This is a Big Story

Premiere Perspective

 The year was 1940 and nearly everyone on the northeast side of the Atlantic was swept up in the most harrowing story of their lives. A British born storyteller did his best to incite Americans audiences over the crisis in Europe. The following lines came at the end of a famous piece of work considered Allied propaganda at its best.

Hello America, I have been watching part of the world be blown to pieces ... I've seen things that make the history of the savages read like Pollyanna legends... {Bombing begins} I can't read the rest of this speech I had because the lights have gone out. I'll just have to talk off the cuff. All that noise you hear is the static. It's death coming to London. Yes, they're coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don't tune me out. Hang on awhile. This is a big story and you're a part of it ... It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come. It's as if the lights were all out everywhere except in America. Keep those lights burning! ... Hello America. Hang onto your lights. You're the only lights left in the world.

 Finale of the movie ‘Foreign Correspondent'

The impending war of good versus evil was absorbing a largely churchgoing generation. The use of biblical imagery empowered news reporters, ministers and storytellers to tap into the spiritual nerves of the masses.

It is well-known how Winston Churchill's radio addresses shaped wartime perceptions. Even the artist's posters and popular music of the period affected the War Effort. Here we will look at the radio correspondent who gave firsthand impressions, the theologian who provided a spiritual outlook, and the filmmaker who engendered patriotism. Though their medium is differentiated, their motives are shared – ‘let's do our part and work together to see our way through this war.' In 1940 three figures unknown to each other were bound together by a common war: Ed Murrow, Harry Emerson Fosdick and, believe it or not, Alfred Hitchcock.

These three men demonstrate how responsibly presented truth can be used to enthuse others through modern medium such as video and the web. Let's look at their credible use of news perspectives, theological inquiry and storytelling.

Murrow, the Devoted Correspondent

Timeliness of information and the truthfulness of it could have prevented Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and a host of other disasters. Yet insofar as even timely truth cannot always thwart the inevitable, discerning voices can be on hand to interpret the mayhem that follows. Edward Roscoe Murrow was one such herald.

Ed Murrow gained great acclaim in the 1940s as a CBS correspondent stationed in London before the war began. He is unquestionably the most influential and inspirational correspondent of all time. The author of The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, once observed that Murrow was "one of those rare legendary figures who was as good as his myth." Having the ordinary voice of the reliable neighbor he gave first hand impressions of the grave events in wartime London. At the dawn of live reporting he convinced CBS to allow Murrow to train disciples out of mostly young men in his ground-breaking methods.

Eleven men and one woman collectively awakened the world during the crucial days and at pivotal locations of the Second World War. These correspondents put their personal lives on hold, lived at the war's front, were on ships that were sunk, on trains that were stopped by Nazis, on planes that crashed and were in buildings that were bombed. They became the target of Gestapo, air raids, and spies; one's wife was assassinated. All of them knew danger and what it was like to flee for their lives. In the case of Murrow, the Nazi's tried more intently to bomb his radio position than they did the Prime Minister's headquarters. To speak their names would sound like the Radio News Hall of Fame.

Just as a nation needs reliable correspondents to interpret dangers that threaten their shores, Christians need correspondents who will responsibly interpret the events that affect their communities. Over the last few years, I have seen the web tragically underestimated when it could be a healthy lifeline in dark times. Misguided voices have risen up in our stead.

Thus, a dearth of practicing writers and news reporters exists at this hour. Where are the able journalists? Needed are those who will contribute in an increasing measure to the cause of the gospel. The global discipling community needs disciples of Christ who will lead the way in an urgent and honorable use of ubiquitous possibilities like the web. Just as the ancient Christians used parchment, and as Murrow and his boys used broadcast radio, capable disciples with spiritual perspective should find ways to tell the good news with care and responsibility. Ed Murrow leaves us two statements to help us have balance while pursuing the possibilities of media. First, he asserted, “The instrument can teach, it can illuminate, it can even inspire." Perhaps, more importantly he said, “Keep your perspective! Remember that just because your voice reached halfway around the world, you are no wiser than when it reached to the end of the living room.”

