In the Los Angeles Times, dated Oct. 21, 2006, was a feature on a local 55-year-old attorney talk show artist by the name of Bill Handel, who fills the morning drive time slot on KFI-AM. He boasts an audience of over one million per week, by far the most “successful” talk show personality on any local market. Let me read to you how he finds success for himself: “I know I’ve really done my job when someone punches out their windshield. . . . We’re always trying to find new people to offend. I’ve offended every race, every creed, every color, every religion, everybody. . . . Because you know what? They’re all crazy.”
The L.A. Times goes on to state:
Advertisement
“Even his apologies are a kind of pre-emptive insult to those he is allegedly trying to placate. Every show ends with an apology from the day’s topics. A recent example: ‘We would like to apologize to the following: President Bush, Pope Benedict XVI and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, radical Muslims, evangelical Christians and the Jews, painted elephants. . . Marine deserters, Iranians, Iraqis and Afghanis, kids who go to Jesus camp, anyone who wears a toupee, gay governors that release their erotic memoirs, Indian givers. . . and astronauts who release noxious gas in an enclosed environment.’”
The reality is you and I are becoming desensitized. There’s a decline of generosity in the public marketplace. We watch with fascination the reality shows, as people use nasty methods to compete against each other. Even “The Amazing Race” makes stereotypes out of human beings and takes glee in editing into what appears on TV hostile asides not only to their competitors, but to their partners.
And how many times do we have to observe Donald Trump entertain us with the words, “You’re fired!”? Or to hear him on “Larry King Live” express his selfish, greedy, self-promoting, bragging declarations of how much he makes, how much he gets paid to appear at seminars teaching business success principles, and spewing vitriol at people who have crossed him in the past? He sounds like a young Cassius Clay, who became Muhammad Ali, shouting for all the world to hear, “I’m the greatest!”—declaring himself to have the greatest golf courses, buildings, casinos, television shows, children and even wives.
My point is not to be condemnatory of people, showing a non-generous spirit myself. It’s just important that we identify what is happening to our society. Let’s talk about what the opposite of generosity looks like within the community of faith.
That opposite is a begrudging, guilt-ridden oughtness to stewardship of our time, money and talent. In our society at large, about 2 percent of our Gross Domestic Product goes to charitable contributions, in spite of the fact that we live in an era of the “new economy” in which more and more of us are prospering. And the overall giving pattern of the cross section of Christians is approximately the same. At the same time, I must be quick to declare that there are many here and in other evangelical churches across the United States who go far beyond the tithe of 10 percent before taxes to the work of Jesus Christ and additional charitable giving.