Now and then, the scrapblog editor's esteemed little sister, the Rev. Dr. Mary Catherine Miller Northrup, sends me one of her thoughtful sermons. Chats is senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kan. From time to time we'll post some of those. Here's one that tackles two topics near and dear to the Miller family, theology and journalism:“Theology and Journalism” Psalm 53:2-3
October 17, 2010
This past week, we have all relied on journalism to tell us the story of the rescue of 33 miners in a mine in Chile. In past weeks, we despaired when we heard of the loss of the 33 men, we had a glimmer of hope when it was learned they were alive, and we held on to that hope through the efforts to drill toward them and get them out. Many of us watched, at the same time joyous and misty-eyed, as the first miner came to the surface, and as the last miner was brought up.
I suspect that preachers all over town, indeed all over the world, are using this story in their sermons this morning. It’s one of those stories we preachers hear and think “that’ll preach!” Think of the sermons this story would yield---the bringing of persons from darkness to light; the comment of one of the miners that, as with the
story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, there were not 33 people below, but 34—God? Jesus?; the power of prayer and hope and God’s grace---and so many more sermons. I use the story this morning not in those ways, however, not as a primary image on which to preach, but rather as an example of journalism, the collection and reporting of news to the public. Reporters, print and radio and television and internet, were all there to tell us, and to show us, the events as they happened. There was the journalism which was the “direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation,” that is, the story, its background, the humans involved and so on, the things that involved “current interest or wide popular appeal.” [1] There was also journalism which involved overt analysis and interpretation, what we might call commentary or something like editorials, expressing opinions.
While some of us may tire of what are now constant 24/7 news cycles, and the proliferation of pundits and commentators about the news, we yet in some way rely on it, perhaps at times even depending on it, to tell us what is going on in the world. I, for one, am always interested in what is going on in the community and our world, and I guess I was probably raised to feel a kind of responsibility to know as well. I still read newspapers and news magazines, and I watch various news shows on television; I have not yet progressed to reading the news on the internet that much, but I do dabble in it there, too. I can see the practical importance of knowing the news-----such as knowing about last week’s marathon on Sunday and knowing which route I might have to take to church----to the larger importance of knowing what is happening in various countries politically and militarily, or even in the case of natural disasters, so as to be able to pray or give or do something else.
In addition to all this, most of you know that both my sister and my brother are journalists. My sister has at times been in various roles from reporter to editor, and in various areas, from the beginning beat most reporters have on crime and government, to faith and values, and even book reviews. My brother has been in various roles as well, but his major interest has always been sports reporting and commentary, and that’s what he does. I see what my sister and brother do, and I value it. In fact, last time my sister visited Michael and I here in Kansas, she taught a special session in Michael’s college Ethics course on journali
stic ethics, covering a whole gamut of issues faced by journalists in their work.
So having established what journalism is, and why it is important to us, the question then becomes: does theology have anything to do with journalism? I am going to claim this morning that it does, in fact, that theology adds theological substance to the statement that journalism is important and that we as persons of faith might even see journalism’s role as theological in some respects.
First, the theological substance. A professor of mine in seminary used to say that the presence of sin in humans is one of the most obviously self-evident theological truths. Our text for today states it explicitly. Psalm 53 reads “God looks down from heaven on human kind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.” It is almost identical to Psalm 14. The simple translation I recall from my youth is this, “The Lord looks down from heaven to see if there is any one righteous and he finds that there is no, not one.” What is this text saying? Simply this: the human condition is that we are all sinful. Without God, we have no hope.
As Christians, God has come to us in Jesus Christ and offers us salvation, grace, forgiveness. We recognize this grace in the act of baptism in the church. It is a sign of the grace that comes from God. Today, we baptize an infant as a beautiful symbol of God reaching out to us before we can even respond to him. Yet, as adults, we are called to respond to God’s grace in our lives as Christians. We are called to love God and neighbor. We know, though, that we fail; we are still sinners who must rely on God’s grace.
