Good Information Advocates is a work in progress. Because we see the media (television,
newspapers, radio, Internet) as the single most powerful force for shaping
opinion and community, we focus on the media.
We bring the following premises to our work.
We are
counter-cultural. We view success and
acceptance warily, and we value the prophetic voice and the witness of the
faithful remnant. We charge the
mainstream media serving both the Mennonite church and other mainstream
Christian churches, and North American society, with frequent failure to report
on or follow up or glossing over truly important events. Our institutions often fail to provide
analysis and information that would truly help us build stronger communities
"under God."
We believe in an
unseen reality. Not only do we believe
in God, and in truth and error, right and wrong, we believe that in our
communities there is an ongoing spiritual war between the principalities and
powers of this world and citizens of God's kingdom seeking to do God's will. We believe that mainstream media are
themselves captive to, or that they willfully ignore and/or underestimate the
bondage of our so-called North American leaders to, a warped expression of
Judaism (notably found in the Talmud), satanic cults, oath-bound societies,
false religion and covert predatory objectives.
We love
others. Out of our love for others
arises not only a witness against abuse, violence and militarism, but a concern
for honesty and integrity and understanding.
Because we love all people, our concern for fairness and justice is
equal to our passion for peace. Our love
is neither naive or permissive.
We tell the
truth. The truth is sometimes
inconvenient. We confront each other in
love. We believe that our church and
culture are damaged by a widespread perception that lying is necessary or
inevitable, by the prevalence of destructive myths, and by the tactics of
escape and avoidance. We accept that
there is a time and a place for confrontation and disclosure, and that to tell
the truth without a redemptive spirit can be damaging. We are not proud, or afraid to admit that we
could be wrong.
We do not believe
that all cultures are equal. We believe
that God stands in judgment of all cultures.
The church does not exist to seek or glorify its own multiculturalism,
but instead to be a community of the redeemed dedicated to obedience,
truth-telling and love in the public realm, in each of our own communities
locally, nationally and globally, with multicultural implications to follow. We are neither racist nor
"anti-racist," since that latter term has come to stand for a set of
simplistic half-truths about differences between people groups and inter-group
relationships. We believe in the supremacy
of righteousness, not of race.
We forswear false
gods in the form of illicit drugs and overdependence on pharmaceuticals and
other substances such as alcohol and tobacco.
We believe that trafficking in these substances breeds a culture of
crime and disease, and a culture of false intimacy with the transcendent. We deplore the commercialization and
idolization of sex. We believe that we
are obliged to be active in undermining the hold of these false gods.
We forswear
false economic and political gods.
We
believe that God is as concerned with our economic and political
choices as
with our personal moral choices. We
oppose domination by elites and profiting at the expense of others, and
we
value people-friendly technology and the dignity of manual work.
We believe hard work should be rewarded. We believe we are
obliged to be active in
making and supporting humane laws and in eliminating injustice.
Good Information Advocates
Post Office Box 7655
Fresno, CA 93747
Phone: (559) 298-5900 Ask for Good Information
Fax: (559) 322-2425
