CNN Reports on the Devil’s Cave

I was struck by this article, which covered the town I called home as a child.

It wasn’t just the locality, but the title.  Around the world we hear about the Devil’s Mouth, the Devil’s Postpile, the Devil’s Cave, and the Devil’s Island, to name just a few.  One need only leaf through Weird New Jersey to find the Devil’s Tree, the Devil’s Tower, etc, etc.

Of course, there are sordid stories often attached to these names–a narrative of some great evil. What is the “evil” in this report?

This also made me think about those who are really forgotten.  The stimulus package, the refund check, the property tax rebate, there’s money somewhere in there for you. 

But I hope we don’t get too comfortable, anesthetized like executives making more than a hundred times the national average salary in a single bonus check.  Will we too succumb to a greed that leads us to look for our money? Our tax cut, but no assistance to the immigrant?

We look the other way.  And while we do, there are slums and ghettos in our midst.  Karl Barth (prolific theologian of the 20th century) wrote of such conditions while in Germany.

The theology remains relevant:  when the Church understands its role as the Body of Christ, than it can no longer look the other way.  The Church must always ask is this just or not, and must never “cease to speak out politically,” (as Eberhard Busch puts it in Barth).

Are we speaking in, to, about the Devil’s Cave?