The Challenge of the Agnostic Journalist
Madame X writes this interesting article about the challenge agnostic journalists face in times of adversities. They almost have to believe in God because everyone else does. The article can be read in its entirety here.
But just how a functionally agnostic press should react gets trickier when the story they are covering is a large-scale tragedy like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. Most of the victims – and their families, friends, and attempted rescuers – are Christians. When these people fear for their lives, they implore God's aid. When rescued, they give thanks. When mourning another's death, they beg God's help in their present distress, and comfort themselves by anticipating future reunion with the departed.
The arc of the standard human interest story during times of disaster fits religious protagonists to a tee: Anxiety and distress give way to joy and gratitude or pain leavened by religiously expressed solace. This story line makes for moving copy, but it can pose a dilemma for liberal American journalists (even those who sort of believe in a not-very-interfering God), because it may not resemble how the journalist would react under similar divine provocation. The classic questions about the existence of evil and suffering, combined with our pleasure-seeking age's protracted adolescent rebellion against the laws of nature and nature's God, make Satan's choice in "Paradise Lost" to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven more understandable to the unsubmissive modern mind.
So journalists deliver that classic disaster story arc, complete with their protagonists' profoundly moving acknowledgement of dependence upon God. But these stories, with their slightly alien (to network news or CNN ears) language of being "blessed" or accepting God's will, are often reported from a sort of respectful distance on the part of the journalist. From across the divide of religious belief or religious commitment, the secular media view religious people caught up in national news events with a certain incomprehension, but sometimes also with a note of yearning and wonder. Not a bad picture frame through which to view the difference that God makes.
But just how a functionally agnostic press should react gets trickier when the story they are covering is a large-scale tragedy like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. Most of the victims – and their families, friends, and attempted rescuers – are Christians. When these people fear for their lives, they implore God's aid. When rescued, they give thanks. When mourning another's death, they beg God's help in their present distress, and comfort themselves by anticipating future reunion with the departed.
The arc of the standard human interest story during times of disaster fits religious protagonists to a tee: Anxiety and distress give way to joy and gratitude or pain leavened by religiously expressed solace. This story line makes for moving copy, but it can pose a dilemma for liberal American journalists (even those who sort of believe in a not-very-interfering God), because it may not resemble how the journalist would react under similar divine provocation. The classic questions about the existence of evil and suffering, combined with our pleasure-seeking age's protracted adolescent rebellion against the laws of nature and nature's God, make Satan's choice in "Paradise Lost" to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven more understandable to the unsubmissive modern mind.
So journalists deliver that classic disaster story arc, complete with their protagonists' profoundly moving acknowledgement of dependence upon God. But these stories, with their slightly alien (to network news or CNN ears) language of being "blessed" or accepting God's will, are often reported from a sort of respectful distance on the part of the journalist. From across the divide of religious belief or religious commitment, the secular media view religious people caught up in national news events with a certain incomprehension, but sometimes also with a note of yearning and wonder. Not a bad picture frame through which to view the difference that God makes.
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