Fosdick, the Observant Theologian

Intelligence played an enormous part in the war effort. The historian was important, the weatherman was vital, and the engineer was esteemed. Even the mathematician contributed to the war effort deciphering intercepted messages from the Germans. Another form of inquiry, theology, asked the question, ‘What is God doing?' But who would have thought that this overlooked wartime role would fall to an open pacifist?

In 1944 Harry Emerson Fosdick published a collection of twenty-five of his wartime sermons in A Great Time To Be Alive. A nationally known liberal Baptist, Harry Emerson Fosdick was the minister at Riverside Church in New York City. He was one of the goliaths among Christian thinkers for the 20th-century, having an amazing knack at comparing current events to those in Scripture. In this small way he contributed to the culture the so-called greatest generation.

In thirty years Western civilization had succumbed to two world wars that would total nearly one hundred million deaths. Fosdick saw the first war as an indicator of liberalism's near spiritual bankruptcy but now his attention was on the Second World War. According to the sermons of Dr. Fosdick, this calamity was brought on by, among other things, self-reliance, racism and anti-Semitism. In fact, he boldly associated prejudice in America as the spiritual cousin of the philosophy of “hitlerism” that “tempts every powerful nation.” He asserted, “You cannot kill a philosophy with a gun; you must destroy a philosophy with a philosophy – an ethical evil with an ethical right.” Henry Fosdick blasted the duplicities and inconsistencies in the American culture showing Christ as the exemplar human, Savior and the Lord.

Knowing the situation at hand was complex, Fosdick spoke of a God who was tutoring mankind in both a “ghastly time to be alive” and “a great time to be alive.” So he addressed the conscious theodicy of the 1940's, ‘Why would a good God let this terrible war happen?' Harry Fosdick's thesis was that God communicates most loudly through the tragedies that humans cause to achieve his own aims.

In church we pray that the world may be saved, but commonly when we leave the church we still try to save the world without changing it … Then history, tired and impatient of our lethargy and our reluctance to alter anything, hurls us out of peaceful decades into a maelstrom like this, crying, Now you have got to change! And when that kind of era comes, like it or not, it is a great time to be alive.

A “maelstrom” is a large-scale turbulent event marked by confusion and strong feelings leading to violent reactions; a firestorm is the small-scale equivalent. In both global and community events, disorientation necessitates reliable voices to reinterpret the times. Since Fosdick's death we have had many global, national, political and spiritual equivalents of maelstrom and firestorms. It remains a question to me if we actually have seen a comparable quality of theologians who understand the impact of critical events in our spiritual lives.

Unlike the times of Harry Fosdick the newer medium of the Internet enables even the well meaning simpleton to function as effectively and loudly as the spiritually insightful person, thus furthering the madness and lengthening the aftermath. Pied piper's voices without life credentials lead souls nowhere. With acronym names and masked lives they provide the seekers with a glut of opinions, hearsay, and commiseration. Who will attempt to answer the question of what God is doing in these dark days? I sometimes wonder what Harry Emerson Fosdick would do. I think he would see God.

The ability that Harry Fosdick had to discern spiritual matters when the world was under the threat of Axis terrorism is clearly needed today. Terrorism is once again an issue but our world is so much more complex. We are in need of interpreters to spell out what is really happening from the perspective of faith, and not just what the headlines tell us. And while we cannot put words into Fosdick's mouth, we could speculate on what observant future historians might say about our times --- ‘the zeitgeist of Western civilization in the early twenty-first century was summarized by the fear of terrorism mixed in with popular victim mongering and authority bashing. The combination was lethal.' In any event, that's my perspective and I appreciate Fosdick as a source of inspiration for discerning my own generation. For if we are unaware of the patterns in our world today we will lose the race of making disciples out of the world before it succeeds in making its disciples out of us Christians.

