No More Time Magazine For Me

Excerpt from Religious Communities Hardly Score with TIME

By Matt Friedeman
May 5, 2006

(AgapePress) - "Here's our list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world," says the latest issue of TIME Magazine.

As Joel Belz of World Mag Blog suggests, only three on the TIME list could be deemed religious leaders -- the Pope, Muqtada al-Sadr of Iraq, and Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria Indeed, notes Belz, "TIME lists 27 'artists and entertainers,' 16 'scientists and thinkers,' 22 'leaders and revolutionaries,' 21 'heroes and pioneers,' and 23 'builders and titans.'" And yes, for the counters among us, that is 109. So in other words, TIME, lurching around for a list of movers and shakers on this planet and given 109 chances, couldn't drum up a healthy list of people known for their relationship to God and the leadership of faith communities?

Ahead of, say, evangelists Billy and Franklin Graham or megachurch pastor and Purpose Driven church leader Rick Warren were listed such forces of influence as the Dixie Chicks, George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres, Arianna Huffington, Howard Stern, Hugo Chavez, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Wie, Katie Couric, Al Gore, Paul Simon, and Steve Wynn.

Two things could be said of the TIME list: it demonstrates both a definite penchant for popular culture and an impoverished understanding of what is really and fundamentally most important concerning the nations of the world.

Maybe what the most powerful forces in Christianity lack, to their credit, is an overabundance of media machines that make heroes out of people who are just busy doing the work of the Kingdom. There are exceptions, of course; but the best of God's work is done not on the front pages of the publications or television screens of the media elite but in the trenches where life is most difficult, within what Edmund Burke once described as "little platoons" of community. They gather meager resources, join with a small band, and make a mark where mercy and compassion is needed most.

Click on title for rest of the article