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{"id":2524,"date":"2012-04-16T10:56:25","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T14:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=2524"},"modified":"2012-04-16T10:56:25","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T14:56:25","slug":"titanic-sermons-a-century-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2012\/04\/titanic-sermons-a-century-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Titanic sermons, a century later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By the time Titanic put to sea, this language had evolved into a boast \u2014 reportedly shared with passengers \u2014 that \u201cGod Himself couldn\u2019t sink this ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, when the liner sank on April 15, 1912, preachers on both sides of the Atlantic were among the first commentators to raise their voices in judgment, as well as consolation. Newspapers promptly printed many of these sermons.<\/p>\n

One fact gripped preachers more than any other: In an age a great power and wealth, the Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats for its 2200 passengers.<\/p>\n

This was a deadly form of pride, said the Rev. William D. Moss at the Washington Heights Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. But it would be wrong to condemn only the businessmen who built the Titanic and plotted its course.<\/p>\n

\u201cYonder where the ruthless deep yawned to receive its unwilling and innocent victims, the law of life exercised its ancient prerogative that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. \u2026 In the tragedy of this hour we have witnessed the wrong-doing not of one man or a body of men, but of the age,\u201d proclaimed Moss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is driven home to us today that as an age, as a nation, and as individuals we lack moral vision. We worship success. We worship money. We worship luxury. We worship display. We worship the material. We worship the ephemeral. We worship self-interest. We worship competition. In other words, we worship speed. \u2026 And so this tragedy of the ocean has its daily counterpart on the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moral messages captured in these sermons were completely different than the vision offered in 1997 by Hollywood director James Cameron. His \u201cTitanic\u201d blockbuster portrayed the doomed ship as a symbol of the corrupt values of an old-fashioned culture that would soon be conquered by science, social change and the sexual revolution.<\/p>\n

For the preachers of 1912, the Titanic was the ultimate symbol, not of the past, but of modernity and the dawn of a century in which ambitious tycoons and scientists would solve most, if not all, of humanity\u2019s thorniest problems.<\/p>\n

The liner was, in other words, a triumph of Darwinian logic and the march of progress. It\u2019s sinking was a dream-shattering tragedy of biblical proportions.<\/p>\n

The events of Feb. 14 and 15, 912, are the \u201cclosest thing that we have to a modern day Bible story,\u201d according to Douglas Phillips of TitanicSociety.com<\/a>, in an essay saluting the men who went down with the ship. \u201cEverything about Titanic was larger-than-life: her conception, her launch, her sins, her heroes and her judgment. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cMany perceived the ship to be a modern incarnation of the Tower of Babel. The sinking represented God\u2019s unwillingness to allow man to build any edifice of invincibility or to seek salvation through technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, days after the tragedy, a young pastor in Switzerland stressed that technology itself was not to blame, but the \u201cplayful arrogance\u201d of those who wielded it. <\/p>\n

\u201cGod has not set a limit to technology, to progress, to the human mind,\u201d said the Rev. Karl Barth<\/a>, who would become one of the new century\u2019s most famous theologians. \u201cQuite the reverse! \u2026 When we become godless about the headway we have made, i.e. when we become bumptious and conceited and childish, then we need to be called to order.\u201d Thus, he argued: \u201cIt is true that God set the iceberg on its course, but no one was compelled to get in its way.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was, however, an inspiring side to this story, as well. While there was cruel logic behind the decisions that caused the disaster, there was a radically different belief system at work in the heroic, self-sacrificial acts on that night, noted the Rev. Henry van Dyke, a Princeton University professor. <\/p>\n

The bottom line: \u201cGreater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thus, van Dyke concluded: \u201cOnly through the belief that the strong are bound to protect and save the weak because God wills it can we hope to keep self-sacrifice, and love, and heroism and all the things that make us glad to live and not afraid to die.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"