Fosdick is known for, among other things, demonstrating the practicality of the Gospel preaching for real life situations. He pioneered the topical use of the Bible as a relevant guide for confronting many forms of social evil. In later years, preachers like Martin Luther King imitated him. If Harry Fosdick had brought his elucidations into the south after the war he may have been martyred and he possible could have pushed the civil rights movement sooner.

Great epiphanies about the meaning of each of the times we live in await us if we are like Fosdick who looked for God when peace was elusive. Though I think he missed the mark in more creedal matters, in his ability to see God at work in the world he was exceptional. Not everyone should aspire to be an intellectual like Harry Emerson Fosdick but every Christian should be looking to see and help others see God in the crucial events of their lives.

Hitchcock, the Avid Storyteller

There is something so powerful in our lives if we catch it; it is the myth we live in. The term myth can mean the reality of our lives that is disguised to us or to others. Some aspects of life are larger and more real than we allow ourselves to believe. Parables and other stories enable us to see the importance of recognizing what is happening around us and fulfilling our duty. Alfred Hitchcock understood the role of fictional storytelling in conveying larger than life truths.

For quite a few years Foreign Correspondent was considered for filmmaking because of the real-life exploits of a foreign correspondent from a previous war. As time passed, particularly in the late 1930s, the rise of Nazism in Germany held many in Europe hostage to fear. Foreseeing an inevitable world war, Hitchcock adapted the true life character of the original newsman to a newer situation.

In the later part of 1940, five days before Britain was attacked by Germany, Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent was completed. The British director had already moved to America and must have sensed the brilliance of the final scene which is considered by many to be one of the most inspiring scenes in movie history.

American correspondent Johnny Jones, played by Joel McCrea, was signaling alarm to the world over the airwaves as bombs in Britain were coming down all around him. (It is interesting that Ed Murrow is the closest true-to-life parallel for this part.) The film went out the very next month. It had all the drama of a great movie and the relevance of a newsreel wrapped into one. It was the precursor to reality television and even Joseph Goebbels, minister of German propaganda in Germany, was astounded. The film was nominated for six Oscars, but more than that, it fueled patriotism on two continents. It touched the mythical nerves of everyone wrapped up in the war effort. Whatever one's position on war and global conflict, we can't escape the notion that both the storyteller, and/or the average Joe depicted as the correspondent, can play an important role in the world provided they have the right message.

John Eldridge's Waking the Dead comes from the premise that we don't see life as it really is. We are dwarfed by the mundane details of our life and can completely miss the script that we are living out. This is one reason why The Lord of the Rings film connected with audiences. People searching for meaning for their lives and are looking for their role in a bigger big story. When regular folk really pay attention to the story of our lives we will come as alive as Hitchcock's Johnny Jones. And just as the character of Jones was waking Americans from their slumber, disciples have an even bigger story to press. The recent release of The Passion of the Christ reveals is evidence that this story is never old. The Gospel is still the most dominant story of our time. It is the “big story and you're a part of it.”

The gospel can be examined and communicated from many more perspectives than ever before. The editor of the church bulletin tells what God is doing or reveals setbacks from the perspective of faith. He or she is a kingdom correspondent. The trained teacher gives us useful applications for our lives and the preacher to stir us into action. At other times the gospel is confirmed by the historian who interprets past events accurately. The storyteller can use fiction and non-fiction and come through our back door in creative surprise. Christianity has always had disciples like Luke the historian, Paul the theologian and John and apocalyptic writer, each conveying to the reader that the gospel story that they are living out is bigger even than this life.

At the onset of the last World War Ed Murrow, Harry Emerson Fosdick and Alfred Hitchcock audaciously used their talents to awaken others to a very real story. Murrow provided trustworthy firsthand report, Fosdick offered up promising spiritual insight, and Hitchcock put the events into a compelling story. In dark and troubled times reliable and friendly voices are needed in reporting the news, doing theology and conveying the crucial features of this real story, even if it is fleshed in a fictional one.

It is my goal to use any available means to say to other Christians, in a Johnny Jones sort of way, “Hang onto your lights. You're the only lights left in the world.” Whether we are American, European, African, Asian or Australian, I believe this to be true.