Faith Under Fire.........
Devoted Christian - TV Weather Man Fired for Preaching at Local Church
Jon Cash sees a silver lining in firing: God's word
Maybe Jon Cash knew it would rain that first Sunday in September.
Maybe he knew, as the cars pulled into the Poquoson Community Center,
that windshield wipers would pace and people would run to dodge the
drops. That they would hopscotch through the gravelly parking lot, past
the black trailer with “Keep the Promise ministries” painted on the
side, shielding their plaid shorts and T-shirts and slacks and ties to
keep them dry.
But if Cash knew it would rain and the skies would be overcast, no one
in Hampton Roads seemed to remember. Sunday was the second-to-last day
covered by his final seven-day forecast, issued before he had been, in
his own words, “brutally” fired as WAVY’s morning weatherman.
As he stood to the side of the community center, he still looked the
part in a white shirt, pleated navy blue pants, crisp haircut and not a
trace of a whisker. Nearly everyone in the congregation stole glances
at him over their shoulders.
The purpose of the service that morning was to worship God, but an
unspoken curiosity drifted through the room. Cash was not just a
weatherman. He had worked at WAVY, the local NBC affiliate, for 21
years. He was the one they depended on for the science of storms.
Viewers considered him “their” weatherman.
That’s why the church’s sunny pastor, Buddy Chapman, had called Cash
after news of his firing broke. Chapman heads a new, casual and
contemporary ministry of about 50 people who meet twice a month. He
wanted Cash, 45, to preach because they both shared an energy for
spreading the word, and so Cash had arrived early that soggy Sunday
morning.
Chapman kicked off the service like a Southern-rock concert. When he
strummed his guitar and said “herewego,” it sounded as though he might
be breaking into “Fortunate Son.”
Cash waited out four songs.
“If anyone has a feeling like 'I’m feeling sorry for Jon,’ that’s over
right now,” he started.
From the kitchen, where an overflow crowd had gathered, a man yelled
back, loud enough to make sure his weatherman could hear: “Amen!”
Some meteorologists fall in love with celebrity. Cash fell in love with
the weather.
He was fascinated by it as a 5-year-old growing up in Staunton, a
picturesque town of 20,000 west of Charlottesville and the Blue Ridge.
Snow. Rain. Clouds. Storms. He loved it all.
He studied atmospheric science at the State University of New York at
Albany, but he hadn’t considered a career in television until the
weekend a friend invited him along to meet a meteorologist.
The weatherman said the two college students shouldn’t bother with
television. It was too hard to break into. Because Cash has never liked
being told what he couldn’t do, he shipped resumes to 200 markets and
landed one offer: a TV job in Roanoke.
He stayed for a year, then moved to eastern North Carolina for another.
In Hampton Roads, a young reporter named Andy Fox suggested the news
director review Cash’s tape. Fox’s station was looking for a morning
weatherman, and Cash could explain the weather but still act like a
jokester on the air. He got the job and the unnatural schedule that
went with it.
The morning shift meant the alarm clock buzzed at 3:30 a.m. Cash would
guzzle coffee, and later would study hundreds of weather maps, prepare
forecasts, set out graphics, chase storms, research storms, explain
storm warnings. On rare occasions, there was snow.
Cash loved the snow, and he devised a Snow Hope Index that gauged the
unlikely chances of the white stuff. It won over audiences.
He was a natural at chatting with anchors. He talked about his family.
He griped about the Redskins. “I was always myself on the air,” he says.
When he wasn’t delivering the weather or smiling at the camera, he
spoke at dozens of schools each year. He handed out autographed photos.
By his own estimate, he was viewed by 500,000 people a day, about 1 in
4 in Hampton Roads. Ratings sometimes were two to three times that of
the competition. WAVY’s morning show had a simple strategy: it was a
radio show on television and the star was its weather guy, Jon Cash.
On the night Cash says he learned “it’s not about me,” he was driving
to Florida from eastern North Carolina. It was midnight and he was on
I-95 near the South Carolina border. The radio was blaring.
“I was singing that song, and something told me to turn off the song, “
Cash said. “And I literally just started crying. I mean, I literally
just started crying.
