I don't watch TV news and rarely listen to radio news. I read the on-line news feeds. Same news stories but written by people who are more concerned about their content than they are about their hair and make-up. I read both liberal and conservative feeds. I figure somewhere in the middle is truth. I did watch the aftermath of the shooting Saturday evening because reading it does not tell the active story. Anyway, I learned some interesting things in my reading.

    Sunday morning, I opened up MSN, which used to be MSNBC. I wanted the liberal take on the shooting. The lead story was about a college football player who was expected to be drafted by an NFL team in the first round of the draft, but who didn't get selected until the second day. Shocking. Then there was the aging Hollywood star who still looks good in a bikini. Amazing. Then there was the US drone shot down somewhere. Frightening. Finally, fourth story in, something about the assassination attempt. Not much, but at least a little something. 

    I then went to CNN. First story. Gunman had been shot and killed. This was something they reported, and it was wrong, Saturday night in the frenzy and it was still on their feed on Sunday morning with no correction.

    Then, FOX News. Almost every article was about the shooting. The articles didn't have the breathless feel of CNN or the 'I really don't care' from MSN. Articles on the shooter. Trump's remarks. FBI's involvement. Praise given to the Secret Service. Update on the Secret Service agent who was shot. Actual news. 

    Which tells part of the story of where we are in America today. A media that mostly refuses to share the truth. Look, it was the correspondent's dinner. The place was packed full of reporters having a good time and adjusting their hair and make-up. Then the action begins. What should a good reporter do? Should they keep pondering on which wine goes with what food or should they drop their forks and start actually reporting on a big news story? What a shameful display of self-indulgence.

    Something else I noticed. It may have been different on the TV broadcasts, but on the news feeds I found there was no mention anywhere that the shooting shows just how much we need stronger gun laws. So, after Sunday worship, I started looking things up. He bought the weapons in California. Strictest gun laws in the nation. He did the whole qualifying thing such as shooting at the gun range and taking the tests. He left California heading for D.C. by train rather than by plane because they would have found his weapons at the airport. He arrived at Chicago and was there for a time. The article did not say why he stayed a bit in the Windy City. But Chicago is in Illinois. That state has the sixth toughest gun laws in the nation and Chicago adds more. Then he traveled on to D.C. where the gun laws are the ninth toughest in the country and he checks into the Washington Hilton. Somehow, in spite of all these gun laws, he was able to cross the country and secure a room in a hotel where the president and high ranking government officials would soon be all in the same place. This is known as a target rich environment and should be protected, in advance, from nut jobs with guns in their luggage. In the end, law enforcement won. But what if he had managed to get into that ballroom and began to spray bullets everywhere. He would have been lucky to have hit the president, but with all those people, there would have been some real tragedies. Could it be that the anti-gun activists are thinking, 'Hmmm. He got past the toughest gun laws in America. Hmmm. Maybe it is true. Guns don't kill people. People kill people and sometimes they use guns.' But no. Their thinking probably runs to 'It's too soon. We'll start squawking next week.'   

    But what really bothers me is that Earth Day was last Wednesday. On April 19 and then April 26 in churches all over the country the services had climate change and glacier melting and old growth forests and rain forests rather than the Gospel of Christ. If we were focused on presenting the Gospel to the world more than the plight of the polar bears, we would be better all around. We are where we are because Christendom has failed on our mission. "Oh, that just isn't so!" Really? When was the last time you shared the Good News of Christ? Prayed over your meal in a restaurant? Given your neighbor an invitation to your church? 

    We have dropped the ball. We have failed and continue to fail. We are not truly sold out to serving Jesus. It begins with you and me. We can change ourselves and, in turn, see others change. Either we do this, or our world will quite literally go to hell.