Celebrating a Hero’s Birthday

By Jim Bennett
Daily Review Atlas

Six percent of U.S. residents refuse to believe that American astronauts have ever landed on the Moon. If you happen to be one of them, now would be a good time for you to put down the newspaper, don your Reynolds Wrap shower cap and go search for Sasquatch, or maybe watch a Michael Moore film. This column is devoted to celebrating Neil Armstrong. Today, Aug. 5, this giant among the ever-dwindling pantheon of living American heroes turns 80.

Sadly, the Apollo 11 mission was such a stunning leap forward in human achievement that Armstrong’s other accomplishments are seldom mentioned, and they are certainly worthy of review. For instance, he became a licensed pilot at just 16; three years later, at the tender age of 19, he was in the U.S. Navy, flying from, and landing on, aircraft carriers.
At 21, Armstrong was handling dangerous combat runs over China and North Korea. In September of 1951, while on a low-altitude bombing mission, anti-aircraft fire struck his Grumman Panther and sent it plummeting. At just 500 feet off the ground his plane struck a cable, clipping off about six feet of its right wing. Somehow the young ensign managed to regain control of the F9F-2 long enough to fly it out of enemy airspace, but the wing damage made landing it out of the question. The treacherous and unpredictable prospect of ejection was a gamble, but he took it. He would go on to rack up a total of 78 missions in the Korean War.

Many have also forgotten that later, as a civilian, Neil Armstrong would make a career of cheating death daily as a research pilot of experimental aircraft. And the spectacle of the Moon landing also eclipses his earlier space journey, serving as command pilot of Gemini VIII. The mission was the first of its kind: Docking one orbiting spacecraft with another. Mere moments after the risky, historic rendezvous had been completed, however, the capsule and target vehicle began to spin dangerously and the trip had to be cut short. Nevertheless, the Moon shot would have remained just a hopeful dream if Gemini VIII hadn’t proven that two vessels in orbit could link up together.

Apollo 11, of course, was the realization of that dream, and it is wholly understandable why it would be the Neil Armstrong highlight we all remember. Not that it went perfectly, mind you: Alarms were sounding frantically as the Lunar Module “Eagle” carried Armstrong and LM pilot Buzz Aldrin down to the Moon’s surface; reportedly the stream of radar data was coming in to the craft’s computers at a rate much faster than they could handle (That mobile phone in your shirt pocket actually has more processing power than they had). The intended landing area was significantly overshot as well, and there was less than a minute’s worth of propellant remaining when they finally touched down.

Yet before the “giant leap for mankind” took place, Armstrong was part of one other seldom-mentioned event, if only as a witness. A few days before the launch, Aldrin, a church elder, had asked his pastor to help him plan a meaningful way to claim that historic occasion for God. Once the Eagle had landed, Aldrin revealed to Armstrong that he intended to take communion on the Moon.

Though he had hoped to broadcast it to the world, NASA demurred; they were already being sued by atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair (she objected to the Apollo 8 astronauts reading from Genesis when they orbited the moon at Christmas). Privately, with Armstrong looking on, Aldrin read a Bible verse, ate the bread, drank the wine and gave thanks.

Incidentally, the verse was John 15:5, where Jesus says, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

Amen.

I don’t believe Neil Armstrong has commented much on this particular moment from Apollo 11, and I frankly have no idea what spiritual beliefs, if any, he holds. But I do so hope this courageous American has placed his own trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. One who has ascended to the heights he has should know that “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

Jim Bennett is the pastor of Rozetta Baptist Church in rural Henderson County.

Copyright 2010 Daily Review Atlas. Some rights reserved

“FWD: Don’t Be a Dope”

I believe that few things have drained more credibility from the evangelical community than the willingness of some of us to jump on any bandwagon that comes down the pike, just so long as it hits our e-mail inboxes with “FWD:” in the subject line. While I strongly disagree with the media’s portrayal of all theologically conservative believers as provincial rubes, I must admit that I feel like I’m swimming against a current of Christian fingers that are clicking “send” faster than a deacon dashing for the dessert table at a potluck.

When I was growing up, if you wanted to start an urban legend that duped large numbers of people, you had to do it the old fashioned way — word of mouth. How did a generation of Americans unquestionably accept the notion that mixing Pop Rocks and Pepsi caused a lethal atomic mushroom cloud to burst from the belly of Mikey, the kid from the cereal commercial? Word of mouth. Back in my day, you sassy little jackanapes, we didn’t have Outlook Express! 

How did the news get around that Proctor & Gamble’s “Man in the Moon” symbol was a satanic emblem, personally confirmed by P & G’s CEO himself, when he appeared on the Phil Donahue show to sacrifice a goat and predict the future by gazing into its entrails? We didn’t have your fancy Blackberry textification phone e-mail dealies! We had to do it the old-fashioned way: Word of mouth! We had to concoct a bizarre chain of relationships linking us directly to the source: “My cousin dates a girl whose sister’s roommate was maid of honor at the wedding of the manicurist who does Marlo Thomas’s nails, and Marlo Thomas told her that Phil Donahue himself says Crest is the only toothpaste Beelzebub will use.”

And in my day, how do you suppose we nearly killed the travel industry? Why, it was with dramatic accounts of drugged tourists waking up in ice-filled hotel bathtubs, only to realize that black-market organ brokers had not only harvested their kidneys, but had also racked up over 75 dollars in mini-bar charges! And we didn’t have us any of those new-fangled, dot-com, rumor-mongerin’ Web sites you young punks use! It took years of verbally repeating the same unfounded, ridiculous tall tales, over and over again, with diehard conviction! Word of mouth, I say!

In 1999, I first witnessed how easily and powerfully an e-mail hoax can trigger a torrent of evangelical fury. I was working as the news director of a Christian radio station in Blue Earth, Minn., and my inbox was suddenly filled by dozens of desperate listeners, each begging me to alert church-goers everywhere that the only decent television show since Michael Landon died – “Touched by an Angel” – was about to be cancelled because atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair had filed “Petition 2493” with the FCC, calling for an end to all T.V. shows that mention God. Of course, this was an old urban legend, dating back to the mid-1970’s, so I double-checked with an FCC spokesman and then ran a news story debunking the rumor. One woman called me to say she was going to start a petition anyway, “just to be on the safe side.” (Incidentally, “Touched by an Angel” was, in fact, cancelled in 2003. However, the show wasn’t killed by the legal machinations of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, but rather by the titanic overacting of Della Reese.)

Since then, I’ve seen dozens of celebrity conversion whoppers: “Steve Irwin answered an altar call two weeks before that sting ray killed him. In fact, he was witnessing to the creature when it attacked.”

I’ve seen far too many sentimental charity rip-offs. Most recently, there was Rebeccah Beushausen, whose blog featured tearjerker pictures of “April Rose,” her disabled daughter. Well-meaning Christians started sending money and gifts. Later it was revealed that “April Rose” was actually a lifelike “Reborn Doll” whose only disability was “batteries not included.” 

And of course, there’s the passionate “Onward Christian Soldiers” call-to-arms. I recently received another breathless warning about that old chestnut Petition 2493, this time it had been updated with names like Dr. James Dobson.

I know we need to be salt and light, but may I suggest checking the story out before forwarding it? Try consulting the archives at Snopes.com – that’s a good place to start. Jesus said in Matthew 10:16: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

I’m glad we settled that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to e-mail my bank account information to the widow of Nigeria’s former treasury secretary so she and I can divide the seven million American dollars her late husband deposited in a Grand Cayman off-shore bank account.