By David Yount
Scripps Howard News Service
Whenever I can, I leave the security of my computer keyboard and talk to church groups about the subjects of my books and columns. A writer's world can become a dream world. Better to test one's faith against the reality of other people's experience.
I have yet to accept a speaking engagement without members of the audience pulling me aside to ask for some personal advice. Most often the request is this: "What can I say to console a friend or loved one who has suffered a serious loss?"
Over time, I have learned to reply that Christian faith is not about consolation, but about facing adversity with confidence.
Karl Marx could not have been more wrong when he rapped religion as the "opiate of the masses." Rather, it is a faith that faces facts with eyes wide open. We cannot sugarcoat adversity when the founder of our faith suffered torture and death on a cross, yet managed to forgive his persecutors.
My family can tell you that I am a chronic complainer about even minor adversities. But I have learned not to air my annoyances in public, because friends invariably top me with much greater grievances in their own lives.
At the moment, the worldwide economic recession has given us all something serious to complain about – the loss of savings, health insurance, a job, or a home, to mention just a few. What's worse, a majority of American heads of households today are facing this recession alone. By contrast, during the Great Depression of the 1930s the vast majority of Americans were supported by marriage or family.
Fortunately, the Bible offers plenty of examples of people who confronted hard times, yet prevailed through faith and hope.
Preachers know that adversity offers them the opportunity to recall those stories and persuade their congregations that God is still in control of their lives.
Baptist pastor Kevin McBride in New Hampshire says of today's churchgoers: "Their attention has been piqued again. Their eyes and ears are opened up to say, 'Maybe I forgot something. Maybe I haven't been listening as well as I should have been. And maybe it's time to readjust my focus.'"
Even the Internet is addressing the current crisis as a test of Christian confidence. As early as last September, the most popular sermon on the Web was asking "What Would Jesus Do When the Dow Drops 700 points?"
Pastors are rushing to understand their members' personal finances. However, in a recent poll of 3,500 Southern Baptist ministers, only one in four guessed that their congregants were burdened by a "significant amount of personal debt."
We have yet to see whether this recession pulls us together as a nation, or tears us apart as each citizen seeks his or her own personal advantage.
St. Paul's prescription applies today more than ever. To meet the challenge of adversity we will need not only the virtues of faith and hope, but charity toward all.
(David Yount's new book is "How the Quakers Invented America" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.)
