A theological story to remember?

Modern preachers should read, and even share, the 1912 sermons about the RMS Titanic

I was quite a reader, as a young child. That’s understandable, given that my mother was a language-arts teacher in elementary and middle schools.

One of my proudest moments — I think it was during 4th grade — was when I won the right to go to the school library once a week, during class hours, and spend an hour reading whatever I wanted to read. I quickly became a fan of biographies and nonfiction books that focused on specific, often spectacular, events in history.

Many of these books were early versions of page-turners that are now called “nonfiction novels.” If that term puzzles you, think about “In Cold Blood,” Truman Capote’s haunting, flawed classic. Today, there are the many best sellers by Eric Larson. My favorite Larson epic, since I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, is “Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History.”

As a young Texan, I read (#duh) the popular historian Walter Lord’s “A Time to Stand: The Epic of the Alamo Seen as a Great National Experience.” For some reason, that led me directly to his most popular and influential work, “A Night to Remember: The Sinking of the Titanic.” I have always thought that this book’s simple, direct style — built on interviews with Titanic survivors — helped shape my growing interest in history and journalism.

OK, here is a suggestion for parents. Ignore the 1997 James Cameron take on the RMS Titanic — a kind of passion play for the 1960s — and have your children read Lord’s books or then watch the 1958 movie based on them. Check out the Criterion Collection edition of that classic.

Why bring this up, today? After all, we have already passed that haunting April 14 slot on the calendar.

Well, my morning wave of email including an interesting Michael Stefan essay at The Monadnock Review with this title: “Five Ways The Titanic Fascinates Us — Over 110 years later, the night still lives on.” It’s a must-read for anyone interested in complex theological puzzles linked to “theodicy” questions about why God allows bad things to happen to good people.

Thus, here is my proposal for today: Preachers should, thinking ahead, seek out the full texts of sermons — from a number of theological traditions — that were preached after that 1912 tragedy. Quite a few of them are stored in online libraries.

It might be interesting to read one of those texts — perhaps from the pulpit — on the Sunday closest to the Titanic anniversary.

Why do that?