Yesterday, in between the Billy Graham and Greg Laurie shows came a news feed from Focus on the Family. Among the three or four stories covered on the weekend edition was news about a Portland, Oregon seven year-old girl who had set up a lemonade stand at an arts fair only to be shut down by the big bad health inspectors from the county health department.
The girl’s plight prompted a local Portland radio station, through one of its morning disc jockeys, to intervene. The girl gained approval to set up the stand outside a tire store and sell what must have been some very good lemonade. She cleared $1,800.
The Focus on the Family report concluded with the all’s-well-that-ends-well news that the little girl was going to use her money. . .
to go to Disneyland.
Unbelievable.
Why? Back in the day, the evangelical happy spin to come out of such an episode would have been that the little girl decided to give the money to missionaries to China. Or, she gave half to the missionaries and saved half for her future college tuition. Now, the evangelical, family-friendly news editors at Focus think consumption and tourism is a laudable use of stick-to-itiveness and entrepreneurial spirit?
Granted, the subjects of the story may not have been Christian. The radio station involved, Portland’s KRSK, is apparently some version of a rock ‘n’ roll station — a SECULAR one. And the girl, who is taking her mother to Disneyland, has a different last name from her mother, suggesting divorce (especially since no father seems to be involved). So Focus may not have been reporting on exemplary evangelical behavior.
But wouldn’t you think they would want to report on exemplary family behavior? And while going to Disneyland is not wicked, did the entire project of engaging the culture and restoring family values really come to making the world safe for Donald Duck? Is this progress on the culture wars front from inside command central in Colorado Springs?
Maybe, if the Graham Crusade folks were not busy sponsoring “Rock the River†tours and greasing the skids for hipster Christianity, the editors at Family News in Focus could spot the difference between worldliness and self-sacrifice. Back in the day, the Graham Crusade officials knew the difference between George Beverly Shea and Larry Norman. But once again, when rock music becomes the cultural and musical norm, Christians seem to be incapable or making simple but important distinctions.
Old Life 