Evolution Of Faith
By Al Staggs,
Chaplain and Performing Artist
Bedford, TX

Salvation came for me
On a hot summer day in Arkansas in 1956
During Vacation Bible School.
When I walked the church aisle to profess my faith in Jesus,
I wanted to be saved
And I didn’t want to go to Hell—
Which is where we were told all unbelievers go,
Where they will spend eternity writhing in agony and torment
From Hell’s inextinguishable flames and unimaginable heat.

There was faith and there was also fear in that early decision.
The draft of September
Caught up with me
And I was thrust into schooling
For war.
I learned the use of the M-14, M-60, bayonet, 3.5 rocket launcher
And the grenade.

Learning the havoc these could wreak on human flesh
Created in me a revulsion for any weapon that lasts to this day.

This was a period of living and training with African-Americans,
A people I had not known in my segregated world as a child.
Those associations and the memory of the image of Martin Luther King
In 1963 in Washington
Preaching like no one I had ever heard,
Convicted me of my racism
And the racism of my white southern Christianity.

Encountering psychology as an undergrad
I read works of Carl Rogers and other pioneers
Who delved into the mystery of human behavior.
Their wisdom shed light on my own story
And brought understanding
To the chaos of my childhood,
The depression of my mother,
The addictions and fury of my father,
And the baffling nature of my own behavior.

It was a measure of salvation that I found
That did not run counter to my religious belief.
I began to hear the whispers of Grace
In this ‘study of the spirit.’
It was none to soon to learn these lessons
As parenthood came in 1974.
I did not want to pass on the rage
Of my father.

Death became my teacher
In the gloomy month of March of 1978,
The time my mother gave up on life
And left us with the dregs of grief.

My faith, my theology
Abruptly shifted
From easy answers
To unanswerable questions.

The gravity and mystery of suffering
Now required more than mere cursory readings of scripture.

There was the year of clinical internship
In the context of Baylor’s sprawling medical center,
A far cry from the sanitized environment of seminary
And local church life.

Suffering was now all around.
Those who guided us were unrelenting
In their demand that we come clean
Regarding the frailties and the woundedness of our lives
And the motives that lay behind our pursuit of ministry.

Psychology and theology were now fused
In conjunction with a strict and sometimes severe supervision.
Ministry to the sick would now encompass far more
Than perfunctory prayers or citation of scripture.

A student mission trip to the barrios of Monterrey, Mexico
In 1982
Resulted in the belief that I was not only carrying
A message to the poor of that land,
They were carrying a message to me,
That I was entitled,
That I was rich,
That I needed humility
And repentance
From any notion of moral superiority.

1983 was an epochal year,
A year of study at Harvard Divinity School.
And there I met, Henri,
Father Henri Nouwen.

As a young Baptist I had been told
That Catholics weren’t saved.
And here, in this marvelous man,
I would see an embodiment of Jesus,
A heart of compassion,
A wounded healer
Who taught that we do not need to deny our woundedness,
That these frailties are the basis of our understanding of Grace
And the real strength of our ministry.

This was the year,
I was introduced to Gustavo Gutierrez,
In the texts of his work on Latin American Liberation Theology
And it caused me to go back to the familiar biblical texts
And rediscover the profundity of the Bible
In matters of politics and economics.

I was again convicted regarding my sense of entitlement
As a citizen of my nation, a great nation to be sure,
Yet a people who had conducted and condoned terror
In the name of national interests.

America suddenly became for me, Rome and Babylon.
This was the year, 1983
When first I heard a woman speak from a pulpit.
The witness of Rosemary Radford-Reuther
at Old Cambridge Baptist Church
Was a message for the likes of me,
A man.

It was a message that soul work was needed,
That education, conversion was needed.

My tutor, Harvey Cox,
Introduced me to the paradox
That it was possible to be both particularist
In one’s faith,
And a universalist.

That one could embrace wholly one’s view of truth
And yet affirm and respect the truth of the other.

What became apparent is that judgment is up to God
And that we are held by God’s grace and we have no
Right to consign any soul to Hell.

It was Harvey who introduced me to that beautiful life
Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Whose life and testament remind us
That the most pernicious of evils
Present themselves in the cloak of piety.

Bonhoeffer railed against the church of his time
For her silence in the face of oppression
For obeying the State
And disobeying her God.

Reflecting on his life and deeds,
I imagine that he would equally take the American church to task
For her love of power, money
And her unwillingness to stand for the oppressed.

Bonhoeffer would lead me to Archbishop Romero,
To Walter Rauschenbusch
And to Clarence Jordan
Whose words, along with Bonhoeffer’s,
Possess the veracity of scripture itself
As though the canonization of truth was ongoing.

Throughout these years,
I have befriended gays and lesbians
And have found them not to be the demons
They are so often made to be by preachers
Who are convinced that these people will
Lead to the decay of our society.

The accent and the tone of these ministers
Resemble the accent of preachers
I have heard in former years
Who were certain, on biblical grounds,
That African-Americans, women, foreigners and Jews
Were second-class citizens.

In these last few years,
My Christian faith has been dramatically challenged
By the horrors of the Holocaust

And the realization that what happened in the death camps
To millions of Jews
Could not have occurred without the complicity of churches in Germany.

How are we superior, morally?
What is it that Jews need from Christians?
What do we say now about the place of Jews in the purposes of God?
And what do we say now about all those texts that demonize a people
Who spawned our faith and gave us Jesus?

I have not over the years
Given up the faith of my childhood.
Greater truth has continued to seek me
And to find me
And compel me to continue
The process of my conversion.

Updated Friday, March 25, 2005