According to a recent series on KCET, the Los Angeles area PBS affiliate, Americans are eager for opportunities to consider and discuss religious beliefs—even on radio, with thousands of other people listening in. Hugh Hewitt noticed, while hosting a Los Angeles talk-radio program in 1995, that whenever he mentioned faith issues, not hot-button controversies but everyday questions about prayer and discipleship, the station’s switchboard lit up, jammed to capacity with incoming calls. Interviews with Jewish, Christian, and other religious leaders drew the same huge response. Even reading—just reading—books by C. S. Lewis and Richard Foster did too.
Hewitt retired from radio that year to take up new media projects, including Searching for God in America, the television series aired on KCET and book by the same title (published by Word, Inc., Waco, Tex., 1996). I knew nothing of either till KCET featured Hewitt’s picture on the cover of its monthly magazine, with the words "Divine Inspirations" in large letters. That grabbed my attention. I certainly plan to do some further digging into the broadcast series and the book. But even in this brief magazine article (with book excerpt), I caught an encouraging hint that the people around me where I live and buy groceries and help out at school and get my teeth cleaned want to "hear about, talk about, think about God in a serious way," to quote Hewitt. Not everyone does, of course. But at least faith issues are less "taboo" or "hush-hush" than they have been for decades, if not centuries.
Perhaps what surprised and challenged me most in this feature story was the editor’s inclusion of the following passage from Hewitt’s book: "The overarching crisis of modern America is the evisceration of the opportunity for reflection. Very few can survive the deluge of three-minute music videos and 25-minute happy meals, ten-minute lube jobs and one-minute mangagers to sequester themselves for a period of quiet prayer or inquiry."
Did I ever imagine that the current co-host of a popular nightly news and public affairs program on secular television would call me to pray and seek God—for my own good and the good of the whole world? I could hardly believe what I read. I felt as though I had just heard the rocks crying out to me, reminding me to do more than just stop once in a while to smell the roses, but to commune with their Maker, to listen for His voice, to be reminded of His nearness, to submit my day’s (and life’s) agenda to Him. Ironically, this call impacted me more powerfully than a hundred reminders from fellow believers—pastors, Bible study leaders, and retreat speakers—to maintain a daily quiet time. I hope it moves you the way it did me.
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