By Dr. John E. Morgan
Pastor - Collinsville Baptist Church
I grew up during the Red Peril. The fear that the Russians were going to drop “the Big One.” An atomic bomb.
My father, a proud Marine, had been preparing to invade Japan at the end of World War II when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed seventy years ago this month. Our family felt that the bomb saved daddy’s life. He came home, and gave himself to his family. Then the USSR began the arms race with America.
I was born after the War, so I grew up understanding that it was us against the Evil Empire. In elementary school we had fire drills where we left the building. And bomb drills where we all went into the hall and sat against the wall. One night I stood in my front yard to watch Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, pass overhead. Put into space by the Russians. Scary.
When I got to high school, I was fortunate to have a great chemistry teacher, Mr. Randall. He thought it would be good to have a class a few times for parents and other adults in the community. To teach them about atoms. And how atomic bombs work. And what they could do about the bombs.
By that time, a lot of people had bomb shelters in their back yard. You could have a shelter built, or you could build your own and stock it with food and water to use until it was safe to come out of the shelter.
I was one of three or four Mr. Randall chose to help him teach our parents. There I was in front of the class explaining atoms, protons and electrons. It was actually fun. Mr. Randall explained to them how an atom could be split and release lots of energy. Enough to make a bomb. We had seen pictures of mushroom clouds and the remains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we knew why so many Americans were afraid.
The class concluded with discussions about fallout shelters. And the terrible danger of radioactivity.
Someone asked what to do if you had no shelter and no basement and little warning. Mr. Randall described an emergency fallout shelter. Go outside next to your house, dig as deep a hole as you can in the time you have, angle a piece of plywood from the ground to the house, cover the wood with the dirt from the hole, and climb inside.
I grew up about five miles from downtown Nashville. Chance of surviving an atomic bomb dropped in town by crawling under plywood? Zero. And the same zero for pretty much everything else you would try. Houses, buildings and people would be vaporized in a millisecond. Plywood, too.
The bombs never fell. Thank God. Fallout shelters are now mostly storm shelters. And yes, I feel a little fear now about Iran. And Pakistan. And ISIS. Don’t want those people to have the bomb.
But I know some things. One is to fear God, not the bomb or the terrorists. Trust Him and the fears of this world seem much smaller.
Another thing I know is that we who are Christians can be better Christians. We can do a better job of sharing the Gospel with bad people who live in hate. Like the fanatics of ISIS. They desperately need Jesus. And we can be peace makers. And justice bringers so that there will be less hatred in the world.
And there is one more thing that I know. One day my life will end. And so will yours. And we will stand before God. Shouldn’t we be ready for that? Jesus told a story about a man who spent his life building buildings to hold all his things. And then, just as the man was ready to retire, he died. God told the man he was a fool to have spent his time with the things of this world that were now gone. And he was “not rich toward God”.
Shouldn’t we be ready to meet God? We don’t want to have to hide in fear from God when we come into His presence. Hide behind a piece of plywood. Or a couple of fig leaves. They wouldn’t do much good.
The Bible story mentioned above can be found in Luke 12.
