Pastor's Corner: The written word

As Christians, we are considered to be "people of the book." Our identity is formed by one particular book, the Bible. This book is actually many books, of course, written by many people over many years. Together, the books of the Bible reveal to us the nature of God, the person of Jesus, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.

We are shaped by Scripture. I, as a Lutheran woman living in Montana, have something deeply in common with the Pentecostal bus driver in Brazil and the Catholic garment worker in Vietnam and the Amish housewife in Ohio. We all share the same holy stories, and our lives sing the glory of the God of Abraham, Sarah, Peter, and Mary (at least, we try!), in our native tongue.

The Bible is a gift to us believers in so many ways, but as the Havre Daily News goes down to publishing just once a week, I have been reflecting on one particular gift: the unity that a shared text gives us. Christians from around the globe and throughout the centuries share the Bible, and that brings us together across so many differences-cultural, political (Lord, make it so!), linguistic, class, education level. In a similar way, having a shared source of news brings us together. Like Christians don't always agree on how to interpret our shared biblical text, us Hi-Liners might not always agree on how to interpret the news that's been reported, but at least we have been sharing a news source. At least we've had that in common.

Experts - from armchairs to universities - have been saying for a long time that the sharp divide in where Americans get their news has played a big role in fracturing our common bonds. Havre isn't immune from that phenomenon, but at least we've still had a local source of news that everyone could draw on. While rejoicing that we'll still have Thursday's paper, I grieve that a major source of shared news is diminishing-especially in an election year! And I give thanks for the hard work of the Havre Daily News reporters, publishers, editors, photographers and delivery folks. My husband and I have been subscribers since we first moved to Havre over four years ago, and the paper has been an invaluable way for us to get to know this community we now call home.

A phrase attributed to the theologian Karl Barth is that a preacher should keep the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The idea is that a good preacher, while always faithful to sacred scripture, should have a sense of how the Bible speaks to the present context and contemporary challenges reported in the news. Barth, who challenged the German churches of his day to reject Nazism and any Christianity that embraced such a hateful ideology, knew how hard this could be. And while Christians wouldn't ever claim that any newspaper is the Gospel or a sacred text, good reporting can and does help preachers and followers of Jesus see how the Gospel can be shared in a way that is relevant to today's needs, and how its message is still Good News in a world in desperate need for good news. Thanks again to all who labor to make the Havre Daily News possible.

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Pastor Megan Hoewisch

First Lutheran Church