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Murphy Martin Commentary
November 3, 2005

 "Crisis Christians"

I heard a man speak this week at a meeting of church workers. The speaker said that during his nearly forty-years as a radio and television journalist he found himself in many situations that led him to become a CRISIS CHRISTIAN.

The speaker said doing the job of a network correspondent can bring on moments of concern. Those were the times, while at the ABC-TV network, he said he became a CRISIS CHRISTIAN...the bigger the CRISIS, the better CHRISTIAN he was.

He cited some instances when that applied.

Shortly after arriving in St. Augustine, Florida to cover Dr. Martin Luther King's attempts to integrate the previously all-white beaches in the mid-1960s, the speaker said he was awakened about 2AM when he heard men talking outside his room. He heard them say: "Do we want to kill now or wait until tomorrow." It was CRISIS CHRISTIAN time. It was Ku Klux Klan members outside his room.

In New York City while dodging Molotov cocktails being tossed from rooftops at the working newsmen five-stories below during Harlem riots--CC time again.

Being pinned down by sniper fire beneath a fire truck during the Newark, New Jersey riots of the mid-60s, CRISIS CHRISTIAN time,

Being awakened after midnight in a Montgomery, Alabama Motel to be told Viola Liuzzo had been shot to death while driving civil rights marchers back to Montgomery, Alabama allegedly by the KKK, it was CC-time again as the speaker arrived at the scene of the shooting. The KKK didn't want out of state reporters in their state.

The speaker recalled numerous assignments that involved various levels of danger that many reporters have faced at one time or another, each of those assignments bringing on his Crisis Christian feeling.

The speaker said it is not wrong to be a CRISIS CHRISTIAN, but gaining a stronger faith that is with you all the time, he said nothing compared to that in his life.

He said his faith grew stronger and more permanent later in life and really reached an unshakable comfort-level when numerous health problems moved into his life in 1981. That was when he had his first of three by-pass heart surgeries. Since that time this former reporter has had six-heart attacks, a heart valve replacement, more than ten angioplasty surgeries (one of which put him on life support systems for several days). He is diabetic, has sleep-apnea, macular-degeneration and says he awakens every morning still looking DOWN at the grass, knowing that his faith keeps him ahead in the game of life.

The former reporter concluded his remarks saying: My faith also provided me with the most beautiful sight of my life. When I regained consciousness after being on life-support for a few days , standing beside my bed in ICU was my Rock of Gibraltar, my wife Joyce, also my former pastor Don Benton and a close friend Ross Perot on crutches
from recent knee surgery and several doctors. They and the other friends and relatives waiting in the ICU waiting room were vivid reminders of the power of faith.

Being a CRISIS CHRISTIAN is fine---but it's not even a close second
to the comfort-level one enjoys from total faith in Him.

I KNOW this is true because I was the speaker in the story you just read.

Murphy Martin

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e-mail   murphy@murphymartin.com

Previous commentaries:
"They Led the Way"
"Sadistic Saddam Hussein"
"Bourbon Street Bashing"
"Hurricane Aftermath"
"Standing Tall"
"Never a Dull Moment"
"Another Hero Laid to Rest"
"Blame Game"
"Senior Thoughts For the Young"
"Role Model Challenge"
August 18 - "Network News Anchors"
August 11 - "Now All Three Are Gone"
August 4 - "Trust in the Media"
July 28 - "Television Then and Now"
July 21 -  "The Mick"
July 14 - "Forty Years and Counting"