RELIGIOUS CURSADE BRINGS MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR FUTURE

This is an age of cynicism, me-ism and moral erosion. When a new strip-tease bar opened recently in Cape Girardeau, it was covered extensively by all the local news media, including the Southeast Missourian, even though only a hundred or so folks who enjoy watching near-naked women gyrate were involved. When a week-long religious crusade came to town -- an event that drew hundreds of people to the Show Me Center for eight nights in a row -- all of the news media, except for the Missourian, treated the event like a non-event. Even a convention of visiting dingbats probably would have fared better on Cape Girardeau's airwaves.

The evangelist for the Impact America crusade, which concluded Sunday night and involved dozens of churches, was amazed at the coverage given by the Missourian. When Lowell Lundstrom visited the newspaper's office last Friday afternoon, he told editors and reporters and photographers who had been involved in the coverage that it was the most extensive reporting of any of his crusades over the past 38 years.

This is our culture. Americans say they long for a return to the moral values of yesteryear, but when an opportunity comes along to support and participate in a religious event that promised to change lives and boost church attendance, many Cape Girardeans kept their distance.

Those who went to the crusade, however, came away uplifted and renewed. The evangelistic services sought lost souls, and several hundred people publicly proclaimed at the services that they intended to walk a new path, one that included Jesus Christ as their savior.

This is not a step taken lightly, and even religious folks who aren't acquainted with this sort of experience sometimes find it hard to understand what is involved. But for the hundreds who came forward and said they intend to begin a new life, it was an experience that is likely to change them forever. Or, as evangelist Lundstrom would say, their new-found relationship with God will change their lives for eternity.

All of the new converts, of course, may not stay the course. But most of them probably will. For many of them, this crusade will have been the single event that caused them to think seriously for the first time about how they live their lives and how they make moral choices and decisions. Indeed, many of the new Christians can expect to become better people, better neighbors, better parents, better husbands and wives, better workers, better managers, better volunteers, better humanitarians, better care-givers as a result of these past eight days of religious revival.

This sounds pretty good in a world where skepticism and mistrust are more familiar than loving your neighbor as yourself.

What a remarkable legacy it will be if, in years to come, Cape Girardeau is a better place because all those churches got together and decided to do something about lost souls rather than deciding to do nothing about the depravity around them.

The hard work of preparing for the crusade as well as the logistics of conducting eight nights of religious services on the such a large scale cannot be overlooked. The hundreds of church members and their leaders devoted thousands of hours to this event. And, now that it is over, they have much for which to be thankful.