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I've written here already about the importance of naming things rightly. The name we give something both reflects our own worldview, and helps shape the worldview of others.  

Dr. Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission believes this reality is behind the mainstream media habit of calling some groups that engage in criminal behavior "Christian groups."

Last year, for example, he says that “many mainstream media outlets, like ABC and CNN, [reported] that those arrested in Michigan in the alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers are ‘Christians.’”

Cass says that calling these alleged terrorists “Christians” is both factually inaccurate and defamatory to Christians.  “Even if they identify themselves as Christians, what they were allegedly planning is absolutely contrary to Christianity,” he said. "They may have illicitly co-opted the Christian faith to justify their murderous intentions, but it is defamatory for the media to keep referring to them as Christians. They are simply terrorists.”

According to ABC news website, “[a] family of four was behind an anti-government militia plot to kill law enforcement officers with improvised explosive devices and projectiles before being foiled by an FBI raid Sunday that netted nine members of a Christian extremist group, ... the fringe Christian militia group called the Hutaree [conspired] to kill a Michigan law enforcement officer and then ambush the officer’s colleagues who would have gathered for the funeral....”

CNN news website displayed the headline, “Christian Warrior Militia Accused in Plot to Kill Police.”

Cass says the practice is particularly troublesome because those same "news organizations will not call someone who carries out Jihad an ’Islamic terrorist,’ for fear of offending Muslims." He says it is unfair that "some insane person claims to be a Christian and does something completely contrary to the Christian faith," is called a Christian uncritically by the mainstream media.  He called this practice a “transparent double standard.”

And I think he's right, though I would say that it is often not so transparent. It's often hard to see the media bias, which is why -- I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record -- Christians must be discerning in their consumption of media.  It is shaping us in ways we don't even know.