Pastors' Blog

I found CNN.com’s departing religion editor Dan Gilgoff’s observations this week insightful. His final blog before joining the National Geographic team lists “5 things I’ve learned” from his blogging on religion for CNN these last few years. Can we learn something from what he’s learned? (http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/31/my-take-5-things-i-learned-editing-the-belief-blog/): 1. “The faith/meaning angles off breaking news can yield meaningful, important stories.”   He discusses the recent Connecticut school massacre. “Trying to make sense of seemingly senseless deaths and suffering is a fundamental human struggle.” And when he reported how people were struggling with the “Where was God?”, his blog elicited nearly 8,000 comments. The point? Irrespective of their religious persuasion (or the lack of it), people are eager to talk about belief and God and life’s meaning. Which means that you and I don’t have to hold back our convictions or conversations about faith and God, especially in a time of national tragedy. People want to talk—and that’s the right entre for your witness with stranger or neighbor. 2. “The explosion of people with no religion will be a huge story in this century, and the news media have only begun to explore its many implications.” As I noted here in a previous Fourth Watch blog, the religious “nones” are a growing slice of the American demographic—men, women, young adults who indicate “none” when surveyed about their religion. The church—and I’m thinking of my own congregation—cannot afford to hurry through the New Year assuming that everyone around it has an ear or a heart for God. More and more do not. What are we doing to connect with these who are building what Gilgoff calls “a post-religious existence.” 3. “Religion reporting shouldn’t be an inside game.” His point with this lesson is simply that an interest in the religion/faith angle of a story isn’t the curious domain for only the faithful. More and more political, social, even entertainment and sports stories are woven with the stuff of faith. Take, for example, the recent presidential campaign, which clearly bore the trappings of the candidates’ faith practice. To ignore the faith/religion angle to news events is to risk missing a defining DNA of the individuals or events. For those who believe, locating the faith nexus is another helpful entre in conversing with this generation about God. Look for the angles. 4. “The news media isn’t anti-religion.” While you and I may have concluded otherwise long ago, Gilgoff’s lesson deserves some reflection. His point is that news organizations like CNN are actually “fascinated by religion because it yields stories brimming with meaning, controversy and powerful characters.” Reporters and media outlets are not by definition anti-God or anti-religion (though there are plenty within their ranks who reflect that bias). Could it be that we will be open to fresh insights about the society Christ has called us to reach if we aren’t so quick to dismiss news and media commentators and commentaries as implicitly against God and religion. 5. “In the world of digital journalism, your voice matters more than ever.” Gilgoff ends his final religion blog with an appeal to his readers to voice their convictions. “With the proliferation of reader comments, social media and instantaneous metrics on what our audiences are clicking and how they’re responding, your choices and opinions are shaping our coverage more than ever.” Not a bad suggestion for Jesus’ third millennial disciples, is it? Gilgoff goes on, “Some of our best content from the last year was more about conversations happening around the news than about the news itself. We choose to do certain stories and skip others partly based on whether you’re engaged in those stories or not.” So as a believer don’t just blow away an urge to respond to a news event or a website/blog commentary. Your faith perspective in that collective cyberspace conversation  could plant the seed that will germinate the quest for faith in reader far away. After all, who do you suppose created cyberspace in the first place? “You are My witnesses” (Isaiah 43:10).

On Tuesday the Daily Beast website announced the latest Gallup poll findings with this headline, “Gallup Survey Finds a Majority of Americans Still Religious.” Based on 300,000 interviews the survey found that seven out of ten Americans consider themselves “moderate or very religious.” That’s 70% of this nation! The Gallup research “shows basically what American religion surveys always show: the country is overwhelmingly religious, with a very slowly increasing number of nonbelievers, and a slightly faster increase in ‘unbranded’ religious believers” (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/04/gallup-survey-finds-a-majority-of-americans-still-religious.html). “Overwhelmingly religious”—is this cause for celebration? Frankly, I’m grateful for every American heart (or non-American, for that matter) that seeks to find solace and security, even salvation, in God and/or faith. Why wouldn’t that be reason to be grateful? Naturally, none of us knows each other’s soul, and so no one is in a position to determine how many of these seven out of 10 are genuinely entrusting their lives to the Divine (however their religion or faith understands and describes God). But stay with this thought for a moment. A globally influential nation with a strong majority populace that considers itself “moderate or very religious” would be amenable (or susceptible), would it not, to overtly religious appeals or persuasion? I.e., if God and faith are dominant in my worldview, an appeal to me to support or take certain action —if that appeal were based upon God and faith—would gain my attention and perhaps even guide my response. Most would agree that a nation with seven out of 10 of its citizens self-identifying as “moderate or very religious” is a society certainly open to religious appeal. And if that appeal were made by a respected individual or even institution, for 70% of Americans the appeal would be favorably weighted, I suppose. But lest you conclude that to be bad news, consider this. For the last semester we have revisited the biblical description of the apocalyptic endgame just before the return of Christ: “The Dark Night Rises,” “Three Angels, One Warning,” and now “The Morning Star Rises.” Two realities are clear—(1) the endgame will happen suddenly catching most earth inhabitants by surprise, and (2) the final showdown will devolve around worship, worship of the Creator or worship of a counterfeit image of the Divine. The good news is 70% of Americans may be very open to considering the religious appeal that the Creator and His “Three Angels” community of faith must make. Rather than assuming they will all be manipulated by a deceptive religious appeal, why not pray that in fact they will be favorably open to the divine appeal, “Come out of her My people” (Revelation 18:4)? So let the nay-sayers who are decrying a godless Christmas season cry on. You and I can instead pray on—on behalf of the 70% and the 100%—that the Christ who came that starry night long ago and who is yet to come one glorious Day soon—that He might grant to you and me the winsome appeal to reach out for Him, not only to the seven out of ten but to the ten out of ten! Why not?

Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, his acclaimed history of the Pilgrims, recounts how William Bradford, the intrepid leader of that courageous band of Puritans, years later described “that first morning in America.” Recalling with wonder their landing on the salty, windswept shores of Cape Cod Bay on November 15, 1620, Bradford wrote: “But here I cannot stay and make a pause and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. . . . [T]hey had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor. What could sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity’” (46). His words are appropriate, not only because we  celebrate the nearly four-century tradition of the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving this week. But in Bradford’s description—“they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity”—perhaps we also hear the faint hint of a day of adversity yet coming upon this land of the Pilgrims. Could the breath-taking speed with which this nation’s hourly economic headlines are unfolding or unraveling these last few weeks be a portent of what is yet to come? Could this land of the free have already seen her best days? Scribbled on the page of Revelation 13 in my Bible are these words written a century ago: “The Lord has done more for the United States than for any other country upon which the sun shines” (Ms 17, 1906). Hardly a prideful claim of superiority or grounds for national arrogance, this quiet observation simply declares a common truth that this country has enjoyed the uncommon blessings of Providence. And in the sunlight, how easy is the spirit of thanksgiving. But should the days turn dark and the supernal blessings wither away, what shall we be grateful for then? A year after their landing, the Pilgrims gathered for that first  thanksgiving—half of their band already buried beneath the Massachusetts sod. Yet they gave thanks to God. And so must we—no matter the uncertain voyage that spreads before us, nationally or personally. The Almighty is still that. And in the darkest storm His mercy will yet triumph. Just look at Calvary. “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1 NKJV).

Does America have a future? Of course it does. But I fear for it. The presidential debate on Tuesday evening reveals a nation sharply divided, each candidate championing the cause of his political supporters. Class division, racial division, economic division, philosophical or ideological division—while it can be argued that every election exposes the divide in our nation, the reality is that this one seems ratcheted up exponentially, no small thanks to the incendiary fueling injected into our national conversation by 24/7 "real time" internet commentary. Consider the potential fall-out from either election outcome. Were the President to be reelected, the hostility of the political right in this nation could threaten  governmental gridlock before which the past four years would pale in comparison. Were the President to be defeated, the bitter outcry of the political left could threaten vast swaths of national life through economic boycott and strikes. The truth is that either election outcome could potentially sound the death knell for an already moribund economy. Class and racial divisions? The fallout implications of such potential strife is beyond calculation (but not imagination). I fear for America's future. Does that mean Christian voters, Seventh-day Adventists included, should abdicate their citizenry right and responsibility to vote? Not at all. In the words of our Lord, we must "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" (see Matthew 22:21). But given what lies ahead for this nation, irrespective of our political persuasions or private votes, the second half to Jesus' admonition is even more binding, "and render to God the things that are God's." And what belongs to God in a season of such national divide, on the eve of such economic distress? Surely this hour demands our most fervent prayers for this land. "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all . . . for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" (1 Timothy 2:1, 2). We must band together to pray for the leaders of this nation and every nation on earth. The unthinkable fallout inevitable with economic collapse portends a chapter neither the church nor the nation is prepared to face. May not God yet spare His people for the critical Three Angels mission that is our raison detre? That is, after all, Paul's compelling reason for intercessory prayer: "For this [praying] is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all . . . to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:3, 4). We must pray and labor for the salvation of Americans, for the salvation of the inhabitants of every nation on earth—for all earth children are to be the recipients of God's urgent Three Angel appeal and warning. In my short lifetime I have not witnessed a more consequential season than this one. And so I earnestly pray for the awakening of the church I love and for the salvation of the country I inhabit. And I urge you now to join me in these prayers.