mayflower's radio man

the way

by David Rucker

It’s difficult to admit that surfing the radio dial to get a finger on the pulse of the nation and the world is methodically challenging. But that’s what I do to complete a small circle of Web news reading and glancing around in a few publications. Tack on more years of observation than I care to admit, and some unsavory memories quickly attach themselves to the present.

The use of religion to support certain prejudices is nothing new, and it’s not likely to go away. I was brought up in a fundamentalist — not evangelical — environment where beliefs were hammered into many of us virtually 24/7. Too many Sunday school classes were saturated with the stink of low-blow remarks about what other people believe or don’t believe, and how much of a threat it is to “real believers.” It was impossible to keep from thinking, “Why can’t we let those people speak for themselves? I would rather get such information first hand.”

You see, in the end they did us a great service by teaching us how to find our way around in the Bible, but their prejudices promoted retreating from the Bible. What is a reasonably intelligent kid supposed to do? Retreat from the whole thing? Well, a lot of us did just that, especially after traveling revival preachers declared from their sweaty, purple faces, “Christ rules over hell!” As the late Rev. Gary Cox said a few years ago, “What a terrible thing to do to Christianity!” These fundamentalist positions are still in our face of course, and I’m profoundly disappointed at how deeply these distortions penetrate the American way.

There is no doubt all these experiences influence the way I produce Mayflower’s radio program. For example, I include the Congregational “Lord’s Prayer” with Robin’s prayer toward the end of each broadcast. As the former begins, I gently bring up a drumbeat which accompanies beautiful, flowing brass underneath. It’s only about thirty seconds, but we say it together every Sunday — within our worship — and on the air. It’s powerful, commanding, awakening the heart and mind. Jesus knew that a long time before we did. When Leo Tolstoy realized the spiritual and informational power of that prayer, it joyfully hit him like a ton of bricks.

It hits our worship and the airwaves the same way.