I posted earlier that my heart was thrilled with Rob Gifford’s quoting of the gospel on NPR. This evening, I went back and listened to the interview and had a slightly different impression. The fact that he didn’t finish the entire verse coupled with what he said afterward, made me feel a bit less happy about the presentation. Am I being overly judgmental here?

DR: What I am longing to know is what you preached.

RG: What I preached on. Well, I actually, I mean, I had to come up with something pretty fast.

DR: Of course.

RG: So I just reached into my sort of memory bank and came up with one of the central verses for Christianity, John 14:6. Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. And … I should declare an interest. I am actually a practicing Christian. But they didn’t know that. And I’m not a preacher by any stretch of the imagination. But (you know) I can (you know) do Christianity 101. And I think that was all they needed. But it was a very strange situation.

DR: You had some concerns about your journalistic integrity, preaching that sermon.

RG: I did a bit, but it happened so suddenly and my tape recorder was rolling, the mini disc was rolling. And when they first said to me, I had to think quickly. You know, what am I going to do here? Obviously I don’t ever let my beliefs whatever they might be come into my reporting whether I agree with them or disagree with anyone. I just have to present the case as it happens. And so I was, I was sort of worried about that. But in the end I didn’t put that into the report in any way.