How the Biblical Recorder helped fry Chick-fil-A

The North Carolina Biblical Recorder almost made itself Chick-fil-A central.

It began quietly on July 2 with publication of a puff piece by Recorder Editor Allan Blume about Chick-fil-A chief operating author Dan Cathy, which said in part:

"We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. ... We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized. "We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."[22]

The Biblical Recorder's online presence is small (comparable to Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson's one-man blog), and the article attracted little attention.

On the same day, the watchdog group Equality Matters published an article detailing donation of almost $2 million to anti-gay groups by the WinShape Foundation, Chick-fil-A's charitable arm. Specifically:

• Marriage & Family Foundation: $1,188,380
• Fellowship Of Christian Athletes: $480,000
• National Christian Foundation: $247,500
• New Mexico Christian Foundation: $54,000 
• Exodus International: $1,000
• Family Research Council: $1,000
• Georgia Family Council: $2,500

The Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Press reposted the Biblical Recorder story on July 16. The Baptist Press has a more significant Web readership, and the issues raised by the article began attracting considerable attention. The Biblical Recorder began publishing almost every Baptist Press article on the subject, thus vigorously promoting Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, and failing to enlighten its readers about the true sources of the anger directed at Chick-fil-A.

Apart from a contrived argument (overlooking the Equality Matters material and more inflammatory Cathy statements on June 16) that the original story had been "distorted" by mainstream media, the Recorder appears to have taken no actual editorial position of its own.

Fortunately, immediate past editor of the Biblical Recorder Norman Jameson took one on twitter:

Exactly. Southern contrived chicken. Unenlightening, even if it did produce record one-day profits for Chick-fil-A.