The Typesetter's Rebuttal

I don't know that any of you are aware of this notion, but I work for the Mountrail County Promoter, my local home newspaper. It comes out once a week on Wednesdays, and includes almost as much nonsense as it does real news. (In small towns, you have to cater to the people that want to relay the mundane nothingness of what goes on ALL DAY LONG at the Bethel Home or who visited whom on what day and yada yada yada. It gets ridiculous, but it's the reason that some people subscribe to the paper, so whatever. You cope with it.) Anyway, one of the sections that I type up every week is the "news" from the nearby town of Belden, written by a lady who, well... uh... I'll be nice; never mind. But she has this habit of going on these rants that are totally uncalled for and absurd. And last week (this week) I just... I had to respond, so I did.

Today on my lunch break, I typed up this letter to the editor - who happens to be my boss, by the way - and when she came back I gave it to her. She told me that it was very well written and that we would definitely run it, so this is going to be in next week's paper.

I don't profess to be the perfect Christian. I never have been and I very much doubt I ever will be. But that's okay. I don't have to be.
I also don't claim to have a "professional" opinion. I am 19 years old, okay? I have no opinions that border upon any edge of professional. So you can take this as you see it, but this is the condensed gist of where I'm at, and I won't back down from it.
So, without further ado. (Are you even still reading this nonsense?)


Dear Editor,
I have a deeply burning desire in my heart to make a rebuttal to a section of the Belden News published in last week’s edition of the Promoter. It began “Are We Faithful. No, I can’t say the young people are” and I really want to ask: How far removed from the youth of society do you really have to be to believe that?
With all due respect to Ms. Hoseth, I have to disagree. Generalizing the entire population of youth in this country, or even this state, based on the individuals in one very small area is entirely unfair to us all. Of the nearly 700 Facebook friends I possess, I cannot tell you the portion of those that post Bible verses, prayers, pleas and praises to God on a very regular basis. I cannot tell you how frequently faith and religion appear in our daily lives and, though some of us remain silent or turn away, it touches us all.
I will admit that, in part, she is right. We, the youth of America, do not believe in God the same way that many of the members of the older generations of our country believe. We do not treat our faith and our religion in the same way that Ms. Hoseth’s generation did, and does. There are many of us who have indeed walked away from our churches and chosen to be agnostic or atheist, though, personally I believe that none of us have enough life experience yet to truly make this decision.
Yes, many of us have walked away. Many of us do not eat meals in family settings, let alone pray over them. I will admit that I’m not even fully familiar with the concept of Devotions, and for that perhaps I am at fault. There are many among us who do not go to church – some who have not stepped foot in one since early childhood, even. There, Ms. Hoseth is indeed correct.
However, I must implore you to understand that the youth of this country live in a completely different era than our predecessors did, that the issues, the problems, the complications and the drama that we face is entirely different from that of the older generations that watch us, often with disdain. Perhaps we do have it easy in comparison. Perhaps we don’t know what we have, and yes, perhaps it should all be stripped away from us so that we might appreciate it better. But wasn’t the point of going through all of the things that this country went through in the past several decades making life better for the future generations, as in mine, or the one to follow? Was the point not to save us the aches and pains, the blood, sweat and tears shed by those before us? If that was not the point, then what was it all for?
I don’t mean to sound like a whiney twerp upset that someone poked me and my peers; that’s not what this is about. What I mean to say is that, though young people have a tendency to walk away from faith and religion for awhile, at least 90% of us come back. The youth of this country are clinging to our faith, our religions, because it’s the only certain thing that we have right now in this country of uncertainties. We know what we’re inheriting – including exploding national debt, social problems, political corruptions galore, not to mention growing global fireworks (and not the fun kind) – and we don’t know what we’re going to do with it all. We don’t know if we’re going to have some kind of safety net like Social Security checks when we grow old. We don’t have anything guaranteed to us anymore; all we have guaranteed to us is the presence of God and Jesus Christ as our savior in our lives. Faith, religion, is meant to save us, to surround us and to guide us; it isn’t supposed to control us like some kind of invisible puppet master that we just allow to move our hands and feet and open our mouths for words to spew out. Faith and religion are an interactive part of our lives. God’s plan for us all requires our interaction, our participation, or there is nothing for us.
Faith, religion, heaven and hell: it’s all a choice. You choose to believe; you choose to be guided; you choose to be loved and protected. I, for one, am terrified of losing that guidance, love and protection. I, for one, know hundreds of people – younger, older, my age, but all peers in this belief in Jesus Christ as savior, or even just in God our Father – who have come to the same conclusion that I have:
Even when we feel that we have absolutely nothing in life, we still have God. We still have a promise of love, protection, forgiveness and eternal life in a faith that will fill in the holes in our life and make us whole.
Ms. Hoseth, I do not know what you see on a weekly, or daily basis in your church and community, but I know what I see and experience, and it is entirely different from what you explained. So, with all due respect, I would like to amend the answer to your “Are we faithful?” question: No, some of us are not, but those who are not do not overpower those of us who are. And it is those of us who are who will lead this country out of the darkness and into some kind of future that we can all succeed in.
Thank you,
--Emily Mell