Photo credit: Evan Agostini, AP

I’m watching the television tributes to the original news anchorman, Walter Cronkite. Growing up, the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” was a nightly ritual in my family home.

And I am remembering that night as a young child when I watched Cronkite sign off (”…and that’s the way it is”) for the last time. And I remember my childlike terror, the sinking feeling of “how in the world will we know what’s happening in the world anymore.” I get momentary shivers of the same feeling today. It’s becoming harder and harder to get the kind of “news” Walter Cronkite used to deliver.

What has all this to do with religion? Admittedly, this has much more to do with the “civil” in this blog’s title than the “religion.” (And with the fact that this blog is hosted by a news organization.) But just like democracy, “civil religion” depends upon a realistic and honest appraisal of the world’s events. It depends on the work of people to investigate, and then report, those events with determination, sincerity, and at least an attempt toward objectivity.

I think that’s why much of the language used now in remembering Cronkite is, consciously or subconsciously, religious. “Trusted,” for instance. Trust is an innately religious value, reflecting a spiritual need of human beings living in community. Or listen closely to a snippet of the obit in the New York Times:

From 1962 to 1981, Mr. Cronkite was a nightly presence in American homes and always a reassuring one, guiding viewers through national triumphs and tragedies alike, from moonwalks to war, in an era when network news was central to many people’s lives.

He became something of a national institution, with an unflappable delivery, a distinctively avuncular voice and a daily benediction: “And that’s the way it is.” He was Uncle Walter to many: respected, liked and listened to.

Language like that (”presence,” “reassuring,” “guiding,” and especially, “benediction”) makes him not only “Uncle Walter.” Language like that just as easily made him “Pastor Walter.”

And perhaps that’s what I feared as a child that night: that the ultimately pastoral way he delivered the day’s news would no longer help us make sense of the world. I have lost some of my “childish ways” since then, but not that. In a world that has become only more difficult to understand, I still want to know the simple truths of “the way it is.”