Journalism – an awkward calling

CHICHESTER, England -- Terry Anderson walked through refugee camps in Lebanon, filling his eyes, ears, nostrils and memory with death, disease and destruction.

He counted bodies. He interviewed evil people and innocent people. He wrote it all down, because that's what journalists do. Sometimes, he was able to give a suffering mother his water bottle or share food with a child. Then he had to go back to his desk and write.

"As a Christian, that's not enough. I want to do more for these people," said Anderson, speaking to a global conference of Christians who work in secular newsrooms. "But sometimes, as a journalist, you have to say, 'It's time for me to step back, now. I have to go write my story and that is the most good that I can do. That is my calling.' "

Then came March 16, 1985, when the chief Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press became the subject of global headlines. The details are well known. He was snatched off a Beirut street and stuffed in the trunk of a car. He spent six years and nine months in captivity, sometimes in agonizing isolation, sometimes locked up with other prisoners.

But it was a question poised by the Rev. Benjamin Weir that served as the seed for Anderson's emotional dialogue with the 150-plus journalists — from 30 nations — who gathered last week at University College in Chichester, south of London. Soon after they met, in chains, the Presbyterian missionary asked: "How can you be a Christian and a journalist?"

Anderson continues to ponder that question, as a professor in the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. He is convinced that God does not fear journalists.

"The search for truth is not, in any way, in conflict with the truth that I know as a follower of Jesus," said Anderson, who is an outspoken Catholic. "But, you know you cannot be a Christian and a bad journalist. That doesn't work at all. You cannot practice Christianity and a journalism that takes away dignity, that has no compassion, that exploits pain and misery. That's not good journalism and it's certainly not anything that Christ taught."

Anderson wasn't the only person with a troubling story to tell, either in a speech or in the off-the-record sessions in which participants could pray with, or debate, each other. Obviously, journalists face spiritual questions in Bosnia, Rwanda, Jerusalem or Littleton, Colo. But it's also possible to crack while covering bishops, bureaucrats or bond markets.

The on-the-record speeches were intriguing enough. There was the anchorwoman from India who is leading a crusade against "dowry deaths" in which in-laws murder young wives. A journalist from war-torn South Sudan said he wants to start a newspaper in a region that doesn't even have telephones. A television-news executive from the American Midwest told how she quit, rather than accept a corporate order to stop teaching a Bible class in her spare time.

The conference was organized by Gegrapha (www.gegrapha.org ), a worldwide fellowship for Christians who are journalists. The name is Greek, and means, "I have written." It is found in the Gospel of John, where Pontius Pilate is asked why he put a sign on the cross claiming that Jesus is the king of the Jews. Pilate said: "What I have written, I have written."

The host was journalist David Aikman of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., who is best known for his 23-year career as a Time foreign correspondent. He stressed that the conference had no agenda other than to encourage professionals who often feel attacked in their churches and misunderstood in their newsrooms. Aikman defined journalists as people who "get rebuked for what they write and what they say, or who get rebuked for what they don't write and what they don't say."

These tensions are real, said Anderson. Nevertheless, he urged the journalists to remember that they, too, must learn to pray: "Forgive us our trespasses." "The most important one is the daily trespass into other people's lives, which we are required to do as journalists," he said. "That's just a part of our jobs. It can be done badly. It can be done carelessly. It can be done without respect for dignity."

God is in the church-state details

Vice President Al Gore has faith in the power of faith, as long as faith-based groups that take government money are willing to forgo asking people to embrace any particular faith.

Hopefully, details of this generic, non-sectarian, yet life-changing brand of faith – faith in faith itself – will emerge later in the race for the White House.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. George W. Bush wants government agencies to be free to financially support all kinds of faith-based groups, without discriminating - this is a quote – against "Methodists or Mormons or Muslims, or good people of no faith at all." Think about that for a minute. Somewhere or another, Bush has found some faith-based ministries that are led by faithful agnostics, and good ones at that.

The GOP superstar clearly has some church-state details to work out, including a few legislative proposals that have a prayer of surviving a test in the U.S. Supreme Court.

It's a sign of the times that so many politicos are trying to find a legal way to breathe spiritual power into the body politic.

"Whether they are religious or not, most Americans are hungry for a deeper connection between politics and moral values; many would say 'spiritual values,' " said Gore, in the sermon that opened this latest round of church-state negotiations.

