Jesse Ventura rocks Frontenac

THE GUV COMES TO FRONTENAC

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

Every year, around the middle of March, the migrating bald eagles do their thing over and along the shores of Lake Pepin. We sometimes see as many as 30 or 40 during a 5-mile ride into town. But this day in 2000 was different, because in addition to bald eagles, another bald head was attracting crowds of sightseers to Minnesota's Hiawatha Valley. Our newly elected governor, Jesse Ventura, was coming to town!

"Hurry up and get dressed if you're going to the Whistle Stop with me," Mavis advised. I was not quite fully awake after a short power nap in my lounger. The morning's workout of cutting wood and a big noon meal had set me up for a needed rest.

The Whistle Stop is a small cafe in New Frontenac (also called Frontenac Station), Minn., about a mile from our home (at the time, at Ten Oaks) as the crow flies, assuming a crow can fly in a straight line. The village boasts a population of about 100 good citizens and a few rednecks. This day, the population would triple in size with locals eager to see Jesse "The Body" Ventura, now Jesse "The Guv" Ventura.

It wasn't the first visit from a governor to the Whistle Stop. Several years before, a governor who served several terms in office stopped in for a cup of coffee. But no one recognized him. He lacked Jesse's panache.

The Whistle Stop is no place for one with allergies. If the greasy odor from the deep fryer doesn't get you, the cigarette and cigar smoke from the truckers and railroad workers who eat there will. I chose to remain outside. Why "The Guv" chose to stop there is beyond me.

The parking lot was full when we arrived. Mavis went inside to reserve some seats. It was cold outside, but the air was much better, and I was appropriately dressed in my ice fishing clothes.

Shortly before "The Guv" arrived, two Goodhue County sheriff's patrol cars arrived. Although the deputies were in uniform, they carried no belts with the usual gear -- a Glock, a baton, radio, handcuffs and the like. Maybe there were just curious onlookers like me.

Then three Minnesota Highway Patrol vehicles pulled up. Four officers, three men and one woman, got out, all dressed in full battle gear. Less conspicious was an unmarked car that parked some distance away. A tall, slim, dark-skinned young lady got out dressed in man's garb and high-heeled boots. A profiler might have marked her as a terrorist, but I suspect she was a bodyguard of sorts. Only time would tell.

As Jesse's bus pulled into a reserved spot, she took out a cellular phone and gave an "all clear" to Jesse and his entourage. They emerged from the bus and walked by me on the way to the cafe. "The Guv" exchanged pleasantries with us in his unmistakable booming, loud voice.

Inside, Mavis and my sister, Alverna Sprick Miller, listened to Jesse interact with the crowd. Alverna asked him if he had seen the bald eagles along the shores of Lake Pepin. "Yeah," he replied. "I saw five of them sitting in one tree. It made me feel glad that I wasn't a rodent."

While it would not become one of Jesse's better-known quotes, it was one of his few that didn't offend anybody.

Like most politicians, Jesse's popularity was at its peak at the time of his election. Prophets supposedly in the know predicted that he would self-destruct within two years. That may have been wishful thinking, as he remained in office for a full term (1999-2003), albeit with popularity that diminished weekly.

Jesse will not go down in history as a great Minnesota governor, but he never left doubt about where he stood on an issue. Maybe that is why he got elected in the first place.

And now he is a local landowner, having purchased two prime lots adjacent to the golf course in the Mississippi Jewel development in Lake City -- a big dog in short grass. And he has a new look -- black hair and a braided beard. Sports commentators give him little recognition except to say: "Jesse is present -- but not presentable."

The bald eagles, meanwhile, endure.

Best of the wurst

Here's another fine essay by Uncle Joe (Elmer William Sprick), from his book "Fish Stories and Other Lies." Your scrapblog editor's extensive Google image search discovered no photo of this historic and allegedly delicious family delicacy, so the one we're using here may be of some other kind of wurst. We wouldn't know.

GRITWURST

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

I received a phone call from Herb Anderson, a gentleman in his 80s. He'd made some gritwurst for me and wanted to drop it off on his way to Red Wing. "I put some extra ingredients in to make it really good -- tongue, heart and raisins," Herb said. "I want you to know I appreciate all the fish you and Doc [Knudsen] have given me."

