The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [1]
Reporters at City Hall, the Criminal Courts Building, the State of Illinois Building, and Police Headquarters were phoning assistant city editors to “dope” their stories. Once the reporters had provided a quick capsule of the situation, the assistants would cover their phone with a hand and ask their boss, the city editor, for a decision on how the article should be handled.
“The cops were chasing a car and it hit a bus,” one of them called over to the city editor. “Five injured, none seriously.”
“School bus?”
“City bus.”
The city editor frowned. “Gimme a four-head,” came the order—code for a three-paragraph story.
“Four head,” the assistant repeated into the phone. He pushed a button to connect the reporter to a rewrite man, who would take down details on a typewriter and then craft the item in a matter of minutes.
The year was 1974. I was a rookie, just three months out of the University of Missouri’s school of journalism. I had worked on smaller newspapers since I was fourteen, but this was the big leagues. I was already addicted to the adrenaline.
On that particular day, though, I felt more like a spectator than a participant. I strolled over to the city desk and unceremoniously dropped my story into the “in” basket. It was a meager offering—a one-paragraph “brief” about two pipe bombs exploding in the south suburbs. The item was destined for section three, page ten, in a journalistic trash heap called “metropolitan briefs.” However, my fortunes were about to change.
Standing outside his glass-walled office, the assistant managing editor caught my attention. “C’mere,” he called.
I walked over. “What’s up?”
“Look at this,” he said as he handed me a piece of wire copy. He didn’t wait for me to read it before he started filling me in.
“Crazy stuff in West Virginia,” he said. “People getting shot at, schools getting bombed—all because some hillbillies are mad about the textbooks being used in the schools.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “Good story.”
My eyes scanned the brief Associated Press report. I quickly noticed that pastors were denouncing textbooks as being “anti-God” and that rallies were being held in churches. My stereotypes clicked in.
“Christians, huh?” I said. “So much for loving their neighbors. And not being judgmental.”
He motioned for me to follow him over to a safe along the wall. He twirled the dial and opened it, reaching in to grab two packets of twenty-dollar bills.
“Get out to West Virginia and check it out,” he said as he handed me the six hundred dollars of expense money. “Give me a story for the bulldog.” He was referring to the first edition of next Sunday’s paper. That didn’t give me much time. It was already noon on Monday.
I started to walk away, but the editor grabbed my arm. “Look—be careful,” he said.
I was oblivious. “What do you mean?”
He gestured toward the AP story I was clutching. “These hillbillies hate reporters,” he said. “They’ve already beaten up two of them. Things are volatile. Be smart.”
I couldn’t tell if the emotional surge I felt was fear or exhilaration. In the end, it didn’t really matter. I knew I had to do whatever it would take to get the story. But the irony wasn’t lost on me: these people were followers of the guy who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and yet I was being warned to keep on guard to avoid getting roughed up.
“Christians . . . ,” I muttered under my breath. Hadn’t they heard, as one skeptic famously put it, that modern science had already dissolved Christianity in a vat of nitric acid? 1
IS DARWIN RESPONSIBLE?
From the gleaming office buildings in downtown Charleston to the dreary backwood hamlets in surrounding Kanawha County, the situation was tense when I arrived the next day and began poking around for a story. Many parents were keeping their kids out of school; coal miners had walked off the job in wildcat strikes, threatening to cripple the local economy; empty school buses were