We, as Christians, in free America, are absolutely free to run for Congress and to have a direct say in the making of the laws. We are absolutely free to work for, to edit, or even to own news media. Christians behind the Iron Curtain are in no such position of advantage.

When radio, that giant of communications and of public impact, was merely an infant, and when anyone with energy and vision could have gone into radio and controlled a segment of it for very little money, this word went out among some Christians: Radio operates in the air, and since Satan is “the prince of the power of the air,” it would be unwise to meddle with radio air. This was a holy warrant for inaction in radio that paralyzed some Christians from taking hold of the medium at the outset, when a very small investment could have led to a very large result.

Unbelievers, of course, were not paralyzed. Some of them who got into radio then, investing themselves and a little money, came to own stations or to govern networks. We didn’t lack the money. We didn’t lack the opportunity. We lacked the vision and the action.

Today there is in New York City, that vast center of population and of influence, not a single regular AM station broadcasting from a distinctly Christian perspective through the day. There are more than thirty stations bombarding the public with just about everything else.

If there were as many Communists as there are Christians in the United States, how many newspapers do you think they would own or edit? We have the fact, to start with, that the Communists have published one daily newspaper in this country for several decades (formerly The Daily Worker, now The Daily World) in New York.

That seems to put them one up on us, for I do not believe that Christians publish a daily newspaper in any major city in the country. I see no reason—except for lack of vision—why Christians in America should not have so mustered their resources as to publish, at a profit, newspapers in many cities. Such newspapers, by bringing forward to the public rather less of what the devil is doing and considerably more of what the Lord is doing, would exert a continually beneficent effect on the society.

Satan, “the god of this world,” exercises a near-monopoly control over the mass media of information in this nation simply because Christians have allowed him to do so. My own position as a Christian in news reporting came about as a result of my response to the question (heard in a church service one Sunday night): “Are you willing to go anywhere in the world, and do absolutely anything the Lord wants you to do?”

I decided that my answer to that had to be yes. I turned my life over to the Lord and asked Him to use it as He saw fit. Soon afterward the Lord led me as clearly to newspaper work as any missionary or minister is led to his field. The leading was clear and specific and surprising. We need energetic, purposeful young Christians who will move in steadfast faith to break the hammerlock of unbelief on the nation’s news media. There is no bar against this. At the New York Times I have kept a Bible on top of my desk for years to signify the basis and certitude of my faith.

We need Christians who will dare the perils of public office from the local all the way up to the national level. The first settlers and founders of this nation intended that its government and laws be such as to as-sure the advance of Christian truth.

We need tens of thousands of other Christians who will simply move into action where they are—in their own local arenas of influence. Equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit and a divine strategy, they must show, in the very best sense, the power of the minority. As to believers having control of things, the Bible declares, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked bear rule, the people mourn” (Prov. 29:2). That is definitive. Jesus told use to “Occupy ‘till I come.” Let us occupy by every available means, and to the highest possible degree.