Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts

My wife returned from a few days with her parents with the news that Elisabeth Elliot died today. The inspirational life and story of this giant in Christian faith is one that challenges us all to greater commitment. Perhaps it is the tragic story about the loss of her first husband which spurred her on to greater faith and subsequently has challenged many Christians to live their lives for the purpose of God’s glory. In any case, we must be grateful for the years and inspiration that were granted to us for her life and we can rejoice that she has now joined her lost Jim in worshiping at the feet of the Savior.

“Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

(Mighty Oak of Faith)

As I reached the age known as the "teens" I began putting a little more thought into the poetry that leaked out of my pen. (this one even carries a dedication to a former youth minister of mine, probably as he left to take another ministry position--the name in the dedication is my personal nickname for him, his friend call him Tommy.)

For T. Jack Carter & Family

I once thought the meaning of jo--y
Was found in the songs of the world.
The harshness, the anger,
The loudness, the pain,
The song of the world
Will give you no gain.

I've been to church since I was a wee lad.
I lived right and talked right
So, I'm not so bad.
Then Father showed me what I ought to be
And told me of Christ
Who died on a tree.

Now, for sure, I know the meaning of joy.
My song's been changed since I was a small boy.
The goodness, the laughter
Whe'er happy or sad
I'm going to heaven
Of that I am glad.


--1979

I am not now, nor have I ever been (nor plan to be) a journalist. I've never had a course on headline writing, but I read them all the time, and I want to point out something that I think is relevant: headlines should be useful. My limited understanding of headlines brings me to the conclusion that they should be characterized by three things: (1)Headlines should be concise; (2) headlines should be complete; (3) headlines should be correct.

In our small twice-weekly hometown paper we are constantly treated to headlines like: "Tables Extracurricular Drug, Alcohol Test Proposed" which may or may not be correct, but is incomplete (you have to look at the sub-title line to realize the article is dealing with the local school board meeting). Another school board related article on the same front page (different district in the county) reads, "Unit 1 Discusses Bus Lease Changes" with a subtitle of "Could Mean Changes to Routes". My question here is were these two separate articles headlined by the same writer? If so, how could one be done so well (example 2), and one so disjointed? But this is not really my point--just an on-going gripe I have. (Just a note: the paper has been showing a larger number of good headlines of late.)

So what is my point, you ask? Simply this: in a blog article today I read a headline that had a difficult time reaching mark. While we are trying to boil the information in the article down to a few words that will pique the interest of our readers (and cause them to read the whole article), we want to be truthful and work at being unoffensive even if we want to shock the readers. The article is a political piece located on a site designed to speak to and for Southern Baptists. (I'm not waving the "Church/State" flag here. Political opinions are part of being a Baptist--always have been, and probably always will.) My issue is with the headline (post title if you're a purist) compares a political candidate with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't think that was the intention of the author of the article, nor do I think that it was the intention of the blog owners and contributors. The mistake was probably innocent enough, but if so they have inadvertently done it. In trying to be clever, they have equated the candidate with the Master--they may not even know it still.

So, be careful when you create your titles/headlines so that you make sure that they say what you want them to say, and if you choose to use puns or even literary reference you might be saying more than you intended something that you would be offended at having said yourself.

Just to let you know, I'm addressing this here because it's my beef, it's not really related to the article that got my dander up (so it wasn't the right place to throw into the 'comment' section), and it gave me another peeve to air in this format. Thanks.