Herb worked at several jobs over his lifetime, including cook and butcher. I was confident that whatever he had made was a quality product, and I looked forward to having some gritwurst soon for a noon meal.

Mavis was less enthusiastic. "You can give my half to someone else," she said politely.

Gritwurst has been described as a soul food that connects people with their unique heritage. But you aren't likely to find it on a restaurant menu unless you happen to live in a German-American community. And you won't find the word "gritwurst" in a dictionary.

There is probably a good reason one seldom finds gritwurst on a menu. It contains a lot of animal fat -- not the kind of food one wants for breakfast, unless it's a cold winter day and you have been out doing chores for an hour or so. Even then, you should consider splitting wood for the rest of the day. It's the kind of food that "sticks to your ribs," as old-timers say. Today we are more likely to apply that expression to oatmeal.

Gritwurst brings back fond memories to some of us who grew up in rural southeastern Minnesota in the 1930s. We relished a breakfast of gritwurst, fried potatoes and maybe a fresh egg, over easy. A little homemade ketchup could spice things up a bit too. But gritwurst disappeared from the menu when we left our West Albany, Minn., farm to move to Lake City, Minn., as teenagers.

Maybe if we are lucky, we can still find some at our local butcher shop -- or if we still have a friend like Herb.

Our grandchildren would be about as eager to try gritwrust as they would be to attend a lutefisk dinner at a rural Lutheran church. They can choose from 100 different kinds of cereal and pizzas. Our choices as children were far fewer, but the food our mother [Maria Augustine Sprick] made always tasted the best.

If one is reluctant to try a meal of gritwurst, perhaps knowing how it is made will discourage one completely. First, you take the head off a freshly butchered pig and boil it in a really large container until the meat falls off the bone. Sometimes other parts of the pig are added, such as certain organs, hocks or other "spare parts" that one cannot put to a higher and better use. The meat then is ground up and the water that was used to boil it is poured over steel-cut oats, which then are allowed to sit for an hour or so.

A word of caution: Don't try this at home unless you have a good ventilation system!

Once the steel-cut oats have soaked up about as much water as they can, they are mixed with the ground meat, and salt and pepper are added. Those with a more sensitive palate might add a handful of raisins to the mix. It's then baked for an hour or two. With the old wood-burning kitchen stoves, a temperature that got up to 300 to 400 degrees seemed to do the job.

There were several reasons why gritwurst was made in the winter. One very good one was that most rural homes had no electricity for refrigeration. The gritwurst was set out on the back porch to cool, cut into meal-sized chunks and allowed to freeze. On our back porch, it was set alongside a large wooden keg of herring soaked in salt brine, which provided a little variety in a dinner menu that often featured fresh pork chops and sauerkraut or fresh beef steaks and mashed homegrown potatoes.

A good friend, Bob Becker, wrote a book of nostalgic tales about the past. We can identify with his boyhood memories of life on the farm during the 1930s. But why he failed to mention gritwurst in his chapter about farm breakfasts remains a mystery. It's a soul food that connects people with their unique ethnic heritage. You betcha!

Postscript: Herb left us a few years ago for a better place, but once in a while we stop in to give his widow, Ginny, a meal of bluegills. Like Herb, she insists on responsing with an act of kindness -- a gift of raspberries in the summer or a bottle of wine in the winter.

The old man and the deer

As he does every November, Uncle Joe (Elmer William Sprick) went deer hunting last week, but didn't take a deer. From his deer stand near Ten Oaks north of Lake City, Minn., he observed plenty of wildlife and smaller deer, but the one meant for him did not pass by this year.

In his honor, we're going to reprint a very fine story he included in his 2005 book "Fish Stories and Other Lies" (we've taken note that all of the stories are not just true, but authentic). This story is called "One on One." Not unlike the scrapblog editor, Uncle Joe likes to refer to himself in the third person in his stories, and in this one he calls himself "the old man." We most certainly don't think of him as old, unless it means venerable and wise. Joe's story:

ONE ON ONE

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

JUST OUTSIDE LAKE CITY, MINN., 2005

The old man recalled something his mother [Maria Augustine Sprick] told him many years ago, when she was well into her 90s: "You are only as old as you feel." She didn't feel her age.

