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050 Volume 10 No 3 Summer 2004
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Table of Contents - Summer 2004
Have Baptists Lost Touch “I am afraid that Baptists are losing touch with the common man?” Forty years ago I heard T. B. Maston utter these prophetic words to a graduate seminar. He added, “That is what has made us who we are—our churches and institutions primarily have been led by people who are common folk.” During the last
half-century, that has all changed. Baptists have moved up the socio-economic
ladder. Not only are we large and numerous, but also affluent and powerful.
Among our ranks are notable people—two U.
S. Presidents, numerous leaders in
Congress, doctors, lawyers, educators, and CEOs of mega-corporations.
Fathers Who Have Blessed Me
Seems to me that I have been blessed with many fathers. As I have grown in both mind and stature—aged really—a father to me has become a male who has had a great influence on my life. There have been many of them. Here, quickly, are just four of them. First, my real father: he was a fun fellow. As I grew up in my native Sweden I often heard him say, “The first thing I do when I get home in the evening is to whip the boys. I don’t know what it’s for, but they do.” Well, during my youth in Scandinavia, when you sinned you paid for it. But I survived. He had a fine tenor
voice. To this day I can hear his clear voice echo across the lake at our
summer home. “Oh, Store Gud,” literally translated “Oh, Great God.” We know the
hymn as “How Great Thou Art.”
To the President from a
Father: Shame on Us For two guys about the same age, George W. Bush and I do not have much in common. There are, however, two realities we do share: His daughter Barbara and my son Michael both attend Yale. And neither one is about to join the United States armed forces in Iraq. Why not? Because they don’t have to, they don’t want to, and George W. and I won’t let them. One
of those “flaming liberals” for which Massachusetts is famous asked me, “Why are people not
taking to the streets every day protesting the Iraq war like we did in the ‘60s?” As I thought
about it, the answer is simple. The Iraq war is not being fought, for the most part, by
the children of the affluent or even affluent-hopefuls. And that is because
it’s not being fought by the conscripted. Churches and the Defense of Marriage
The Defense of Marriage Amendment being proposed by the Bush administration is going to be a hot issue in this year’s election. Democrats already are contending that President Bush is introducing this proposal for political purposes and, by so doing, is polarizing the country. Republicans are quick to point out that they are not the ones who raised the issue of gay marriage, but are simply defending the nation from the onslaught of liberals and their “gay agenda.” Churches are further
inflaming the controversy through their own infighting. The argument over gay
marriage has put every major denomination in danger of schism. Church leaders
have weighed in on both sides of debate with many contending that nothing less
is a stake than the future of the family. Framing the Debate Over Same-Sex Marriage
This is the week that same-sex marriage came to Massachusetts, and thus to the United States. The fundamental building block of civilization has undergone a radical change—a change opposed by a majority of American adults. How did this happen? The joining of gay and lesbian couples in marriage may turn out to be the most consequential development of our lifetimes. How did we get here? The answer has several
parts. The President’s
Jihad In his latest book Plan of Attack, reporter Bob Woodward says he asked President Bush during their three hour interview if he had he talked with his father (President Bush I) about going to war with Iraq? The President replied, “He’s not the father to talk with about this war.” Then, Woodward reports, the President made it plain he was talking to God about the war, and, according to Woodward, hardly anyone else. In a nationally televised press conference this past
spring dealing with the Irqi war, the President described the (holy) mission to
which he feels called to bring freedom to the world. The President’s
Jihad In his latest book Plan of Attack, reporter Bob Woodward says he asked President Bush during their three hour interview if he had he talked with his father (President Bush I) about going to war with Iraq? The President replied, “He’s not the father to talk with about this war.” Then, Woodward reports, the President made it plain he was talking to God about the war, and, according to Woodward, hardly anyone else. In a nationally televised press conference this past
spring dealing with the Irqi war, the President described the (holy) mission to
which he feels called to bring freedom to the world. Bring It On In the recently published collection of excerpts from William Sloane Coffin’s speeches and sermons—Credo—appears this gem: “When the rich take from the poor, it’s called an economic plan. When the poor take from the rich, it’s called class warfare. It must be wonderful for President Bush to deplore class warfare while making sure his class wins.” The administration’s
2005 federal budget amply illustrates Bill Coffin’s point. As The Wall
Street Journal put it, “The budget reflects the president’s top political
priorities—taxes and security—at the expense of other domestic programs.” Updated Tuesday, January 04, 2005 |
Stealing Jesus Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ continues to set box office records. Hyped as one of the most powerful evangelistic tools ever made, a big chunk of Gibson's earnings are the direct result of church activiry. Congregations across the country have bought thousands of tickets and literally bussed people to theaters to see the film. Of course, that is a good bit better than another approach that came my way recently. A gentleman offered to sell me a "bootleg" copy of The Passion. With the film still in theaters I knew he could not have pirated the movie from the Internet or from a DVD original. But somehow he had managed to get his hands on a full copy of the film. "I can make you a copy cheap," he told me. "Isn't that illegal?" I asked him.
