Posted by Editormum on 7 October 2004 in
News Commentary |
∞
Ed McAteer died yesterday. When I heard the news, my first reaction was “The king is dead. Long live the king.” And I continue to feel that way about Ed’s passing. This world and the next will never be the same now that Ed’s in God’s presence and not ours. He and I were not close friends as most people classify close friends. But Ed had a way of making you feel like his very best friend from the moment he met you.
I first met Ed when I worked for WCRV Radio in Memphis. Ed was a frequent guest on our station’s local talk programs, and he was a well of information about Christianity in politics and about God’s plan for the Jewish people. Ed was very active in politics at the local, state, and national level. In 1979, he started the Religious Roundtable, a coalition of business, government, and religious leaders whose goal was to support and promote Biblical principles in public policy. He helped Jerry Falwell start the Moral Majority and encouraged Falwell to speak from the pulpit on moral and social issues. When Ed ran for the Senate in 1984, he finished third in the race, standing on his independent platform that stressed morality in government.
Ed’s love for the Jews and their homeland was limitless. His love was so deep and so well-demonstrated that he has been lauded and presented with several awards for his support of projects to benefit Israel. In 1991, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project named him a Friend of Jerusalem. The Jewish National Fund followed suit a year later with its Tree of Life Award. Ed instituted the annual International Prayer Breakfast, designed to “honor Israel, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and to allow Bible-believing Christians to express their unconditional love for God’s ancient people”; this year’s breakfast was the 23rd and honored Holocaust survivour Nina Katz.
I lost touch with Ed when I moved to Chicago and then to Cookeville, TN. But when I began working for Baron Hirsch Congregation, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Memphis, I got to know Ed all over again. Ed was such a clown — always joking and smiling. I remember one phone call, shortly after I started work at the synagogue, where Ed told me to go and tell the rabbi that I wasn’t paid enough. Nonplussed, I said I could hardly do that when I had just started working there. Ed knew he had a foot in the door, and pressed his advantage. “You tell him I’ve offered to pay you double what he’s paying you!” I’m pretty sure Humour was Ed’s middle name.
But he could be quite serious, too. On the subject of morality and government responsibility, Ed was adamant. A former middleweight boxer, he knew how to take a punch, both physical and political. He stood for what he believed, and you could flail away at him all you wanted…but he’d still be standing at the end of the round. He was determined to win.
Ed was a king in the truest sense. A man of honour and integrity, who stood for what he believed regardless of the cost, and who refused to compromise his principles for personal gain. The king is dead. Long live the king.
Tags: Christianity, Ed McAteer, eulogy, Politics, Religion, respect, True Stories
Death of a Superhero
Ed McAteer died yesterday. When I heard the news, my first reaction was “The king is dead. Long live the king.” And I continue to feel that way about Ed’s passing. This world and the next will never be the same now that Ed’s in God’s presence and not ours. He and I were not close friends as most people classify close friends. But Ed had a way of making you feel like his very best friend from the moment he met you.
I first met Ed when I worked for WCRV Radio in Memphis. Ed was a frequent guest on our station’s local talk programs, and he was a well of information about Christianity in politics and about God’s plan for the Jewish people. Ed was very active in politics at the local, state, and national level. In 1979, he started the Religious Roundtable, a coalition of business, government, and religious leaders whose goal was to support and promote Biblical principles in public policy. He helped Jerry Falwell start the Moral Majority and encouraged Falwell to speak from the pulpit on moral and social issues. When Ed ran for the Senate in 1984, he finished third in the race, standing on his independent platform that stressed morality in government.
Ed’s love for the Jews and their homeland was limitless. His love was so deep and so well-demonstrated that he has been lauded and presented with several awards for his support of projects to benefit Israel. In 1991, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project named him a Friend of Jerusalem. The Jewish National Fund followed suit a year later with its Tree of Life Award. Ed instituted the annual International Prayer Breakfast, designed to “honor Israel, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and to allow Bible-believing Christians to express their unconditional love for God’s ancient people”; this year’s breakfast was the 23rd and honored Holocaust survivour Nina Katz.
I lost touch with Ed when I moved to Chicago and then to Cookeville, TN. But when I began working for Baron Hirsch Congregation, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Memphis, I got to know Ed all over again. Ed was such a clown — always joking and smiling. I remember one phone call, shortly after I started work at the synagogue, where Ed told me to go and tell the rabbi that I wasn’t paid enough. Nonplussed, I said I could hardly do that when I had just started working there. Ed knew he had a foot in the door, and pressed his advantage. “You tell him I’ve offered to pay you double what he’s paying you!” I’m pretty sure Humour was Ed’s middle name.
But he could be quite serious, too. On the subject of morality and government responsibility, Ed was adamant. A former middleweight boxer, he knew how to take a punch, both physical and political. He stood for what he believed, and you could flail away at him all you wanted…but he’d still be standing at the end of the round. He was determined to win.
Ed was a king in the truest sense. A man of honour and integrity, who stood for what he believed regardless of the cost, and who refused to compromise his principles for personal gain. The king is dead. Long live the king.
Tags: Christianity, Ed McAteer, eulogy, Politics, Religion, respect, True Stories