Outside the church Doors

Rev. Ernest Williams

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Lockhorns comic strip earlier this week showed the wearied wife commenting, “Leroy is an eight-track tape in a DVD world.”

I spent some time trying to figure out what the joke was, and finally took it to a couple of teenage girls in my church and told them, “I can’t keep up with all these new inventions. What is an eight-track tape?”

Between their gales of apoplectic laughter, they explained that an eight-track was a device which had been in common use in an earlier century for listening to popular music. It had been made obsolete, I was told, by such things as the DVD.

I decided to be satisfied with this explanation, and didn’t ask what a DVD is.

The experience reminded me that we are about to enter the ninth year of what for me is still a new century. It’s the time of year when everybody will be publishing a list of “Top Ten News Stories” of 2008. So thought I’d list my top ten.

I’m doing this because of my dissatisfaction with the lists I see. They always miss the real importance of things. So here are the top stories in the order of their importance.

No. 1: The visit to the U.S. by Pope Benedict XVI.

The media got it all wrong. Every TV broadcast and newspaper I saw said the pope had brought a message of “hope, love, and peace.” In fact, the pope’s well-announced topic was “Jesus Christ, our Hope.” The difference is infinite, and reveals the media’s discomfort with the name, “Jesus Christ.”

This is the most important thing that happened this year because the Catholic Church is the best hope for a crumbling western civilization. There are forces both within and outside the US which want to destroy our inherited culture, and the Protestant denominations are crumbling faster than the rest of the country.

It was Catholicism that preserved civilization in the Middle Ages, and it’s just about to do it again under Benedict’s leadership, in spite of many back-slidden American clergy. Nothing else that has happened this year can match it in importance.

No. 2: Saddleback pastor picked to pray at inauguration.

Meanwhile, Pastor Rick Warren is being hailed as the new Billy Graham, spiritual advisor to presidents. Obama has picked him to pray at his inauguration, arousing the ire of California homosexuals because of Warren’s support for the ballot initiative that killed gay marriage in the state. That he rises to prominence while mainline Protestant clergy watch the event on television shows how much the non-Catholic world is changing.

The non-denominational, mega-church Evangelicals who stand with Rome on public issues are the nation’s new conscience. I hope we listen.

No. 3: Progress toward victory in Iraq.

Even the sworn enemies of President George W. Bush have to admit now that the war in Iraq is almost won, or is at least winnable. They are irate at signs that the new president-elect may continue the Bush policy until victory is complete, thumbing his nose at the reason they voted for him. This may not only give the Obama presidency some credibility, but may lead to the realization of Bush’s sublime dream of a peaceful Arab world.

No. 4: The rise to prominence of Sarah Palin.

The Republican Party may not be dead after all, even if John McCain is. He chose the vivacious Alaska governor who has taken the country by storm. Even if she is not a future presidential candidate, she embodies a vision for the party and the nation that can win elections and change the course of history.

No. 5: The infatuation of the news media with Barak Hussein Obama.

Have you noticed that it’s okay to use his middle name now? His election safely tucked away and Republicans quarantined in a minority, things that were unmentionable no longer threaten the media. They still haven’t reported any positive accomplishments that might recommend him for the office, and they’re still trying to insulate him from the rest of the Chicago machine that keeps embarrassing him. We’ll see how long it is before they become restless at his abandonment of all his campaign promises, but in the meantime he’s still the kind of celebrity that fills the rest of their pages.

No. 6: The self-destruction of the Republican Party.

The party that could handily have won this year with a forceful and dramatic Thompson, a culture-warrior Huckabee, or a competent and knowledgeable Romney, instead picked the one candidate who could fritter it all away by refusing to campaign against his opponent. His coattails were long, but in the wrong direction. Something has to be done about the crazy primary system.

No. 7: The self-destruction of President George Bush.

George Bush was the new sheriff who answered the terrorist attack of 9-11 with the kind of leadership of which we suspected he was capable. He has not only kept us safe, but has given the world a new vision of the transformation of the mediaeval Moslem bloc into peaceful participants in the world community. This is a great and enduring legacy.

But he has been prodigal with the people’s money. It took him seven years to find his veto pen. He let a power-drunk Republican Congress pile up deficits. And now he is even by-passing Congress to hand out more money. We will have to recover, if we’re able, before his legacy can shine.

No. 8: Inscription sheds light on Jewish messianic hopes.

Over in Israel, an inscription from the first century B. C. was discovered. Its interpretation is much disputed, but it is reported to be a prophecy that the Messiah would be put to death and then rise from the dead. Israeli authorities are not publicizing the find, perhaps because it would seem to support Christian claims.

Some scholars seem to think that this prophecy influenced Jesus to adopt his agenda of dying and rising again. Others see it as an explicit prophecy about him.

But the majority sees it only as a glimpse of the variety of messianic expectations that were swirling around in the last century before Christ. If the discovery becomes better known, it may arouse renewed interest in Jesus and his surroundings, and that can only be a good thing.

No. 9: Well, who said I had to have ten?

Most of the published lists include the election of the nation’s first black president, as if that were important. My own wish is that we could get past caring about what color a man’s skin is, and judge him by the content of his character. The content of Obama’s character is something we don’t know much about yet.

Obviously, I haven’t been struck by the importance of anything that’s on eight-track tapes or DVD’s, whatever they are.

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