Throughout this year, COVID 19, Black Lives Matter, and the national election dominated the news, both secular and religious. Noted journalist and commentator Mark Wingfield will join me on the radio this week. We will talk about all this and what it might mean for religion in 2021.
None of these three big stories was on the front page the first week of March when I launched The Meetinghouse radio show. Two FM stations in Glynn County, Georgia, carried the show, but then and now most people listen through a web site, either that of the radio station (rejoice975.com) or The Meetinghouse website (themeetinghouse.net).
Within days of the launch, news broke into public awareness of the murder of Ahmaud Aubery. It happened right there where I was broadcasting, in Glynn County. It ignited the fuse that burned through Louisville to Minneapolis where it blew up into the strongest, deepest movement for racial justice since the days of Martin Luther King, Jr. I devoted numerous commentaries and shows to the matter, to its impact on our community, my congregation, and the country as a whole.
The photograph of President Trump interrupting a public justice demonstration to stand in front of a church and hold aloft a copy of the Bible was, without doubt, the most significant intersection of politics and religion of the year.
Hard in its heels of social justice came news of the COVID. And because the President of the United States did not believe it was a genuine crisis, public health officials found themselves fighting a pandemic in the midst of a political divide. The public—including the religious public—was split over how to respond to the virus. Many times, the whole mess found its way to The Meetinghouse.
The second most important and persistent religion story of the year was the tussle between public worship and public health; and more than once the division found its way to the Supreme Court.
Both major stories made the presidential campaigns that much more dramatic. Republicans following Trump responded one way to the Black Lives Matter and the COVID; Democrats following Joseph Biden responded another way. Biden won the presidential election but Trumpsters won more than was expected of the rest of the ballot. The country ended up as divided as ever; and so did the religious community, it seemed.
What a year it has been to be in print and on the radio!!
Thank you for reading this newsletter; and thank you for listening to the radio show. Few of you did both, but many of you responded with your words of encouragement and support (and occasionally, correction and/or criticism).
Some of you responded also to my end-of-the-year appeal for support—for money!
I revived The Meetinghouse several years ago after suspending it in 2000 (while on the faculty of Georgetown College). The financial burden of this new version of The Meetinghouse has fallen entirely on me (except for the purchase of the airtime down in Georgia). Equipment, materials, books, travel, coaches, consultants, and help of all kinds took a steady flow of my personal money. More than I could afford!
So, I appealed for your help to take The Meetinghouse into the new year, into new media, and into a new and hopefully larger audience.
Never has there been a time when curiosity, ecumenism, and listening to the other was more in need on the religious airways. I have lived in Kentucky and Georgia and will for a time be broadcasting regularly from a studio in North Carolina, and I know religious radio in these areas is dominated (and that is too weak a word!) by pseudo-certainty, fundamentalism, and self-righteousness.
The Meetinghouse is a wonderful voice of compassion, learning, and conversation all within the context of a deep and abiding commitment to Christ and the Christian mission in the world. I thank you for reading, for listening, and for contributing to the flourishing of this labor of love.
God bless you, and God bless of all in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty one.
