Spirituality Column #754

April 27, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What the World Needs Now

By Bob Walters

My friend Jim was depressed.

Not “can’t get out of bed depressed” – we were after all having lunch at a favorite local spot – just “don’t see any good answers going forward depressed” about America.

Jim’s an older retired guy like me who stays busy, loves his wife, is proud of his kids and his country, has many interests, enjoys reasonably good health despite the years and mileage, and has a solid relationship with the Lord.  He forged career success in the U.S. military, education, and public service, and has many stories, friends, talents, and an outgoing personality that make him a fun guy to be around.

Except currently, he’s watching way too much news.

I’m no psychologist yet when I greeted Jim at lunch with a familiar “How are you doing?” I immediately knew the answer wasn’t going to be a cheerful, “Just great!”  Still, I was surprised when it was an almost dour, “Not great.”  But I understood.

We’re both concerned about all the same stuff, most of it political and cultural.

The hardest part of these days for me is the entire lack of trust I feel toward the media, followed closely by the revulsion I harbor toward politicians and bureaucrats of nearly every stripe.  I know, “politicians gonna’ politic,” I get that; but the U.S. government has become an especially dark enterprise against God and freedom.

I trust God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and several family, friends, and Christian brothers and sisters … it’s about the only “truth” I see these days.  Praise God for that.

Then here comes the news: daily, proudly bereft of truth, objectivity, and context.  I squandered a perfectly good 1970s journalism degree on a very fun sports writing and sports media relations career.  But the news business was changing back then as the media’s job of “discomforting the powerful” became “lying in bed with the powerful.”

“Truth in media” has become agenda-driven narrative presenting an even blacker darkness than politics.  These watchdogs of liberty are now the lapdogs of deceit.

Throw in domestic corporate globalists who are anti-American-citizen, a profane entertainment culture, an America-vilifying major sports establishment, a morally bankrupt public academia, a mysterious and heinously politicized pandemic, and a media-championed, culture-shredding, variously woke mob grabbing power with nonsense.

What do we have?  Sour, civilization-threatening, anti-truth media Molotov cocktails landing at our feet.  

Where’s the love sweet love?

The media will continue to chortle about “justice being served” as truth burns.  Politicians will continue to add debt, subtract freedom, and equivocate a vacant virtue.

But maybe it’s OK.  God may be teaching us a lesson we’d all learn in church on Sundays if more of us would go; we might more easily see what is missing.  And what’s missing, besides truth, is redemption and forgiveness.  We angrily talk past each other, without love.

The folks in power, when you look at it, are the only ones who benefit when we stay out of church, shun the truth of Jesus, and worship at the altar of “my happiness” rather than at the demanding foot of the cross.  God’s glory isn’t in dispute; we are.

I watch little news because I know that widespread public distrust and confusion floats the collective boat of the Godless powerful, and we are the suckers in the water.

Well, I’m not.  Hopefully you’re not.  And I hope Jim cheers up.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) doesn’t rail at Satan; he calls to Jesus.  Try it.