Mitch Albom Wants You To ‘Have A Little Faith’

Posted by Kendall Harmon

[ROGER] SIMON: They changed you?

Mr. [MITCH] ALBOM: Oh, no doubt. I mean to be honest with you, 10 years ago I highly doubt I'd be having a conversation like this with you about faith. I was very cynical about it. But what I saw being around these two men was faith practiced on a daily basis, you know, not for show, not for headlines. I saw Pastor Covington driving around Detroit in an old car putting food on the hood of his car and driving around like one, two miles an hour so it wouldn't fall off, breads and cheese. And the poor people of the Detroit area, you know, would see him. People were squatting in apartments and come running out, and he would literary just feed them, just feed the hungry. I don't know anything more Christian than that. And he didn't ask for anything, you didn't have to join his church, there was no quid pro quo. He just felt that he was doing good, and this is what he needed to do.

And you see enough of this happen on a daily basis, over and over, hundreds of examples of these two men, and to be honest, you lose your cynicism. I don't know how you can maintain cynicism in the light of that. It's beautiful work.

Read or listen to it all

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture

6 Comments
Posted December 23, 2009 at 8:51 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Undergroundpewster wrote:

As one who was in High School voted “Most Likely to be a Cynic” let me tackle Mitch.

I agree that Pastor Covington is a wonderful example of the Christian life. In the interview Mitch apparantly misses the core of the pastor’s faith

“at their cores most true faiths are pretty similar. Be good to one another, take care of those who are less fortunate, be cognizant of a force greater than you, pray.”

Great stories, and I enjoy his stories, but I don’t think he got it.

December 23, 1:22 pm | [comment link]
2. Doug Martin wrote:

This is the message of our Presiding Bishop (with whom I am well pleased).  If you want to make Christians of others, act like one yourself.  Care for the real and metaphorical widows and orphans.  In the absence of that all the “Jesus Talk” which sets the evangelicals aside is just hypocrisy, and has done more damage to Chrisatianity in America that the devil ever did.

December 23, 1:48 pm | [comment link]
3. Undergroundpewster wrote:

Doug #2,

Don’t throw evangelism under the bus. Christian formation calls for good examples and good teaching/preaching/studying/etc.

December 23, 2:20 pm | [comment link]
4. Chris wrote:

For most of us here Doug, acting like a Christian would include being married to a person of the opposite sex or being single AND celibate.  Such appears to be a “no can do” with Mrs. Schori and her crowd though…

December 23, 2:23 pm | [comment link]
5. Reid Hamilton wrote:

I bet we can give food to gay and lesbian people.  I bet gay and lesbian people can distribute food.  I bet gay and lesbian people can organize people to do distribute food.  I bet they can even do it in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior, without anybody going to Hell in the process.  Maybe we don’t even need men in pointy hats to do it.

December 23, 7:31 pm | [comment link]
6. NoVA Scout wrote:

Is no. 4 saying that Mrs. Schori (and others around her) is married to a same sex spouse or is single and not celibate?  How do we know this?  I would be careful with those kinds of statements.  If that is not what he’s saying, why say what he said?

December 24, 9:33 pm | [comment link]
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