I typically play untrustworthy news source roulette every morning as I have that crucial first cup of coffee. Today the silver ball landed in the Fox News slot. Even before that ad I just posted about made my head explode, spraying bone, brains and blood all over the room (and my dog), one of the fungible Fox Bleached Blondes had already made me wish I had stayed in bed. All the Fox Blondes are the same. though some have worse voices that others, and Dana Perino is interesting to watch because her botoxed face is completely immobile except for the occasional blink and her lips, which make her face resemble those creepy “Clutch Cargo” cartoons where moving human lips were superimposed on cartoon faces.
But I digress. This particular Fox segment featured an interview with the actor I had never heard of who plays St. Peter in a new Fox movie or series or something. The Fox News hostess said that the thing was about “the incredible life of St. Peter.”
Incredible is right! There are absolutely no credible accounts of St. Peter’s life, no evidence, no documentation, no historical accounts, nothing. “Tradition” has him founding the Catholic Church, but that’s impossible, so people who aren’t incredibly gullible pretty much agree that at best there were two different Peters, the disciple and the first Pope. We don’t know much about either of them.
Fox News is supposed to be a trusted news source. Its alleged journalists shouldn’t be proselytizing, promoting Christianity, or representing Bible apocrypha as fact. It’s not fact, but faith, or legend, or mythology, but whatever it is, if a Fox News journalist will tell viewers that it is fact, what else that is of dubious provenance will Fox News call true?
Unethical, unprofessional, misleading and stupid.
But at least Fox News runs ads showing the President of the United States hawking cheap watches….
Ethics Alarms 
This appears to be a Martin Scorsese’s series “The Saints”
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/actor-calls-playing-st-peter-113443215.html
I had never heard of it. Not Catholic.
There’s also some scuttlebutt going on about some actors who played voices in a series based on the New Testament throwing hissy fits over the project being picked up by Fox and cut into podcast episodes.
While I will agree that we know very little about the early life of St. Peter – he was a fisherman, probably in partnership with Zebedee and his sons; he was married, though possibly a widower by the time Jesus healed his mother-in-law — I am curious at your stance that there are no credible historical accounts of Peter, at least starting from the time of his calling as an apostle. The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles don’t have to be taken as scripture to be recognized as historical documents that give a fair number of details on Peter’s role as an apostle, and his leadership of the new Jewish sect that eventually become known as Christians. Various other authors in the first few centuries (such as St. Irenaeus of Lyon and Eusebius of Caesarea) attest to Peter’s role as head of the apostles, his eventual migration to Rome, and his execution at the hands of Emperor Nero. One can question how accurate these accounts are, sure, but under our current historical methods, if we treat these documents the same as any other documents from the first few centuries AD, we find they stack up pretty well as attesting to peoples, places, and events.
Regarding Fox promoting this movie about Peter by interviewing the actor who played Peter, are news outlets not allowed to interview actors about their roles? Granted, I did not watch the Fox and Friends segment (I don’t typically watch any news channels, preferring to read instead of listen), so I don’t know how much they gushed over the movie or portrayed it as absolute gospel truth, but I don’t see this as any worse than news outlets that covered “The Da Vinci Code” and gave a great deal of credence to Dan Brown’s claims regarding the Priory de Sion.
The life of Peter is 100% hearsay and speculation, tradition and legend. Some of it may be true or all of it or any of it, but all a news sources should say is that. I have no problem with the interview. I have a problem with the characterization of the feature as fact. Nothing about Peter’s life, whoever he was, was written down until many years after the events occurred. That’s as much history as the story of Achilles and the Trojan War….that is, not fact at all by historical standards.
And again, Fox News should not be promoting religious faiths. It undoes their credibility and any hope of perceived objectivity.
I won’t disagree with that! On the other hand, Fox News lost their credibility with me a long time ago (2012, during the presidential election coverage), and I consider myself very conservative on the ideological spectrum, so take that as you will. I could believe that Fox News thinks they can get away with such advocacy from the standpoint that the other mainstream channels have their areas of advocacy (e.g. climate change), and that the Fox News conservative audience is probably largely Christian (about 67%, if you believe Google’s AI), so won’t be called out on advocating for Christianity.
Jack,
By your criteria, we’d discard just about everything we know historically. The best biblical scholarship dates the Gospels to no later than about 120 AD (and I will use Protestant-turned-atheist Bart Ehrman’s estimates here), with good evidence they were written by 70 AD. That’s well within living memory of people who knew Peter. Good enough for a courtroom? Maybe not. But good enough to confidently assert that Peter was a historical figure? Absolutely. We assert a great many historical facts with less evidence than we have for Peter. For example, we have sources better and closer to Peter than we have for Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. I don’t think any news outlet would be out of line to state as fact that Peter existed.
Sure: the preponderance of the evidence is that he existed, but what a low bar!She described it as an “incredible” life. There are not enough facts to say his life was “incredible.”
Um… it’s widely acknowledged that Jesus walked the earth. His doing so, his teachings, and his followers have inarguably changed the world, for the better. More so than any figure in recorded history, whatever you think of his diety.
Even if you only want to go with a preponderance of the evidence, Peter existed, and walked with Jesus.
That alone means he had an incredible life.
We can speculate about the minutiae, but that statement is so true, not sure why it perturbs you that much.
If you’re trying to figure out why a “loving God” allows such crap in our life, welcome to the club.
I absolutely believe in the truth of the Bible, and that Jesus is exactly who he says he is, but still don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. Isn’t that funny?
Not Jewish that I know of, but I am definitely a stiff necked Jew. I am greatful for His patience with me….
Seriously? We know he was a fisherman, maybe. We know he was a follower. Just being associated with a famous and influential person isn’t incredible unless you find the existence of Jesus “incredible.” We “know”–sort of, maybe,—that he denied Christ three times. Sounds pretty normal to me: not especially brave or loyal. He may or may not, but probably didn’t, found the Catholic Church. If that could be proved, that would make Peter’s life significant, but hardly incredible. And every source says that Peter’s founding of the Church is based on “Catholic tradition”, meaning, “because they say so and have for a long time.”
That’s not fact, or news, and doesn’t belong on Fox or any other news source being represented as fact or news.
So you’re saying living with Jesus for 3 years is not incredible?
It’s not about the “granduer” it’s about the fact that you’ve experienced 3 years with the most influential person in human history.
How is that not incredible?
Peter did that.