My friend Bill reminds me of Will Campbell. For most of his life, Campbell was a self-described “deep water Baptist,” as was his father. Campbell asked, “Daddy, do you believe in infant baptism?” Campbell’s father replied, “Believe in it? Hell, I’ve actually seen it.”
This week, Bill and I discussed alternate universes. Not the kind that are explored in physics classes. Both Bill and I would be in “listen only” mode in a science class about the Cosmos. But Bill and I have experienced close encounters with alternate universes of the human kind.
My hunch is that you have, too. Alternate universes can be found on the Internet, in neighborhoods, within congregations, and among family members. We can live, play, work or worship side-by-side yet never connect at a deep level, talking past each other about really important things.
Maybe a starting point is to ask, “How are things on your planet?”
In Myers-Briggs language, I’m uber intuitive and de minimis sensing. As 2024 approached, my intuition was ramped-up with a consciousness that 2024 would be very consequential. For me, and for many friends and loved ones, two events loomed large. The first event was the United Methodist General Conference meeting in Charlotte on April 23-May 3. The second event would have a more global impact–the November 5 US elections. I anticipated 2024 with more hope than fear, but just barely.
Somewhere in my deepest self, I believed this General Conference would be different because many delegates who opposed greater inclusiveness had disaffiliated. That proved to be correct, but I was not prepared for the Conference’s swift, thorough and decisive votes to remove one’s sexual orientation as matter of scrutiny for ordination eligibility.
It took decades for Methodists to decide in 1956 (by a vote of 389-297) that women would have full ordination rights. That 56.7% majority came after many decades of effort, personified by Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) a Methodist professor of theology. Much has changed. My congregation’s senior pastor is female, as is my presiding bishop and my newly appointed district superintendent.
Georgia Harkness is on my mind. So is the State of Georgia, which on January 5, 2021 elected a Black senator and a Jewish senator, effecting a peaceful transfer of power in the US Senate. That should have been the big story of the news cycle on January 6, 2021. Six months away from the November elections, it helps me to have both Georgias on my mind.
The struggle between hope and fear takes many forms. Regressive, fearful actions abound. Heather Cox Richardson’s May 6 Substack blog post at Letters from an American provides the historical context for current anti-immigration, anti-Chinese sentiments among us.
In the big scheme of things, given the 2000+ year history of Christianity and the 200+ year history of its Methodist variations, debate about homosexuality is a very recent phenomenon. However, it has been a major reality of my lifetime (which began in 1950) and my clergy years (which began in 1970). I was a college student finishing my second year of parish ministry when the 1972 General Conference approved restrictive language about homosexuality. The New York Times reported: After heated debate, the general conference of the United Methodist Church declared today that homosexual had “sacred worth” but that homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
I attended the 1984 General Conference as one of ten monitors representing the Commission on the Status and Role of Women, networking with other progressive groups. A New York Times article, “Methodists Bar Homosexuals from Ministry” began with: The General Conference of the United Methodist Church passed legislation today that rules out the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals. The article’s third paragraph focused on what some participants called the “seven last words”:
The homosexuality issue was addressed when the delegates added a phrase to the Book of Discipline, which governs the church, that calls for ”fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” as a qualification for ordination to the ministry.
This week, in 2024, the General Conference removed these relatively recent restrictions to the Book of Discipline, ending my tribe’s 40 years in the “wilderness.” The Associated Press noted: This change doesn’t mandate or even explicity affirm LGBTQ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them.
Jews, Christians and Muslims are spiritual descendants of Abraham. A biblical affirmation of faith in Deuteronomy 26:5-10 begins with a self-identification: “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean who went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation….”
The U.S., once proudly a nation of immigrants, inspired the French to honor us with the gift of a Statue of Liberty that graces New York Harbor, which inspired Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus.”
The Atlantic published an article with winners from the 2024 World Press Photo Contest. Venezuelan photographer Alejandro Cegarra inspired me with his photograph, “The Two Walls.”
We try to camp a few days each month, with a 7-10 day trip in the Spring and a longer trip in the Fall. This week, we spent a few days at a campground in Honeycomb, Alabama, at the foot of Gunter Mountain on Lake Guntersville, a few miles from Grant.
A sign on US 431 points to Grant and the Kate Duncan Smith DAR School. We went to Grant (pop. 1,047) and drove around the school. It was formed in 1924 as a private school by the Daughters of the American Revolution, one of several envisioned by the DAR for remote sections of the former Confederacy.