Trouble is, no one has found a way to harness the power of faith without letting religious believers share their faith, including the messy details. In other words, it's hard to use government funds to light revival fires in human hearts without giving other people heartburn. The vice president knows this because he is a "moderate" Southern Baptist, a species of Baptist that has faithfully defended a high wall between church and state.

Nevertheless, Gore has boldly admitted that faith-based groups have a unique ability to change lives, especially when dealing with thorny issues such as drug addiction, homelessness, youth violence and the rehabilitation of criminals. These groups offer more than money and moral advice.

"I believe that faith in itself is sometimes essential to spark a personal transformation," he said.

Yet hearts are rarely set aflame by the kind of vague faith that passes muster with lawyers and legislators. It sounds like the vice president wants faith-based groups to be able to use the power of faith, as long as they preach a nonjudgmental, toothless faith that makes few, if any, claims of authority in this life or any life to come.

Gore has, for example, stressed that faith-based groups must not require participants to attend "religious observances." Above all, those who seek government funds must avoid the appearance of proselytizing. In other words, these ministries must allow participants to opt out of the very parts of their programs – worship services, prayer meetings, Bible studies, accountability groups – that focus on conversion and on the transformation of hearts. These ministers are supposed to help sinners, but they can't preach to sinners, pray with sinners or ask them to repent of their sins.

Bush has been using remarkably similar language, while simultaneously seeking to please pluralists and court religious conservatives.

Prison Fellowship, Teen Challenge and other faith-based ministries are united by a "belief that no one is finally a failure or a victim, because everyone is the child of a loving and merciful God - a God who counts our tears and lifts our heads," said Bush. "The goal of these faith-based groups is not just to provide services, it is to change lives. And lives are changed."

While Gore is vague about how faith can be expressed in programs involving public funds, Bush is being vague about where the money would come from to pay the bills. He has, in this era of projected budget surpluses, suggested offering new tax incentives to promote a wave of giving to charities and religious ministries.

Bush has stressed that his administration "will never ask an organization to compromise its core values and spiritual mission to get the help it needs." He has not addressed how this would effect worship, religious education and evangelism.

These questions will not go away. As the old saying goes: God is in the details.

Chechen bandits with empty souls

Dimitri Petrov quickly realized that the men who shot out the tires on his humanitarian-aid truck weren't fighting for the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya.

The situation was worse than that. The gunmen were bandits. They weren't interested in politics or religion or debates about freedom and international law. They didn't care if the food and medicine was destined for Moslems or Christians or anyone else in the village of Aki-Yurt, on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, back on Sept. 20, 1997.

"The bandits have no nationality. They have absolutely nothing in their souls," said Petrov, a Russian national who was working for the Baltimore-based International Orthodox Christian Charities when he was kidnapped.

After moving Petrov and his colleague Dmitri Penkovsky five times, the raiders consigned them to a cold, dark, unventilated cement pit hidden under a metal plate and a parked car. A previous prisoner, probably from the Russian military, had carved marks in the wall trying to chart the days of his ordeal.

Once a day, or less, the relief workers were fed potato soup and bread. Penkovsky was released after six months. Petrov, who believes he suffered a heart attack while in captivity, was set free after 11 months. Leaders of their relief agency – citing security concerns – declined to answer questions about the terms of their release.

There are parts of this world too dangerous and too remote to be featured in the tiny video universe of the evening news. It didn't make news when these humanitarian workers were kidnapped, and it wasn't news when they were released. But it was news in the churches in which people prayed for them, day after day, rite after rite. It's a strange day when church bulletins contain about as much life-and-death international news as many newspapers.

The remote mountains of Chechnya, located between the Black and Caspian seas, may look like heaven, but they've a slice of hell right now. Humanitarian workers and missionaries vanish and die on a regular basis. More than 40,000 people have died in a savage, but largely unnoticed, war since Chechen nationalists declared their independence from the Russian Federation in 1991. Petrov said that, at the most, the secessionist government controls a mere third of the state. The rest is up for grabs.

"It is an area of the world that is just as violent and unstable as the Balkans, if not more so," said Alexis Troubetzkoy, the International Orthodox Christian Charities representative for Russia. "It is an area of incredible beauty, but also of incredible hatreds. ^?The conflict there is so complex and so desperate that it is almost impossible to describe."

