For those of us who grew up on TV, the quirky “Gilligan’s Island” is part of our culture. You know it must be because, now that we are middle-aged with some buying power, commercials are using the theme song and bringing back characters to plug products. But what was its appeal? Endearing characters, people we could identify with, certainly. The blow-hard skipper, the brainy professor, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, a Plain-Jane girl, and a bumbling first mate. Sounds a lot like society generally. But the story is the thing. Shipwrecked on an island, they don’t always get along, they are none of them alike, but they all need each other. They have to work together to survive and to build the best life possible, because they are all in the same boat.
G. K. Chesterton, a British journalist and novelist, and one of this century’s sharpest wits, once said of humanity: We are all in a small boat on a stormy sea and we owe each other a terrible loyalty. The same can be said of Christians and civil government. We owe each other a terrible loyalty. The church cannot and should not imagine itself apart from the world – this is our home now, even if we think we are just a passin’ through. The world outside is our neighbors. We need each other this side of kingdom come, and God will sort out how we’ll relate after that.
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Dr. George Mason, “A Terrible Loyalty”