Reverend M. William Howard, Jr.
speaker
48 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Reverend M. William Howard, Jr.’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour · Christmas in Tehran During the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis · 24 Dec 2024
podcast
And so what we decided, because we got some word that the Ayatollah was going to invite us for a conversation. And we had seen these conversations on the television. He's telling them things and you're sitting there quietly. We did not want to be in that situation. So we literally planned our exit from the country in some forethought that this may transpire. So we were successful.
Oh, yes. It would have been on American television before you could imagine that.
One thing I would say, especially the live shows, is how uninformed the people in those audiences were about... the history of Iran.
I mean, the people were angry. They were uninformed. And when you put those two combinations together, man, that's a pretty dangerous combination.
I'm from the school of religious thought that doubts whether The average worshiper has fully understood the tradition that they claim. I think in this period, we are seeing, for example, how devoid certain sectors of the American religious community is of basic Christian principles and ethics, how they behave in politics. and so forth.
I knew deeply the religious significance of Christmas, of course, but I knew that Christmas had evolved into, and it still is, an overwhelmingly commercial enterprise. It's about giving gifts. So I understood that.
But what I did understand in this experience was what it meant for the first time, really, and you know very well that I grew up in the Jim Crow South where there were many instances of not necessarily knowing how much control you really had in your life because of external forces, meaning segregationist and so on.
It was in the Iranian hostage crisis that I understood how alone we are and how powerless we are when other people take control. And really, it's in that setting that one can develop faith. If you think you have other options, you often don't turn to faith. When you have no other options, you turn to faith.
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