holds for WVCY. Keyes, as a Catholic, rejects salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

WorldNetDaily, meanwhile, has promoted the idea that Obama is either the Anti-Christ or his forerunner; that he recently sent a secret message to Muslims in a speech, promising to extermine the Jews; and that he created swine flu as a “bio weapon”.

(Hat tips: Jesus’ General; Right Wing Watch; ConWebWatch)

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