I
was surprised not to find a single article or reference to Easter or
the resurrection of Jesus on the front page of Easter Sunday’s
Register Guard.
While
I don’t expect the newspaper to be a Sunday School newsletter, I do
expect major news topics to be addressed.
Easter
acknowledges a historically factual event that 80 percent of American
adults celebrate, with nearly 51 percent of those attending church.
What
was ironic and amazing was that the two articles dominating the front
page that morning, about resurrecting Civic Stadium, spoke of the key
concepts of Easter.
The
title of the lead article, “Civic lesson: How volunteers breathed
life into saving Civic Stadium,” had the same concept celebrated on
Easter. The headline would instead have read: “Spiritual lesson:
How Jesus breathed life into saving spiritually dead people.”
The
second article, “Restoration efforts start at the top” was a
truth to which Christians shout “Amen.” Without God sending Jesus
to die on the cross and be resurrected three days later there’s no
restoration possible in our relationship with God.
Perhaps
next Easter the same topics can be addressed — restoration and
breathing new life into that which was in ruin.
However,
instead of the story being about a building, make it a report about
people’s spiritual restoration as they share their conversion from
being spiritually blind to seeing, from being spiritually lost to
being found, and from being spiritually dead to being alive.
That’s
not just news, it’s the good news of Easter.
This
letter was in the local paper this morning. I left out the author's
name,, but I will not that the writer hales from Junction City about
twenty miles to the north of Eugene.
This
is a prime example of the in your face tactics currently being used
by the fundies. It isn't enough that they're free to practice their
version of Christianity. Oh, no. They insist that everyone else take
notice too.
The
author's statistics seem to assume that all Christians follow the
same path and also seems to ignore that while fifty one percent of
Americans claim to attend church regularly that means that forty nine
percent DON”T. Including little ol' me. One, because these days
it's hard to get around. Two. I've never felt inside four walls what
I feel outside. Just doesn't work for me.
And,
to top it off, we don't all follow the same calendar. Two weeks ago
was Easter in the Western church. Last Sunday was Easter in the
Eastern Orthodox tradition. To be honest I'm not sure how it works,
but I believe it has something to do with which version of the
calendar used.
Over
the weeks leading up to Easter the paper offered several two page
spreads highlighting where services would be held. Whether it was
public service or paid I don't know and frankly I don't really care.
And
to be honest I don't remember the guard ever doing a front page story
on Easter. There might have been a time or two when sunrise services
were called on account of snow or something. The Guard is an
independent newspaper. Believe it or not it's still owned by the
Bates family, not some conglomerate. They do try to be fair and cover
regional news. They're a tad conservative for my taste but that's
just me.
Bottom
line to the author of the letter. This is a regional paper trying to
serve the majority of local citizens. Easter is important to you?
Fine. It means something to me too. Probably not the same thing, but
I don't expect the local news to cater to me. And you shouldn't
either.
1 comment:
Looks to me like the author was just trying to get a religious proselytization published in the "letters to the editor," so he had to make his inspirational(?) prose relate to the newspaper in SOME way. Dude. Publish your letters in the church news bulletin where people who CARE can make much of them. :P
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