The Media Change: God as Fundamental Assumption

This morning, I heard a new voice in US media. Previously, the us media I read and listen to (NYTimes, NPR) has spoken a secular humanist viewpoint. God, when invoked, was described as a phenomenon, distinct from being a causal phenomenon. Why do people worship? What does it say about humanity? What does it say about us as people? That the answers to these questions were invariably that religion reflected positively on people was distinct from the consideration of its validity.

Apparently, no more. Today, within 15 minutes of each other, I came across two pieces in which God was not a phenomenon to be examined, but in which God was an assumption, and the writers sought to answer the earnest question: why would God kill innocents in this huge Tsunami?

Skipping past the point Nicholas Kristof made last week that the Tsunami is a minor disaster (200,000 deaths) compared with the 2 Million killed every year by malaria -- which is within human power to control with DDT, yet we do not):
Bill Safire asks -- why do people deserve such suffering? Safire suggests looking to the Book of Job -- God does not allow tragedy as justice, it is simply something which happens. Perhaps it is just age for Safire -- he is, after all, retiring from his OpEd column at the end of this month -- which brings him to deathbed conversion (death of his OpEd column, not him).

Perhaps more interesting was NPR's piece, which asked the same question: why would God do this to us? The story's conclusion: we cannnot know in this life what God's will is.

So, I'm marking the day: Today is the day (I noticed, at least) that God stopped being a subject of media inquiry, and started being an assumption.
This is a big deal. Religion has never been assumed in American social life -- it has been part of our commitment to diversity that religion is practiced privately, and only discussed publicly in sociological tones. When the media adopts a voice in which a particular religion (Christianity, here) is everyone's assumed background, we move away from this embrace of diversity in our public tone, and toward a shared values -- which may be entirely invalid, and is at least exclusionary of those who do not embrace this religion.