Just read a tweet by a pastor that I follow, that says “journalistic integrity is an oxymoron.”  As the father of a son of the highest integrity, who’s also a journalist, this kind of statement gets my back up.  Painting an entire profession with this broad of a brush is just plain foolish… like saying “professional athletes have no integrity” or “pastors have no integrity.”Here’s the problem, for any of you pastors who might be reading this:  This is not the first time I’ve heard a pastor slam journalists in their public statements (whether from the pulpit, or through written means).  Problem is, some of you don’t realize you’ve got journalists in your audience.  How welcome are you going to feel belonging to a “family” where the leaders denigrate your profession?

Wouldn’t it be better if we had even more Christian journalists (there’s already a bunch of them–surprised?)?  How crazy would that be?  But if you keep slamming journalists from your pulpit, your youth that are listening are either going to choose another career field because you’ve turned them off, or their going to choose that career field, and leave their church behind, so they don’t have to hear pastors (and other church leaders) bash their chosen profession.

Guess what?  Pretty much any profession out there today has an integrity problem.  The problem’s not in the profession, it’s in our world.  The WORLD has an integrity problem!  So, why don’t you start preaching about integrity, instead of railing against a stereotype?