“Spiritually, what was going on is the Holy Spirit was coming upon me
saying it’s time to make a choice.”
The song, of course, was AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
Cash had not grown up with religion. He didn’t regularly go to church
and had started reading the Bible only a few months earlier at the
suggestion of a woman he was dating.
He doesn’t remember the exact date or much else about the trip, but on
that night in 1989, Cash says, the Holy Spirit seeped into his life.
His attitudes changed.
His politics changed. Everything was different.
He tried out a series of congregations before joining Atlantic Shores
Baptist church in Virginia Beach. He taught Sunday school for seven
years.
In 1999, he wrote the first of his three books, “The Age of the
Antichrist,” which he says has sold about 60,000 copies for Christian
publisher Whitaker House. An end-of-the-world novel, the book tells the
story of a fictional TV reporter at the top of his game who has little
need for God and becomes a pawn of the antichrist. The online reviews
are extreme: love it, especially fans of the popular “Left Behind ”
series, or hate it, “worst book I ever attempted to read.”
The back cover calls Cash one of the highest-rated weathermen in the
country and notes that he lives in Chesapeake with his wife, his
daughter and a dog named Stormy.
Within a year of writing the book, a half-dozen pastors called to ask
Cash to preach. In 2003, he was ordained by Rick Amato as an
interdenominational minister at Jerry Falwell’s church. The calls kept
coming. Last year, he booked gigs for 40 Sundays.
Cash has traveled the world and has spoken about God in Moscow and Cuba
and Nigeria.
During a mission trip last spring, he claimed he saved more than 1,100
people in Nigeria and witnessed four miracle healings, including a
woman who had relied on two canes to walk but was able to toss them
away after the service.
“Miracles happen every day,” Cash said. “They only happen, though, to
people who believe in them, which is very important. You don’t believe
miracles will happen to you? Chances are God’s going to say, 'why am I
going to give you a miracle if you don’t believe I can do it?’”
The ministry took up 10, 14, then 20 hours a week. In four years, he
raised more than $240,000 for bibles overseas, for a Christian school
in Sierra Leone and for the construction of more than a half-dozen
churches.
During the summer of 2007, he realized his ministry hadn’t grown as
quickly as he had hoped, and he re-upped his WAVY contract, even as his
passion for preaching grew stronger. Last year, he told friends
privately, he wasn’t going to sign on for another year at WAVY and
would work full time on his ministry if it was God’s will.
In a July 21 e-mail sent from his WAVY account, he offered his services
to local pastors: “The Lord has called me to give up my television job
and plunge into full-time evangelism to more effectively spread the
gospel of Jesus Christ. In the next several years my team is planning
city-wide revivals to take our country back for the cause of Christ. I
hope your church will take part in this enormous push for the gospel in
the future.”
So why do people care so much about a TV weatherman?
Nick Walker is a Weather Channel meteorologist and chairman of the
National Weather Association’s committee for broadcast meteorology.
When he made the transition in Seattle to weatherman, he noticed that
more people began to approach him in public than when he was a news
reporter.
Walker believes viewers forge a deep connection with their local TV
weathermen.
The guy on the small screen is not just forecasting the weather, he
also is living it. He’s cutting his grass and taking his kids to the
ballgame and trying to get in a picnic on a Saturday afternoon – just
like his viewers.
That’s why people now readily approach Cash when they see him at
Starbucks –men with scruffy beards say things like, “Man, I miss you,
man. You’re the only one I trusted. I’m not watching it anymore.”
In the chemistry of TV news, the weatherman reveals more personality
than the anchors reporting on crime and government. The weatherman
becomes the guy next door, and viewers feel they know and can trust him.
“From a weather forecaster, they want a little entertainment. They want
a smile on their face,” Cash said. “They invite you into their living
room, and you are part of their family.”
For as much as you think you know a guy by watching him do the weather
for 21 years, here is what most people don’t know about Jon Cash: Cash
believes in reading the Bible every day. If you’re not reading the
Bible, he says, you’re not growing as a Christian.
