But a moment's reflection made me wonder whether perhaps it wasn't bad news but good news. That sounds as though it could be good news. When I actually read the article, it became clear that it was really about racism for it was based on government figures which showed that black people were, on average, five times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, and on average four times more likely to be arrested. So the headline, 'More than 28 per cent of all suspected robbers are black' was for me, quite misleading. It isn't always easy to know from a headline, what's good news and what's bad news.
Headlines can be very misleading.
In today's reading from the letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul talks about the good news of Christianity through which people are being saved, but he talks about it in headline terms, so it isn't particularly easy to determine what the good news is. St. Paul said that the good news through which we are being saved is that Jesus died for our sins, that he really was dead because he was buried, that he then rose again and that he really did rise again because he appeared to any number of people. But if you went out into the streets of Norfolk today and told people that the good news through which they are being saved is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, they'd look at you with blank stares and hurry away in the opposite direction. The headlines need more flesh, they need an in-depth article to explain what they really mean. And for today's world, they can no longer be satisfactorily explained in terms that were acceptable and understandable centuries ago.