Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407210066
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A television commentator last weekend defended the intensity of the O.J. Simpson news coverage as a legitimate expression of national community. By sitting around our televisions at the same time, the commentator asserted, we were participating in a communal rite of self-exploration.
Though I have argued that the Simpson coverage has gone beyond legitimate educational or consciousness-raising purposes, I agree that the media can provide those.
In some ways, television, in particular, and newspapers are the successors to other traditional communal associations.
Our courts provided some of those, of course. In rural areas especially, court day at the county seat was often a major social event.
Trials not only provided public expression to community concerns about fighting crime, they provided a diversion from the day-to-day routine. In a word, they were entertainment.
While following the drama, the spectators talked to each other about not only the trial they were witnessing but a host of other concerns and diversions. Today, those watching the O.J. Simpson proceedings were likely to have to telephone each other, but the process is pretty much the same.
There's no denying that some of the compulsion to congregate for traditional community functions has died off. Some of us still regularly visit a community diner, a neighborhood grocery, the corner gas station to visit with the people who live around us. But those activities are on the endangered activities list of nostalgic old-timers, for the most part.
So, perhaps, is the country's biggest communal activity of them all - weekly worship attendance.
National polls say that churches and synagogues continue to attract a huge percentage of the population each week. In our particular part of the nation, the percentages are undoubtedly higher than the national average - probably half or more of us.
But ask almost any minister and you're likely to hear a familiar lament. Attendance ain't what it used to be. People don't have the commitment they once had to church. Young people just don't care about God any more.
Those of us who have read the commentaries of church leaders of 50 or 100 or 200 years ago know that those complaints aren't new. Attendance may be down from 30 or 40 years ago, but I suspect that the decline ministers sense most strongly - and that hurts the most - has more to do with respect and authority than the number of bodies in the pews.
Whatever the status of the real or perceived declines, religious congregations continue to be powerful influences on community life.
Just last week I attended a community meeting near my home where more than 50 residents got together pledging to work to make it a better place to live. That meeting was initiated by a Baptist minister, and its participants included the local Presbyterian minister. The group's first meeting had been held in a church some of whose congregants formed the core of the new organization.
Though its effects are yet to be seen, there is promise that the new association will benefit not only those who showed up for its inauguration, but everybody else who lives nearby.
While such social action is a perfectly legitimate activity, a church or synagogue works in more universal and at the same time more personal ways. An individual motivated or transformed by religious experience can be a powerful tool in society.
Religious congregations - as a group and as an army of individuals - give voice to community values about life, relationships, identity. They help remind us of our obligations, help us pass on a moral grounding for our children to build upon.
I want my children to understand their obligation to the communities - social, religious, political - to which they belong. That understanding must include the importance of a system of laws and the open, public administration of justice.
As with most of their community duties, they'll get a lot healthier view of their responsibilities if their understanding starts with lessons in a sanctuary rather than a courtroom.
by CNB