Cash believes the middle class is being destroyed. He wrote on his
website, “Freedom will slowly but surely die and be replaced with a
godless system that will drain the very life from this great country.”
In interviews, Cash did not want to talk about politics, except to say
that it is dividing what he calls the American Church. But his actions
offer a clue: his attorney, Gary Byler, is the Republican party
chairman for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
Cash believes we are all descended from Adam and Eve. He believes Jesus
died on the cross so that our sins would be forgiven. He believes God
loves you. Cash believes God is performing fewer miracles in the United
States than in other countries because America’s wealth has distracted
people from believing in him and in miracles.
Cash believes it’s imperative to confess your sins. “I simply believe
what the Bible says.”
Cash believes those who have a relationship with Christ are less likely
to suffer from depression.
Cash believes many recent catastrophes – the volcanic eruptions in
Iceland and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – are not signs of a
pending apocalypse. Similar disasters have been happening for thousands
of years, he says.
Cash believes global warming is not man-made, a view that is not
uncommon among TV weathermen. Thermometers, particularly the ones in
Chesapeake, he says, have not been adequately adjusted, and that’s why
the city has registered some of the highest temperatures in the country
the past few years.
Cash believes global warming could be used as a front to bring the
world closer together and fall under the spell of an Antichrist. He
believes the remedies for global warming will bankrupt the world
economy, creating the perfect scenario for a dictator to come to power.
Many of his beliefs, particularly those dealing with faith, could be
seen as being at odds with his role as a scientist, but modern theology
is not so rigid. The prestigious Templeton Prize, for example, honors
academics and scientists who have made an exceptional contribution “in
the spiritual dimension of life.” Cash does not struggle to separate
the spiritual part of his life from the science his job demanded.
“The two go hand in hand beautifully,” he said. “God created science.
Science is the true study of God and his creations. It’s just that many
scientists who are evolutionists or atheists have turned it into
something different.”
The storms, the snow, the maps he spent decades studying?
“You’re looking at God’s handiwork,” he said.
Television producers know how to hook viewers. They’ll tease an
upcoming newscast, and once the audience starts watching, they can’t
turn off the set or change the channel until the moment arrives.
On that Sunday morning in Poquoson, Cash had the crowd a half-step
behind him, hanging on every word. “I happen to believe there is a
heaven and a hell. A god and a devil. Angels and demons. Do not let the
devil get a foothold.”
He opened the community center’s front door, using it as a prop and
imagining the devil on the other side. Then for a few seconds, he
stopped and reverted to his former career. His weatherman’s instinct
kicked in. A smile crawled across his ruddy face.
“The rain’s almost over,” he said quickly. The assembled laughed. He
had them.
Cash returned to his lesson, showing how it was impossible to close the
door if his foot was there. He tried shutting it again and again and
again, and each time his foot got in the way.
He said unforgiveness was lodged in peoples’ hearts and urged them to
let it go. The people listened.
He spoke fluidly and confidently. When he gestured, it was as though he
were in front of a green screen, pushing a cold front through Western
Tidewater. By the end of his hour, with soft keyboard chords playing in
the background, 20 people stood in a circle in front of the crowd. Cash
gently touched each of their shoulders. Some cried and wiped their eyes.
Cash asked for privacy to better connect with the audience. Chapman’s
church is small, but the services are videotaped for future study. “No
cameras. No cameras. No cameras,” Cash said.
He had saved 10 members and convinced another 10 to recommit their
lives to Christ.
As the service was ending, Chapman announced he was giving Cash that
morning’s collection. He reassured his members the weatherman would
stay and sign his books, $15 each or three for $40. Two dozen people
formed a line.
For nearly 20 minutes, Cash smiled and joked and showed pictures of his
kids. He finished each autograph by drawing a tornado.
Here is what Cash and his attorney, Gary Byler, say about Aug. 31, the
Tuesday Cash was fired.
Cash says that his boss, WAVY General Manager Doug Davis, had sent him
an e-mail at 10:03 p.m. Aug. 29, asking to meet that Tuesday.
The e-mail came a few hours after the weatherman had left the pulpit at
a church in Isle of Wight. At the revival, Cash had announced that he
intended to pursue full-time ministry next summer, if it was God’s will.
