View full sizeThe Rev. Kenneth ChalkerMay 21 has come and gone. And despite predictions of worldwide apocalypse, we are still here.
I am not surprised, just continually grateful to God for the gift of life and the privilege of living it.
Harold Camping, the California founder of Family Radio, gained significant national attention because of his prediction that the Rapture would occur on May 21 -- a literal, silly, decidedly American, mindless interpretation of Thessalonians, Chapter 4.
Camping, who now says the world will end on Oct. 21, is an 89-year-old tragedy of biblical illiteracy, wrapped in the guise of a faithful disciple. He is a religious huckster in a suit who ought to be held accountable for fraud.
That will not happen anytime soon because to a degree the American media, who "create" the Harold Campings in our consciousness, are anxious to make faith look stupid and secularism look sensible. It all sells. Therefore, the media need the Harold Campings of the world to help make the assertion that ALL persons of faith are wackos -- just wackos to a different degree.
This is part of the reason that today in America voices applying faith to life in cogent, helpful, hopeful, uplifting, community-building ways all over this nation are not being heard. It is not because there are not such voices. It is that those voices do not get media attention no matter the merit of their message, interpretation and credibility of witness.
What does get attention are the religious voices that are -- simply put -- bizarre, ignorant and even criminal. Such out-of-the-ordinary voices get this attention because of the media's agenda to characterize all adherents to a belief that life and creation is purposeful and stems from a purposeful Creator as ignorant and guilty of criminal neglect of the important and real issues in life.
Why else would there be national attention given to a former hotel manager turned self-proclaimed pastor of 35 persons in Florida who burns a Koran? Why else would there be national attention focused on an absurd, disbarred lawyer turned self-proclaimed pastor who protests funerals of American servicemen and -women all the while claiming such persons died in the line of duty as a punishment from God on a nation that seeks greater inclusion?
No one is going to answer these questions with anything other than pious rhetoric of politically correct "denial." And as the denials come forward, the media focus will continue to be on more and more religious "wackiness" and ever more inattentive to the voices representing the spirit-enriching journey of faith seeking understanding and on faithful people building a better world.
It is one of the great mysteries of life that the bizarre gets our attention. It is one of the great tragedies of life that the bizarre can be manipulated by designing minds so that the bizarre appears to be the standard and the norm.
It is also one of the great heartbreaks of life that too many people in every age have seemingly little ability to discern the cheap, tawdry and fake in issues of faith and continually miss what is a pearl of great price.
Part of this is because there is less and less attention to study, reflection and understanding of heritage when interpreting Scripture in any tradition and then applying faith principles to life issues. The result is that the world will hear of the beliefs of a religious fraud like Harold Camping, and not be familiar with the teachings of a Desmond Tutu.
There is a phrase that most all of us have heard and used. "Consider the source." This is good advice for evaluating many things.
When it comes to religion however, the "sources" that are getting national attention with their absurd predictions or endorsement of all manner of ignorance and cruelty in the guise of some word of God, are chosen for attention according to those who have the unhappy opinion that there is no such thing as a meaningful, life-enhancing faith for our time.
The Rev. Kenneth W. Chalker is senior pastor of University Circle United Methodist Church in Cleveland.