Resurrecting Chicago

William T. Stead, journalist, went down with the Titanic. Like last year’s newspapers, if it weren’t for writing one book, he would be forgotten today.

If Christ Came to Chicago was published in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exhibition, the Worlds’ Fair. Stead was in Chicago to record events of the Fair and transmit his views to his London newspaper and he did a great job. But, Stead was not only a newspaper man, he was also a devout Christian.  It was the time when social ministry was resurgent and the move toward a single,world religion for everyone was popular. 

The bookseller who reissued this classic claims to have ten thousand books about Chicago in his personal library.  He’d give them all up to keep his copy of  If Christ came to Chicago.

After looking around Chicago, the Las Vegas of its day, Stead concluded that  prostitution, alcohol consumption, and corruption from top to bottom of the city’s authority structure combined to make Chicago one of the most immoral cities in the world. He claimed that if it were not for the poor themselves and the bars where they drank, Chicago would also be one of the most irreligious.

Certainly there were hundreds of churches with much of the populace attending services on sundays but Chicago’s churches didn’t practice what they preached. They did not take care of the poor, the widows, orphans, families of alcholics and those down on their luck.And, the sinners? Those outside the church doors? The sinners would just have to see the light, someway, someday.

 In 1893, even with the World’s Fair in progress, Chicago like the nation was in a deep recession. Not far from the glorious “White City” out on Chicago’s  southern  lakeshore, the lives of many Chicagoans stank as badly as its sprawling stockyards. Stead documents and details the city’s corruption with the accuracy of an archer who consistently hits the bullseye.

If Christ came to Chicago he’d likely be found in the saloons comforting and feeding His people. If he came to Chicago the church leaders would have to hang their heads in shame because the churches of Jesus Christ had become comfortable with themselves.

I’ve hauled out Stead’s old book again. It’s chock full of data and particulars
about Chicago which ring true today.

Could Christ come to Chicago? Of course he could. And, he would comfort the sick, and the sorrowful, feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, not just talk about these things.

As for me, I’m going out to look for someone who needs a cold drink of water.

“What does she see in him?” is asked every time a wife forgives her bungling husband. It’s usually asked by someone who doesn’t love the poor guy. The wife does see something that others don’t see, although that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate an annoying brother-in-law much less a loudmouth. Your sister loves him because she sees something else, she sees more than what you see.  And, what she sees is, to her, beautiful. What you see makes you shake your head, and sometimes grit your teeth.

What has happened to our eyes? Why is beauty something we rarely see? Take a sunrise, for example.  “Big Red” rising from the horizon and scattering the darkness to bring on morning is, to many people nothing important. The sun is just there and not too worthy of attention. Other people, look and say “Wow! That’s beautiful.”

Too many people have lost the sense of beauty.  They have people to see, things to do, and time, like money, is fleeting. There’s no time to stop and smell the roses.

I propose that each day we stop, each of us and stare deeply into something, anything, even someone.

There is incredible harmony of line in a spider web, the spider itself, even a kind of beauty in the revulsion some of us feel for the dark legged spindly thing scurrying across the floor.  The first reaction is “Where’s a shoe?”instead of stopping and getting a good look at one of God’s great wonders.

We just have to stop more often and recognize beauty.  It’s everywhere.  Just like God.