What Do I Do Now? The first step I took after leaving the ministry was to write the First Baptist Church of Loraine, Texas. This church had licensed me and later ordained me. The small rural church (Loraine, pop. 700) had supported and encouraged me for ten years. Leonard Hartley, the pastor, was my mentor. They responded to my letter requesting that they revoke my ordination with their own letter stating, “We don’t know what to do; we’ve never done that.” My reply was, “You’re Baptist, vote on it They did. I was no longer a preacher and vowed never to preach another sermon. That vow lasted twenty-three years. The reader needs to know
how difficult this decision was. God Is In Control—Do Not Be Afraid
Two thousand years ago on a stormy Galilean sea the disciples were told not to be afraid, God is in control. I tend to forget that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I was reminded of this truth a second time last summer. The first time was 20 years ago when I was diagnosed with metastatic throat cancer with less than a 5% chance of survival. Last summer I was
scheduled to begin a jury trial in Phoenix on July 15th against a major corporation
for the death of a 15-year-old girl. My 38 years of trial practice told me it
would take at least five weeks to try the case. Settlement negotiations had
failed three weeks before. My client’s offer was four times that of the
corporation offer and neither side would move. The Reagan Mantle Friday at 4:44, four papers on our porch sometimes provide editorial-opinion texts for Sightings on deadline day. This past Friday (June 11), President Reagan’s funeral gave a theme to several, but not all. In
the Chicago Tribune, Richard Norton Smith, former director of the Reagan
Presidential Library, attributes Reagan’s outlook on life to childhood. He
“imbibed from his mother, Nelle, a fundamentalist [better: “conservative
Protestant”] belief that everything happened according to God’s plan... and a
sense of personal destiny that, unleavened by humor, might easily be confused
with messianism.” Blame Women Always blame women when things go badly. That’s the first rule of thumb for Southern Baptist fundamentalists. Who caused the horrendous sex abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison? The implicit answer is
women in the military, according to a Baptist Press column, which picked up the
emerging theme among right-wing columnists that argues against women in the
military. Bring It On In the recently published collection of excerpts from William Sloane Coffin’s speeches and sermons—Credo—appears this gem: “When the rich take from the poor, it’s called an economic plan. When the poor take from the rich, it’s called class warfare. It must be wonderful for President Bush to deplore class warfare while making sure his class wins.” The administration’s
2005 federal budget amply illustrates Bill Coffin’s point. As The Wall
Street Journal put it, “The budget reflects the president’s top political
priorities—taxes and security—at the expense of other domestic programs.” Bring the Soldiers Home “Lay all your cards on the table,” I once exhorted my hearers, seeking to enhance their sense of dedication to Jesus. I was a student preacher at the time and my mentor later suggested I avoid sermonic images and illustrations drawn from questionable practices. Card-playing fell into that category of “questionable practices” as did dancing and drinking during my adolescent years. He was right, I suppose, and I now relate that
story to my own preaching students.
Summertime Summertime is the best time of the year. At least that’s my take on it. I was born in July, you know. So when the sun is really bearing down, the weather by day and by night is hot as blazes, and even the trees seem ready to lie down and pant, then everything seems to me to be in place just as it ought to be and “God’s in his heaven: All’s right with the world,” as Robert Browning had Pippa, the quintessential Pollyana, to say. No other season has such
a wonderfully high-class song written about it: “That Good Old Summertime.”
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