But he was now beyond the life expectancy of a male Caucasion, and at times he wondered why the good Lord had blessed him with such a long life and good health. There wasn't anything he could think of that he had done to deserve it, although he tended to practice moderation in most things. When asked the secret to his longevity, he would honestly say that he owed much of it to the loving care of a good wife of over 50 years [Mavis Lamont Sprick].

Each autumn he was aware that it might be his last year to hunt, even though he still felt able to endure the cold of a November morning, the opening day of deer season. And he was confident enough that he might still score with his old 12-gauge shotgun. Purchased more than 50 years before for the sum of $25, it had served him well through all his hunting. He never felt that he needed any other gun, although he also owned a British .303 rifle, a souvenir from his days in the Navy during World War II.

Whether he shot a buck or a doe didn't matter to him, but he preferred to hunt the early season when the weather might be a bit milder. Getting a set of antlers to hang on the wall seemed unimportant. The hunting shack he'd once owned, as well as most everything in it, had long been recycled. He'd kept only one set of antlers for sentimental reasons, those from a 10-point buck taken during his last hunt with a now-deceased brother.

There was no need to set the alarm clock for opening morning. He had a built-in clock that usually awoke him about 5 a.m. After a breakfast of hot cereal, he loaded his blaze-orange rucksack and shotgun into his old station wagon for the short drive to his hunting spot.

It was not yet daylight as he left his vehicle. As he entered the woods on the same narrow path he had walked for the past several years to his stand, he flushed a flock of wild turkeys that had been roosting overhead. Their wings clashed loudly against the treetops, breaking the morning stillness. He counted about a dozen flushes as he proceeded with the aid of a small flashlight. It was not likely that there would be anyone else hunting in the immediate area, but the flashlight gave him an added sense of security.

Leaves covered with white frost crunched underfoot. He was thankful that there was no wind, and the frozen leaves would enable him to hear whatever might be approaching.

He was not indoctrinated in the uses of sprays to mask human odor and deer scent attractants. There was a faint odor of fish on his coveralls, and he reasoned that it might well overpower any human scent. Dumb luck and a lot of patience had always been his best allies.

In his younger days, he had enjoyed hunting with a bow from a portable tree stand. He fully realized that hunting from a tree stand gave the hunter an edge. Although still agile enough to climb into a portable tree stand, he chose not to take the risk of a fall, especially when hunting alone, as he usually was. He had a problem with permanent tree stands, having seen many with piles of litter underneath, and nearby young trees hacked off for unsightly shooting lanes. Sometimes the tree stands had bait on the ground nearby, a practice considered unethical as well as illegal in his state.

He preferred to see the woods in a natural condition with little evidence of man save for a trail or an occasional stump. Having spent the best days of his career in the woods, he held the belief that natural areas were tonic for the soul.

As daylight approached, a wild turkey from the scattered flock flew to a treetop on a nearby ridge. It began calling, as if to gather the scattered. Although there were faint responses from turkeys on the ground, they seemed content to stay grounded.

By 8 a.m., a slight breeze became noticeable from the north. A few critters were moving about, mostly gray squirrels. An unusual one with a pure white tail was being chased by a red pine squirrel that objected to the invasion of its territory. A pileated woodpecker flew over in its unmistakable flight pattern, loudly announcing its presence to the world. Chickadees came and went in the bush a few feet away. After looking things over, they seemed to sense that a blaze-orange object didn't belong in that setting.

The walnut grove behind his stand was semi-open, quite void of undergrowth. The old man recalled something he had read about walnut trees producing a toxin from their roots the prevented growth of an understory of other species. If one were hunting with a rifle, he might elect to face the semi-open area. But he chose to face the opposite direction, closer to heavier cover of buckthorn brush. His experience through the years had taught him that bucks tend to come through heavy cover, usually with their noses to the ground, when the rut is near or at its peak.

By 9 a.m., there had been no discernible shooting in the area. It was quiet, the way he liked it. In his younger days, he had participated in deer drives with shooters posted at strategic spots and sometimes with irresponsible shooting. He had no quarrel with those who still chose to party-hunt, but for him, at his age, patience and solitude were preferable -- the one-on-one hunt. Perhaps subconsciously he had developed his own ethical standards, or what some sportsmen refer to as the rules of "the fair chase."

