In the 1950s, we had Halford E. Luccock writing the back page of “The Christian Century,” a journal of more or less progressive Christian news, scholarship, and opinion that still comes out every week. During Luccock’s time, readers went immediately to the back page to see what he was up to, much like people look through the New Yorker for the cartoons before turning to whatever else might be there.
Luccock took the penname Simeon Stylites, a fifth century leader of Syria who, it is told, sat upon a column 30 feet high and observed the passing scene. From that vantage point, Simeon spoke wise and relevant words about what was happening in the land. He has been called the first columnist by at least one of our latter day practitioners of the craft.
In about 600 words per week, Luccock’s bountiful imagination and nimble pen gave us such items as the congregation of St. John’s by the Gas Pump and the parishioner who, after hearing another high toned sermon, growled, “Our minister scratches us where we don’t itch.” Or he pointed out that the Christians of Ethiopia portray saints as black and devils as white, reflecting Africa’s experience with white people.
For our purposes, I refer us to the week Luccock presented a wayward postman. For 45 years, this dedicated public servant faithfully delivered each piece of mail to its proper recipient. The president of the bank got his copy of the Wall Street Journal, for instance, and the radical labor organizer got his issue of the Daily Worker; the devout Methodist lady received her copy of the church newsletter, and the skeptic next store got his Atheist Journal. So it went all along the postman’s route.
But on his last day on the job, this postman thought it would be good to give people access to points of view other than their own. The banker got the Daily Worker, the radical labor leader got Nation’s Business, the Methodists got Roman Catholic publications and Catholics got Protestant magazines. It was like this all over town. A prominent surgeon even received a Christian Science publication advocating prayer over surgery.
Luccock’s wayward postman causes me to wonder what would happen if a soon to retire technician in the television industry, thinking to allow those immersed in one political world to become acquainted with its opposite, decided to give everyone watching Fox News an evening’s worth of CNN and everyone watching CNN an evening of Fox News.
Would habitual Fox News watchers begin to appreciate that our president appears more loyal to a foreign adversary than to the United States which he has sworn to protect and defend? Would dedicated CNN viewers entertain the notion that our president’s seemingly disloyal words and deeds and his apparent lackey-like fealty to Vladimir Putin are the clever machinations of a brilliant leader who pursues higher ideals than anyone can imagine?
With millions of us exposed to the other side of the political divide, would a refreshing era of national goodwill settle upon us? Or would it be more like what Luccock describes at the end of the wayward postman’s last rounds? He tells us there were large numbers of violent complaints, many cases of apoplexy, lots of high blood pressure and spates of minor calamities.
I wonder what my reaction would be. Apoplexy seems about right.
Bob Jones is the former minister of the Guerneville and Monte Rio Community Church.
