The Challenger shuttle crew on that terrible day 28 years ago was an interesting mix of people. There was an African-American, a Japanese-American, a Buddhist, a Vietnam veteran, a schoolteacher and a member of the Jewish and Bahia Faiths. Surely diversity played some part in bringing together this group of very talented individuals.
Those of us fifty years and older remember that day very well. The chaotic paths of the booster rocket smoke and water vapor plume is etched in our minds. Although most of us did not see the launch on live television we sat and watched over and over again the 73 second flight and nearly three minute fall to the ocean.
I've meditated further on it over the years. Was the disaster conveying a message to America. The first half of the decade of the eighties was a heady time. Michael J. Fox's brash and confident conservatism in his character of Alex P. Keaton led the television show Family Ties to a number 2 rating on the Nielsen list at the time of the tragedy. It has been downhill ever since.
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait a few years later and we are still in the aftermath of that war. The Clintons have been a pox on America and the fact that people still admire Bill and Hillary is a pox on our discernment. Slowly but surely the Republican Party abandoned the heritage that Ronald Reagan left us and now a purge of Reaganites is in progress led by a motley crew of professional politicians whose idea of opposing a coup of our government is attending the State of the Union address and......frowning. Communism wasn't defeated in 1989 or 1991, it merely moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20006!
There is so much violence in our culture that we treat it as normal. The hedonism on television, the paganism in our 'Christian' churches and the narcissism in our addiction to social media goes undetected. If America were a human being it would be in the intensive care unit with doctors standing by helplessly as all biological functions approach cessation. And the worst of the worst? We underwent a blood transfusion where the blood shed on the cross of Calvary was replaced by a synthetic blood substitute that carries no oxygen and therefore simply takes up space.
But then again there is good news.....the Olympics are about to start. Well, actually that's a big potential problem also but the Super Bowl is in a few days, Sunday to be exact, the Lord's Day to many but Super Bowl Sunday to most.
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Political Thought and the Christian
