"Democracy dies in the darkness"

I don't watch the Super Bowl. The last time I watched the big game with interest was Super Bowl IV, when Kansas City defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7. I've been to three or four Super Bowl parties over the years at which the games were on the TV; I've paid enough attention to be polite.

But I read about the Washington Post Super Bowl commercial and decided to look it up this morning.

Journalists, like the rest of we who make up the human race, aren't perfect. But they play an important role in seeking to ferret out and share the truth each day. I'm grateful to the lion's share of journalists who seek to simply tell the truth. I honor journalists killed in the line of doing their duty.

I like the words of former president, George W. Bush: "I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy...we need the media to hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”

In a letter written in 1816, Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe."

Freedom of the press, respect for the press, and protection of the press is as essential for our democracy as the military, intelligence services, law enforcement, and agencies that safeguard our health, environment, transportation, and drugs. And I respect all these institutions that work for us within government, even though they don't always get things right. I also respect the press, the media,  as that outside entity, the "fourth estate," which also doesn't always get things right and is accountable to news-consumers and the market when it gets things wrong.

President Kennedy, borrowing phrasing from a prominent coffee commercial of the early 60s, once remarked that he was reading newspapers, but enjoying it less. Our disappointment with what we see, read, and hear from various news outlets probably has a lot more to do with them telling us the truth that we would prefer not hearing than with falsehoods that sometimes are told.

I've been misquoted by newspapers and other journalists. It can be frustrating. But rarely do I find journalists getting the story completely wrong. And I have to remember that I mess up in my work too. But for all the risks, we will not long have a democracy without a free, inquiring press. Democracy does die in the darkness and a free press casts a bright light so that we can all see the facts.

The message of this ad is powerful and important.

The Best Movies About...Being a Pastor?

Althouse links to a Washington Post article that's based on the response of twenty-four people to the question, "What's the best film about your profession?"

That got me to thinking about movies that depict my own work as a pastor.

Film pastors seem mostly to fall into several categories:

• clueless innocents 
• fire-breathing moralists (who are unrepentant hypocrites) 
• sociopaths 
• money-grubbing manipulators 
• sexual predators

There are and have been pastors for whom these descriptions fit, of course. But it's odd to see how consistently these stereotypes are portrayed in films and TV shows.

Some of my favorite portrayals of clergy appear in:

1. The Keys of the Kingdom starring Gregory Peck. Peck plays a priest packed off to China as a missionary who remains faithful despite the suspicion among his superiors that he's a failure. Thomas Mitchell plays Peck's spiritually skeptical friend, a relationship that's portrayed without a hint of heavy-handedness or sentimentality.

2. Bishop's Wife with David Niven as the spiritually-struggling bishop. This is one of the best Christmas films of all time. The movie isn't entirely satisfying though, ending with a Christmas Eve sermon that's more American civil religion than it is Christian.

3. Alias Nick Beal, with the aforementioned Mitchell as a district attorney standing off against an evil Ray Milland. George Macready turns in an interesting performance as a clergyperson who helps call a friend who has lost his spiritual compass to account and to renewal. Released in 1948, I had never seen Beal until this year. It's a great film, a seemingly forgotten classic. (The film's title song is an embellishment on Martin Luther's most famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God.)

4. Luther with Joseph Fiennes in the title role. Martin Luther, of course, was a theological genius, but he was, at heart, a pastor. He was also imperfect. That complexity of character comes across in this movie.

On television, Father Mulcahy of MASH is a variant of the clueless innocent type. Over the course of the series, Mulcahy's character was given greater depth than in the early seasons. (This is the opposite of what was done with Radar O'Reilly, who moved from the early episodes in which he was portrayed as sort of a sly conman to being an Iowa naif.)

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Think Christianity is Shrinking?

Think again. From The Washington Post:

The center of Christianity has shifted from Europe to the global South.

The religious landscape is particularly changing for the world’s Christians. A century ago, 80 percent lived in North America and Europe, compared with just 40 percent today.

In 1980, more Christians were found in the global South than the North for the first time in 1,000 years. Today, the Christian community in Latin America and Africa, alone, account for 1 billion people.

Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10 percent of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is an Africa, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030.

Asia is also experiencing growth as world Christianity’s center has moved not only South, but also East. In the last century, Christianity grew at twice the rate of population in that continent. Asia’s Christian population of 350 million is projected to grow to 460 million by 2025.

The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States. Future trends, while difficult to predict because so much is below the religious radar, could dramatically drive down the world’s religious “nones.”

Nones are those who say they have no religion.

So, while the rest of the world is becoming increasingly Christian, the United States presently is moving in the opposite direction.

And, while it's often said that Islam is growing more quickly than Christianity is on the world scene, that's misleading. In fact, Islam's growth is a byproduct of births to Muslim families. But Christianity is seeing hundreds of thousands more conversions to Christian faith. That's real growth. Reports of the demise of Christian faith are not only premature; they're incorrect.

Could This Be Part of the Cure for Obesity?

The Washington Post reports on a study done at Johns Hopkins University in which researchers posted signs at grocery stores about the effects of sugary drinks on their bodies. The most effective of the signs asked, “Did you know that working off a bottle of soda or fruit juice takes about 5 miles of walking?"

The article says:

Results published online Oct. 16 in the American Journal of Public Health showed teens chose healthier options, bought lower calorie drinks or opted for a smaller size of the sugary beverage after seeing the signs.

The impact was lasting. The teens continued to make healthy choices during the six weeks purchases were monitored after the signs were removed.

Read the whole thing. And get a drink of water!