Cash arrived at the station Monday, read the e-mail, went on the air
for the noon broadcast and then followed the same routine Tuesday.
After the show, he walked into Davis’ office and “he fired me,” Cash
said.
Davis said Cash’s actions were “bad for business,” according to Byler.
Hagit Limor, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists
and an investigative reporter for the ABC affiliate in Cincinnati, said
television contracts often contain a clause that prevents employees
from disclosing information about their agreement because it could aid
competitors.
Almost all stations prohibit their reporters from publicly supporting
political candidates or parties, but the ethics policies generally do
not prevent staff members from participating in religious services or
from preaching.
Cash says he had been reprimanded in March after his name was displayed
on a sign outside a church where he was speaking and for reproducing an
electronic photo of himself that was shot by WAVY. Davis declined to
discuss what happened Aug. 31, citing company policy not to discuss
employment matters.
As Cash left the building on his last day, he hugged anchorman Don
Roberts, explained what happened and told him he would miss him. Within
five minutes, Cash knew he was going to pursue full-time ministry. He
knew that God had orchestrated all of it. “God allows certain bad
things to happen to allow good things to happen to those who trust him.”
That night, his worried 9-year-old son asked his dad if they were going
to eat dinner.
By the next morning, Cash had vanished from the airwaves. Mothers
called out-of-state sons to say the weatherman they had grown up with
was gone. A Facebook group sprang up almost instantly with 5,000 fans.
In five days, more than 140,000 people checked out Cash’s ministry’s
website, where he asked for financial support.
Nearly everyone seemed to be on his side. “In the end, you will receive
the victory and not the spoils,” one fan wrote. “We have an awesome
god.” But when Cash started to read the other comments online, his
daughter turned off the computer and said he didn’t need to see them.
Some people thought the weatherman was a quack.
The key to Cash’s on-the-air success, he says, was that he came off as
a “real person.” He was a good communicator. He was funny. He shared
personal stories.
“Sometimes I’ve wondered in the past 5½ weeks whether I’m making the
right move,” Cash told the congregation of Bethlehem Christian Church
in Suffolk two weeks ago. “And he keeps telling me I am.”
Earlier this month Cash filed a complaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, saying religious discrimination cost him his
job. He expects that people inspired by the details of the suit and
those unhappy with the role God plays in the United States will attend
a rally at Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach on Nov. 14.
Cash believes the same qualities that allowed him to touch a nerve
regionally with the weather will allow him to succeed nationally as an
evangelist. He sees himself as a uniter.
“Our country is so splintered, I don’t think there is a mainstream
anymore.”
At the rally, he will talk about God and country. He planned the event
for a weekend so entire families can attend. He will preach about
unity. The United States has lost its morality, he said, pointing to
his old medium, television, as an example. Just look at what is allowed
on TV compared to 40 or 50 years ago, he said. “We need God’s mercy
now,” Cash told the congregation in Suffolk. “I’m very fearful of the
future of America as we know it.”
He has devoted himself full time to his ministry. He said he is one of
about only 100 people nationally who work as evangelists without a
church. He will depend on “love offerings” to pay his bills and for
pastors to call him for revivals.
He doesn’t plan to go back to television, but he is doing the weather
part time for a radio station on the Eastern Shore. He is writing a
blog about faith for The Daily Press’ website, will host a Christian
talk radio program in the Hampton Roads market and plans to go to Cuba
in January for a mission trip.
He writes devotionals on his website and sends daily e-mails to
subscribers that include a forecast and his popular morning trivia
questions. He is working on a fourth book. He promises the return of
his famous snowflake.
In his new career, Cash must do what he has always done: convince
viewers to listen to him. He knows the odds he’s facing. He knows what
some people are thinking: Is he crazy?
He was a meteorologist, a man of science. Now he is a preacher, a man
of faith. Both professions have devout followers, who incorporate what
they’ve heard into daily routines. Both have skeptics, who dismiss the
work as quickly as they can change the channel.
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/10/jon-cash-sees-silver-lining-firing-gods-word