Apocalyptic questions for the press by Terry Mattingly

[David Virtue]

Apocalyptic questions for the press

By Terry Mattingly

Surely it was the strangest question a journalist asked on the day the
world changed.

The mid-day mass at her New York City parish drew a larger crowd than
usual, Peggy Noonan reported in the Wall Street Journal, and the people
on the kneelers looked "stricken." As the rite ended, the columnist and
speechwriter sought out a neighbor. Her family was OK.

"Did a rat stand on its hind legs this morning?", asked Noonan.
The Park Avenue woman said "no."

This was a question with a history. In the mid-1990s, this neighbor
told Noonan about her growing sense of dread about New York City's
future. Out of the blue, she said: "If ever something bad is going to
happen to the city, I pray each day that God will give me a sign. That
he will let me see a rat stand up on the sidewalk. So I'll know to
gather the kids and go."

In 1998, Noonan wrote that she too was convinced someone was about to
do "the big, terrible thing to New York or Washington." It might be a
nuclear bomb, chemicals or germs.

"Three billion men, and it takes only a dozen bright and evil ones to
harness and deploy," she wrote, in an essay reprinted after 9/11. "What
are the odds it will happen? Put it another way: What are the odds it
will not? Low. Nonexistent, I think."

What was the answer? Noonan urged readers to, "Pray. Unceasingly. Take
the time."

It wasn't a typical question and she didn't offer a typical
journalistic answer. But when the flying bombs hit the World Trade
Center, things turned upside down in public life and in the news, said
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard. This attack did more than shake the
White House and the U.S. Congress. It shook America's soul.

"We left an era of peace and prosperity and considerable decadence," he
told a Baptist Press student journalism conference in Nashville. Now,
the nation faces "war and economic trouble and serious issues that will
force us to think on a much larger scale. ... Our culture changed, a
little bit. These changes may not be permanent, but they are certainly
big right now."

Journalists need to consider apocalyptic questions that once would have
seemed insane. Here are a few I have heard lately:

* If bin Laden wants to conquer the Islamic world, toppling "sinful"
and "Westernized" Muslim regimes in the process, what would the U.S.
and NATO do if his revolution seemed poised to take the Arabian
peninsula? What are the implications for Jerusalem if bin Laden
captures Mecca and Medina?

* Has anyone considered the implications of a blast leveling the
Vatican during the current month-long synod between Pope John Paul II
and the world's Catholic bishops?

* According to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, the real war is
"not between civilizations, but within them -- between those Muslims,
Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews with a modern and progressive
outlook and those with a medieval one." This raises a crucial question:
How many elite progressives assume that orthodox believers who defend
ancient traditions - this pope leaps to mind -- are spiritually on the
side of terror and repression?

* In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a commandment -- or "fatwa" -- that
Muslims should kill as many Americans as possible, broadening his
earlier call for the deaths of American soldiers. What would happen if
Muslims who say bin Laden has distorted their faith issued a "fatwa"
against him? Will anyone dare?

Barnes asked this question: "Has President Bush been called by God to
be president and lead the nation at this particular time? ... Is this
why he is here? Does God have him here for a purpose?" Barnes noted
that the circuitous path that led the one-time party boy and under-
achieving businessman to the White House has led some to speculate that
"God's hand is on this man and on his life, as he deals with this war
or terrorism."

All kinds of people will, of course, disagree about how to answer
questions of this kind. But it will be hard for journalists to ignore
the fact that people are asking them.


Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) teaches at Palm Beach Atlantic College
and is senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian
Colleges & Universities. He writes this weekly column for the Scripps
Howard News Service.

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