Theologian Paul Tillich, as did other theologians, developed from this basic concept of human sin, even after baptism and God’s grace, what became known as the Protestant Principle. Another theologian explains, “He meant by this that no individual, nor group, and quite specifically no church organization can claim divine dignity for its power, its decisions, and its various activities. The prophetic spirit begins not with the criticism of society but with self-criticism. To be a Protestant is to be critically self-critical. The human tendency to claim sanctity for one’s self and for one’s own organization is so great that Tillich went on to argue that Protestantism requires a secular reality over against it to puncture its pretension and correct its errors. Protestantism cannot desire a monopoly or totalitarian control. Human nature being what it is, Protestantism requires external criticism for its own health.”[2]
Thus, this theologian offered theological substance to journalism and went on to add what might be seen as the theological role of the journalist in the image of the journalist as “independent.” He argued that society needs a “free press,” as we Americans know it; all societies need this. The government and the press cannot be one and the same. He went on to argue that the church, too, needs a “free press.” It cannot rely only on denominational statements and news reports, it needs an independent press. Those of us in the PCUSA have historically relied on The Presbyterian Outlook, a publication that is in our church library, for this independence. Like all human beings and human institutions, it is not perfect, nor perfectly independent, but it does seek to be. Those of us in the church also rely on many other publications to give us the news of our church and of other churches.
I would like to offer two additional images of the journalist that have theological substance. These images do not originate with me. One is the journalist as prophet. This takes the role of independence one step farther. It suggests that the journalist isn’t simply to be separate from what he or she reports, the journalist perhaps should be investigative and lift up news that shows wrong, whether secular or theological. One scholar even offers a Ph.D. dissertation which is described by this abstract: “Judeo-Christian ethics and tradition provide a philosophical underpinning of the moral imperative for a free society. A truly free society rests on the foundation of the primacy accorded the protection of free speech rights in any society. The role of the press is integral to preserving this kind of social entity. In particular, the traditional prophetic office in Judeo-Christian history provide a paradigm for the way that journalists do their jobs. This thesis seeks to explicate the specifically Judeo-Christian theological foundation for the work of journalists who, in a high sense, continue to tell the human story in the manner of prophets and scribes of old. Alternative media, defined as that press which is contra-wise to the status quo, especially reflects certain quality of the prophetic office and demonstrates the moral goodness of a distinctly Christian notion of creative-responsive love.”[3]
The other image is the journalist as witness. Those of us who are in the Wednesday evening “Jesus in the Gospels” class have recently discussed the concept of witness with respect to the role of John the Baptist in John’s gospel, and with respect to the role of preacher.[4] One scholar has explained this concept with respect to the journalist, with particular emphasis on broadcast journalism.[5] She writes, “What does it mean to be a witness? To be a witness has to do with having first received a message before mediating that message to others. The concept of witness and witnessing is integral to the fields of journalism and Christian theology. Within these fields, the concept of witness has a stake in truth and truth-telling, and therefore, witness is concerned with justice. To be a witness is not just an empirical narration of facts, but a conviction that the testimony matters. Witness as testimony connects witness to a juridical understanding which implies a level of adjudication and calls for verification and authentication of testimony. With shifting epistemologies from universals to particulars, contemporary authentication of testimony comes from the witness who bears out testimony on his body. A paradigmatic example of this found in broadcast news journalism is the embodied testimony of the war reporter, complete with flak jacket and explosions in the background. The war news judges as worth the risk of the reporter’s safety. In Christian theology, providing witness through the embodiment of testimony is an established theme since the beginning of Christianity. Within the first few centuries of the religion, the Koine Greek word for witness, martyrion, had less to do with eyewitness observation and more to do with providing embodied testimony, that is, martyrdom. In the Christian tradition, the witness provides the news of the story of Jesus Christ, not simply as narration of facts, but from the conviction that this particular story matters.”
So, for persons of faith, there is importance to journalism, and we can even see a theological role for journalists in that they are independent, and can function like prophets and witnesses. But persons of faith cannot simply conclude here. For if our text for today is true, as we believe it is, that all persons are sinful and continue to sin even after receiving baptism and salvation, then journalists and journalism as a whole are subject to that same Protestant principle, that just as Christians and churches can never declare themselves a monopoly or declare themselves exempt from criticism, neither can journalists and journalism. We are---all of us---called by God to be, through the Spirit of God, better persons, more Christ-like, less sinful, and yet, while we are yet in this life, we remain, sinners, none of us, not no one, righteous on our own. Together, however, perhaps we can better keep each other honest and accountable than we could alone.
Amen.
[1] See “journalism,” The American Heritage Dictionary, p. 707.
[2] John Leith, Pilgrimage of a Presbyterian, p. 328.
[3] Earl Thomas Moreland, “Journalism and Judeo-Christian theology: Alternative media as the new Isaiah,” UMI abstract.
[4] This concept with John the Baptist is emphasized in John’s gospel. This concept with preachers relied on Thomas Long’s book, The Witness of Preaching.
[5] Amy Richards, “Witness: A Shared Concept within Christian Theology and Broadcast Journalism,” All Academic Research.
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