Reporter got more than he bargained for when trolling Christian schools

A writer got more than he bargained for when he sought out an expose, receiving an outpouring of support for the schools.

A reporter got more than he bargained for when attempting to seek out an expose on Christian schools. Picture: AP

Remember the Ronald Reagan aphorism about the nine most terrifying words in the English language? They were: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Now we have a new contender. The nine words come from the first sentence of a tweet by Dan Levin last Thursday: “I’m a New York Times reporter writing about #exposechristianschools.”

He continued: “Are you in your 20s or younger who went to a Christian school? I’d like to hear about your experience and its impact on your life.”

#ExposeChristianSchools is a hashtag created by Chris Stroop, a self-described “exvangelical,” in response to news that Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife, is returning to her old job teaching art at a Christian school in Virginia. Mr Stroop invited his “fellow Christian school grads” to share their stories about “how traumatising those bastions of bigotry are.”

Nathan Phillips, the man at the centre of the confrontation with Covington students. Picture: AP

Give Mr Levin points for timing. His tweet comes mere months after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Jesuit high school was held up as little more than a training ground for male predators. Now it’s Covington Catholic’s turn. A group of Kentucky high-schoolers in Washington for the March for Life found themselves demonised after a filmed encounter with a Native American activist went viral.

As it turned out, almost everything first reported about the Covington boys was false. Not only was the Native American not a Vietnam veteran as he’d claimed, he was also the one who confronted them, not vice versa. Still the incident comports nicely with the assumptions about hate behind the new hashtag.

And irony of ironies, the Twitter fires set off by Mrs Pence and the Covington Catholic incident continue to rage in the midst of what is now Catholic Schools Week.

For Mr Levin’s part, after his tweet was taken as a signal that he was trolling for grievances to fill out an attack piece, he issued a follow-up. A hit job was the furthest thing from his mind, he insisted. He was interested in all experiences — “including positive stories.”

David Harsanyi, a senior editor for The Federalist who says he’s an atheist and supports same-sex marriage, was sceptical. It would, he said, take a “saint-like leap of faith” to believe Mr Levin’s claim he had been aiming for balance. “Anyone who’s ever worked as a journalist,” Mr Harsanyi wrote in the New York Post, “can tell you that ‘exposing’ someone does not typically — or perhaps ever — entail the pursuit of positive stories.”

Whatever Mr Levin’s intention, he has provoked an outpouring from people attesting to the wonderful difference Christian schools have made in their lives. Nor is it only conservatives who speak this way. Here’s Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2013, offering her version of #ExposeChristianSchools when she learned her own parochial school, Blessed Sacrament in the Bronx, was shutting down.

“You know how important those eight years were?” Justice Sotomayor said in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s symbolic of what it means for all our families, like my mother, who were dirt poor. She watched what happened to my cousins in public school and worried if we went there, we might not get out. So she scrimped and saved. It was a road of opportunity for kids with no other alternative.”

One of the lesser known things about Catholic schools is that they boast a 99 per cent high-school graduation rate — with 86 per cent going to a four-year college, nearly twice the 44 per cent rate of public schools. Particularly in the inner cities, these schools are a lifeline, not least for the tens of thousands of non-Catholic children of colour who without that education might be condemned to lives lived at the margins of the American Dream.

Among the features that set Christian schools apart is the command to see the face of Christ in each child. Human nature being what it is, reality often falls short. But it remains a beautiful expectation, a reminder that the children before you are to be not only taught but loved.

Loving them means teaching them the truth. Even the most difficult and unpopular parts of Christian teaching — eg, limiting sexual union to a man and a woman within marriage — aren’t meant to condemn or frustrate. They are meant to instil in young people the truth and dignity about sexuality and the human person, to help them lead healthy and happy lives.

People are free to reject these teachings. It’s also fair for those who don’t accept them to point out that American law and dominant culture no longer reflect this understanding of the human person. What isn’t fair or reasonable is the extraordinary argument we’ve heard so often these past few weeks, that teaching the Christian tradition is itself hateful and un-Christian.

Though Christians believe in miracles, few have the strength of faith to expect the Times would ever allow them space to air unfiltered their witness to the splendour of Christian schools. But the Twitter feed of one New York Times reporter is now doing just that. And for this there are only two words for Mr Levin: Thank you.

The Wall Street Journal