Only the old man's head showed above the brush pile that he used for a natural blind. With his back to a tree, he slowly moved his head from side to side as he scanned the brush for any movement.

One of the characteristics of his aging was of some concern to the old man. He had a growing tendency to talk to himself in a low but audible tone. The presented no problem when he was fishing or doing chores around the house. But in the deer woods, where silence is golden, he was hopeful that he could remain mute.

The buckthorn shrubs were inclined to retain their leaves, even after a hard frost, but the leaves were not thick enough to screen the movement of an approaching deer. First a white throat patch flahsed, then antlers. The buck moved closer to his left. As it entered a small opening, the old man uttered a soft, "Baa."

The sound had the desired effect. The buck stopped and turned its head to look in his direction.

It was the buck's last mistake.

It occurred to the old man that a trophy hunter might have let this buck go and waited for a larger one. To each his own. Perhaps he had evolved to the point as a hunter where it didn't even matter to him whether it was a big buck or an adult doe. Just having the opportunity to hunt at his age was satisfaction enough. When he was fortunate enough to get an adult deer and some venison for the freezer, he considered it a bonus.

Field-dressing a deer was no hardship for the old hunter. He had done it many times in the past, not even necessarily the deer he'd shot, but rather illegally killed deer he had been required to salvage as a field man for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He'd learned to carry all the right stuff in his rucksack -- a knife with a saw blade, a pair of rubber gloves, a hunting license with a struck for affixing the license to the carcass, a drag rope, a whistle and a colored cloth. He no longer carried a plastic bag for saving the heart and liver; times had changed.

Although he had a cell phone for emergency purposes, its legal use while hunting was still a gray area for him. Once out of the woods, he used it to call on younger muscles for assistance in dragging the buck out.

The drag was not much over 100 yards, but it was down a narrow path through a dense thicket. He knew of a roundabout way to drive to the pickup point across a cornfield and down a woods trail. The three different landowners had been previously contacted and all had graciously granted the old man permission to drive in to pick up a deer if necessary. He would repay their kindness with a stick of venison sausage.

At the deer registration station, the old man was greeted by a team of biologists with knives in hand. "Yours is the first deer to come in this morning," one said. "Do you mind if we take some samples from the head to test for chronic wasting disease?"

"You can take the whole head if you want to," the old man replied. "I'm mostly concerned with the hindquarters and some meat for sausage."

The biologist gave him a cooperator's patch to sew on his jacket or cap and entered his name in a drawing for some hunting gear donated by sporting goods companies and assocaitons. The odds might not be good, but certainly better than the lottery. There wasn't anything the old man needed, but if he won something, he knew of several young hunters who would appreciate a new gun or bow for Christmas.

Over the years, the old man had learned that there was no such thing as bad venison if the animal is shot up front, properly dressed out, the meat deboned and promptly cared for. He preferred to keep some steaks for himself. The remainder of the boned-out meat went into sausages to be given as gifts. It seemed to him that a venison steak wrapped in bacon and fixed on the grill, served with a baked potato, would be far superior to a lutefisk dinner.

Fortunately, the old man had a very compatible fishing partner who was equally fond of venison. His partner volunteered to help with the butchering, with the old man accepting his offer under the condition that he take half of the deer. Some years it was the other way around.

Thanksgiving Day soon followed, and the old man had much to be thankful for. It may have been his last hunt, but no matter, he could see beyond that. There were grandchildren and great-grandchildren he could still take bank-fishing. If he became a shut-in, he might be able to write some more fish stories, a hobby he enjoyed. And there were sunrises and sunsets over the lake that he viewed from his living room window. But until that final sunset arrived, he would be thankful for some good memories -- including the camaraderie of bygone days at his hunting shack with hunting partners who are long gone.

It may well have been the old man's last hunt, but it was a good one -- just the way he wanted it -- one on one.

"Ethical hunting reaffirms a person's principles. Knowing and intentionally staying within the law keeps the moral compass pointed north. Hunters must not only abide by state and federal regulations, but they must develop their own ethical standards."
-- Tim Eisele, outdoors writer

A sermon by cousin Chats

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 journalistic 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.