Religion in the City – Integrity of the Word

Growing up I remember vividly sitting on my grandfather’s lap while my grandparents and aunt watched the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite. It did not seem to matter what world crisis Walter Cronkite was reporting on, his closing line “And that’s the way it is” seemed to unite him with his audience in dealing with the day’s trials and tribulations. Whether he was reporting a news story like Watergate, the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War, my family hung on his words. There was an integrity about his reporting that gave the impression that though the news may be bad, we were in this together!

Last Saturday my column was written around my impressions around defeatist media and faith community messages. And last Sunday I had the honor of having veteran columnist and reporter Billy Townsend explore my thoughts and column on the subject. Once an investigative reporter for the Tampa Tribune and now writer for Lakeland Local and Metro I-4 News, Billy is the type of journalist who dissects incongruities both in society and every day life. Billy’s scrutiny of the CSX Project both in Tampa and Lakeland has quite possibly saved Florida tax payers a billion dollars.

Billy is a reporter who knows how important truth telling and integrity is in the lives our community and the world. In Billy’s criticism of my article he posed the argument that ” it’s a reporter’s obligation to pursue facts that reflect important national and moral truths accurately – even if they are dark. Honesty can lead to atonement. ” Ultimately, I believe that Billy is asking me if, in my criticism of the media and main stream religion, I desire religion and media to be less realistic and truthful.

To which I need to reply, “By no means!” Billy was absolutely correct in his analysis that ” it’s a reporter’s obligation to pursue facts that reflect important national and moral truths accurately – even if they are dark.” Without question– truth telling, journalist integrity, preaching and faith grounded in hard truthful words, can lead us as a community, and as a nation, to atonement.

However the word –atonement–comes from the Jewish tradition, it depicts the process one goes through in seeking forgiveness and pardoning for their transgressions against ones self, neighbor and allmighty God. Media and religious atonement is more complex than offering up truthful reports or sermons. Atonement, much like –integrity–is about uniting and reconciling one’s self, community and God.

Its was not enough for Mary Mapes to break the news of the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and the torture of prisoners in Iraq five years ago. It was the unity of the media and the county together that took Mary Mapes’ news team finding about Abu Ghraib and started a ethical discussion over U.S. entitlement as well as war criminal treatment as a whole. The gospel of John might say “it is truth that will set you free”, but it is through integrity and atonement that mankind decides what to do with the freedom and truth they are offered. Watergate was not a scandal that brought down the White House because of the truth shared by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It became a dishonorable disgrace when the American public took action and said –enough is enough to Nixon.

Last weeks column, Defeatist Faith, was dwelt with moments. However there are holistic, consistent, visionary media and religious truth tellers throughout our world, even some as close as our own back yard, Lakeland. Writers such as Tich Ni Hon, Mia Angelou, speakers such as Tony Compello, Reverend Bishop Tuto. There are theological rebels pushing both media and religion in the areas of social change and justice. The Methodist de-frocking of Greg Dell for presiding over union services for a same-sex couples; Mother Teresa confronting the Catholic Church over issues of AIDS in Africa; the Dalai Lama standing over a free Tibet and Martin Luther Kings Letter from the Birmingham Jail are only naming a few. The Letter from the Birmingham Jail got so much media attention that it caused President Robert F. Kennedy to say “”If not us, who. If not now, when?”

We are very fortunate that we, in the Bible belt, are in the midst of the clanging symbols of fear, retribution and sin which fill countless sermon space when communities are going through hard times. Lakeland does have religious, social minded ministers which lead the way in their denominations and faith communities. David Colingwoth and his ministry at Wesley Mission with the Parker Street youth and neighborhood. Tim Rice at Trinity Presbyterian is a social voice and continence. Dr. Mike Loudon at First Presbyterian brings together an impeccable historical vision for the integration of a social gospel. These Lakeland leaders and so many lay and ordained like them, seek to give our community integrity by not only sharing – hard truths–but uniting and equipping their church with messages of hope and action. These messages equip our community to atonement for our individual and communal transgression towards their neighbor, self and God.

I believe that we as a society need media’s in-depth journalism, commentary as well as socially minded ministries. The kind of messages that call out injustices, shining a light on the inequalities in our government, communities and world. Just like World War II reporters had to depict and call on the America’s social conscience with regard to Nazi death camps, our media today has the responsibility to not only share the news of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib but also speak life into the genocide in Haiti, HIV/AIDS in Africa, even the apartheid in South Africa. Shining lights on inequalities in our own back yard like the Jena 6, human trafficking and immigration issues.

I do often feel like a great deal of our media is about sensationalism and fear. We as a people of faith need to demand that our religious community’s churches, mosques and temples utilize their Sabbath messages to build unity. More about action and less about fear, more about new life, atonement, and less time immobilizing their communities with blame, brokenness and death. Quality religion, like quality reporting, should shake our homeostasis. But it should also not leave its listeners powerless and directionless. We need messages that call society out of its shell and closer to equality of man and a social gospel. When Walter Cronkite said, “And that’s the way it is” he spoke with the type of integrity that– still depicted truth and call out injustices– but also sought to unite him, his message and his listening audience. Media and religion must seek to share truths that not only inform people but also call them into action, change and atonement.