The Pulitzer Prize winners from 2006 and 2007 provide an example of how reading like this can enrich and sustain ministry. Some of the winners of 2006 include
Washington Post journalists Susan Schmidt, James Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smit, who investigated the tangled political connections of Jack Abramoff. A story like this, in all its complexities and layers, gives the preacher a vivid case study of sin. Here is a story of astounding deceit and patronage and blatant brokering of power and influence. Honest preaching on sin must display an awareness of the parasitic character of sin so convincingly displayed in the Abramoff story. The familiar deceit of sin is also displayed. Some of it is consciously perpetrated by the sinner, and some blinds the sinner with its layers of self-justification.
Another piece of high-quality journalism is a 2007 investigation by Debbie Cenziper in the
Miami Herald. This article exposed the rampant corruption in the public housing administration in Miami. Again, it is a story that illustrates the contours of structural and personal sin and the broad ripple effects of sin in full momentum. No area of human life is exempt from sin. The sheer inventiveness and persistence of corruption in public housing is a high irony: even the effort to provide safe and affordable housing for the poorest members of the community is tainted with greed.
Other areas of human life that touch the work of the pastor every day are also illuminated in the list of recent Pulitzer winners.
New York Times writers Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley won a journalism prize for their work on the ragged justice system in China. It is a story of success and failure, hope and despair. The poor farmer, the political dissenter, the urban factory worker—these are the ones crushed by a judicial system both antiquated and corrupt. Although a congregation is far different from an enormously populous country like China and the pastor not a ruthless judge, the basic dynamics of success and failure, hope and despair are often the dynamics in a local congregation as well. Although not as visibly dramatic, the currents and tides of human life in a congregation often reflect these same features of dispossessed and falsely imprisoned citizens in China. The pastor who is well-read in such literature will understand more deeply the human struggles in the congregation.
Biography is another category in the Pulitzer Prizes that can also play a part in ongoing ministerial formation. The professional hazards and pitfalls of the life of the minister come into sharp focus in the 2006 biography by Debby Applegate,
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. The successes and influences of the 19th-century preacher, in his tireless work for the abolition of slavery and the rights or women, are set alongside the equally sensational failures of his marriage promises in a widely publicized adulterous affair. The juxtaposition of faithfulness in ministry, on the one hand, and a breach of marital fidelity, on the other, is a cautionary tale for pastors who face unique challenges in their leadership positions. A book such as Debby Applegate’s will support that reflection.
