No Room at the "Inn" (I)
[Trivia: Which news anchors of the big 3 TV networks were profiled by the AP as “Three men guided millions through horror of Sept. 11, 2001”?]
Preface: Posts are going to be on the shorter side here through the Advent/pre-Christmas season.
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I suspect that one of the temptations of dealing with a basically stable canon of knowledge, which could be anything from high school geometry to classical literature to the Bible, is the temptation to stretch to introduce novelty. I’ve written before about how this could manifest as teachers, bored with routine, might introduce variety to the classroom that is counterproductive to an audience of students for whom this is their first time working with the material (whether that’s Euclid or Homer).
It’s a slightly different kettle of fish1 when pastoring, where, say, returning to Christmas every year your audience is as familiar with the material as you are. And though people might be content to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas or Home Alone, knowing that it’s exactly the same as it was last year, there could be a pressure for church to introduce something novel.
I suspect that that’s what’s motivating a lot of over the top presentations of opinions that purport to reframe something familiar. Around Christmas I typically see this one circulate:
So one has to wonder, is that true?
To be continued…
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Answer: Tom Brokaw of NBC, Peter Jennings of ABC, and Dan Rather of CBS.
I say this, being neither a teacher nor a pastor. But I think I’m on sound footing from what I’ve heard from people who are.