I have been concerned for many years now that there are probably more people than we’d like to admit who get their news exclusively from the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If you are among that number, let this be a lesson. Programs like “The Daily Show” are not merely giving you a humorous spin on the news. They are selling a distortion. In the end, it’s nothing more than an entertaining form of propaganda, and it matters very little to them who they trample under foot for the act.

Last May a producer from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” contacted me about being interviewed for the program. He said that he wanted me to talk about my perception of anti-Christian bias in the mainstream media as it relates to “homosexual marriage and gay acceptance in America.” It was to be a produced piece in which they interview people from different perspectives, and then after that Stewart would do his thing.

From the get-go, I couldn’t see any upside to doing this. For starters, I had no interest in turning a serious topic into a laugh-line for Stewart’s show. Also, even though I am not a regular viewer of the Daily Show, I had seen enough of it to suspect that they might manipulate footage to lampoon Christianity. So I decided pretty quickly that this would not be something I was interested in doing. Even after talking to the producer on the phone and receiving assurances that they would be fair in their treatment, I still couldn’t see it. Those assurances seemed pretty thin to me.

I just found out today that my suspicions were entirely justified (HT: Kevin DeYoung). Matt Slick of the “Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry” agreed to appear in the piece, and in a recent blog post he describes in detail how his words were manipulated and distorted by editors at “The Daily Show.” Slick came to bear witness to the gospel, but he was lied to and used in order to lampoon Christians. “The Daily Show” completely twisted what Slick said, and they did so after assuring him that they would do no such thing. The final version of the segment is here, and it is a far cry from what they assured Slick that it would be.

I have been concerned for many years now that there are probably more people than we’d like to admit who get their news exclusively from the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If you are among that number, let this be a lesson. Programs like “The Daily Show” are not merely giving you a humorous spin on the news. They are selling a distortion. In the end, it’s nothing more than an entertaining form of propaganda, and it matters very little to them who they trample under foot for the act.

Matt Slick, “Matt Slick on The Daily Show, June 17, 2013,” CARM.org (July 14, 2013).

Denny Burk is Associate Professor of New Testament and Dean of Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminar. He blogs on matters concerning politics, theology and culture. This article is used with his permission.