The situation has degenerated to the point that "it is the bandits who have the real power. It is just evil. They will do anything. Thieves are stealing from thieves," said Petrov, speaking through a translator during a prayer service with supporters in the Baltimore area.

The result was a chaotic game of hide-and-seek in a land in which the economy is in ruins and civic order is a cruel joke. At one point, another cell of bandits attempted to kidnap them away from their original captors, said Penkovsky. This is what the bandits do for a living, he explained. "They steal people."

They also kill. During their captivity, they heard their captives discuss the status of other prisoners. A pair of Baptist captives did not fare as well. One is still missing. The other was killed and his head left in a garbage bin, said Penkovsky.

While their captors did attempt to browbeat them into converting to Islam, Petrov and Penkovsky both said they are convinced that their kidnappers were inspired by greed, not political, cultural or spiritual convictions. This wasn't about religion – it was about money. It wasn't about politics – it was about raw power.

But pray for Chechnya, the men said. Prayer may be the only option left.

"People keep telling us that our release was a miracle," said Penkovsky. "The longer we are free and the more we learn, the more we believe this is true. This was a miracle. It takes a miracle to survive in Chechnya."

Caught in the Columbine crossfire

Heidi Johnson didn't volunteer to fight in America's culture wars, she got caught in the crossfire in the Columbine High School library.

A crowd of preachers, political activists, rock musicians and boisterous teens became extremely quiet last week when the willowy 16-year-old spoke at a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington. She is one of several survivors who has spoken at religious rallies and conventions and faced waves of media interviews. Still, she seemed poignantly out of place in the marble-and-gilt environs of a U.S. Senate caucus room.

She spoke quickly, keeping her voice under tight control as she moved through the minefield of her memories. April 20 was a normal day. She went to the library at lunch, as usual. She heard explosions. The shots drew closer. Then the gunners were right there, killing the kids who were under the library tables. The story hasn't changed. It was real.

"I saw things that no one should every have to see. My innocence was lost," said Johnson, at a rally urging students to back a Nov. 17 effort to spread the Ten Commandments in public schools, using T-shirts, book covers and signs.

"When kids are killing kids, it's time to go back to the basics," she said.

People keep asking Johnson and other survivors the same questions. But there are so many questions she can't answer – including many of her own. She still isn't sure exactly what happened. It was hard to hear, in the cacophony of gunfire and taunts and screams and sobs. Johnson said she has "blanked some of it out" of her mind.

Many ask about the exchange between Cassie Bernall and her killer. Witnesses have said that a gunman asked, "Do you believe in God?" Bernall said, "Yes, I believe in God." The killer laughed and said, "Why?", then killed her. But some people claim he asked, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?", and blame the media for covering this up. Even more elaborate stories are circulating at rallies and on the Internet.

Johnson said she doesn't remember, but said other witnesses have told her they heard: "Do you believe in God?" No one knows why Eric Harris – who Johnson said was doing most of the talking – asked the question.

"It really doesn't matter. It wasn't really him talking," said Johnson. "When I saw his face and looked in his eyes, he just wasn't there. There was no one there. ... I believe he asked that because he was possessed. That question came from somewhere else."

In the weeks after the massacre, some commentators – secular and religious – have talked openly about evil and even the demonic. Some have quoted Pope John Paul II, who believes the principalities and powers of this age have created a "culture of death."

The killers, ultimately, were responsible for their actions, argued veteran speechwriter Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal. But they were symbolic figures. Children are like fish swimming in toxic images, ideas and values, she said. Some of the fish get sick.

Using news reports, Noonan drew a small pool of ink from this sea, containing: "...was found strangled and is believed to have been sexually molested. ...took the stand to say the killer was smiling the day the show aired. ...said the procedure is, in fact, legal infanticide. ...court battle over who owns the frozen sperm. ...contains songs that call for dominating and even imprisoning women. ...died of lethal injection. ...had threatened to kill her babies. ..." And so forth and so on.

"What walked into Columbine High School," said Noonan, "was the culture of death."

Another Columbine student – one of the dead – made a similar point at last week's rally. A speaker read a letter from the mother of Rachel Scott, who was one of Columbine's most outspoken young Christians. The letter contained an entry from her daughter's journal, written days before her death.

"I'm dying," wrote Scott, describing the despair felt by many young people. "Quickly my soul leaves, slowly my body withers. It isn't suicide. I consider it homicide. The world you have created has led to my death."