The KDS DAR School is still owned by the DAR and is operated as a public school by the Marshall County Board of Education. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at a park, with barbecue and hand-dipped ice cream from Porky’s No. 2 on Main Street in Grant. I don’t know the whereabouts of Porky’s No. 1.
From our campsite at the Honeycomb Campground (founded in 1964), which is another public/private partnership between Vista Recreation and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Cathey scours libraries for audio books. On a camping trip, I listened with her to the conclusion of Diane McWhorter’s Carry Me Home. Over the weekend we drove to North Carolina for a double funeral. One of our friends was injured in an automobile accident that killed her dad and only sibling.
The long drive provided an opportunity to listen via Audible to Jim Wallis read The False White Gospel. His current “book tour” is like no other, a series of town hall meetings aimed at America’s faith communities and “Nones,” more focused on winning votes for democracy than selling books.
At one point on our trip, we paused the audio book for a break and I said, “If we avoid Trump 2.0, Wallis may be remembered as a guy who helped save democracy.” Wallis unmasks MAGA’s efforts maintain, or bring back, white-dominated politics, largely fueled by white Christian nationalists.
By 2040, white European descendants will be the largest minority in a multi-racial America. The 2024 elections may determine whether we will be the first multi-cultural democracy. Will the spirit of Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln prevail? Can their new idea win over the old idea of authoritarian rule?
From the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice, March 26, 2024, via YouTube
The Fourth Quarter of life brings a quiet urgency, as clearer priorities become more sharply focused.
Wednesday’s post included a brief interview with Jim Wallis, whose new book arrived yesterday. It was similar to how I felt at mid-career on September 11, 2001, when I moved my unread copy of the Quran from my office bookshelf to my briefcase. I knew Muslim relations would be an important agenda for the second half of my life as pastor, and that night I began a deep, quick dive into Islam.
The False White Gospel, by Jim Wallis, will help me during the Fourth Quarter of my life. Wallis has been consistently on target for fifty years. His prophetic, Amos-like voice challenges my Amaziah-like tendency to go-along-to-get-along. The book’s subtitle will be my Fourth Quarter agenda: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.
Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s Foreword to The False White Gospel includes the closing words of Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address, which profoundly describe the quiet urgency needed in 2024 America:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Good Friday! This day on the Christian calendar connects us with everyone and everything–a fleeting moment on a small planet that one day will be no more in the vast evolution of the Universe. It offers meaning and hope for all creatures and all things everywhere.
Good Friday recalls the suffering and death of Jesus–a transformative event of searing pain. We’ve all been there in one way or another. Mike Harper said, “Everyone gets a turn.” Ted Runyon said, “The uniqueness of Jesus is his universality. Everyone suffers.”
Today, we are with Buddhists on a way out of suffering through suffering. We are with Muslims on the fast of Ramadan who see hungry children. We are with Jews on Yom Kippur who ponder the mystery of undeserved atonement that underlies all grace.
Today, we remember a singular person’s long-ago suffering that provides a context for, and a universal link with, all who suffer in general and with each one who suffers in particular–a sobering, yet mysteriously hopeful, reminder that we’re in this together.
James F. Byrnes (1882-1972) was elected to Congress as a Democrat from South Carolina in 1910, then to the Senate in 1930. Franklin Roosevelt appointed him to the SupremeCourt in 1941. Fifteen months later, FDR asked Byrnes to leave the Court to “run the war” in theOffice of Economic Stabilization, and then in 1943 as the head of War Mobilization.
Byrnes might have been Roosevelt’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1944, but party leaders in FDR’s home state of New York favored Harry Truman over a VP from the deep south, with its long history of racial segregation. After FDR’s death, Byrnes served as Truman’s Secretary of State from July 3, 1945 until January 21, 1947. Byrnes endorsed Dixiecrat Strom Thurman for President in 1948.
Byrnes was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1950 as a segregationist. He then embraced the Republican Party. His 1958 autobiography, All In One Lifetime, includes a chapter about his brief tenure on the Supreme Court, referencing his first opinion, Edwards v. California (1941). Byrnes’ helpful word about immigration is very relevant today:
Following the depression, thousands of people migrated to that state–not entirely because of the mild climate, but because of its liberal allowances for relief. In this situation the state legislature enacted a law making it a misdemeanor for anyone to bring, or assist in bringing, into California, a non-resident, knowing him to be indigent. In December, 1939, Edwards, who lived in Marysville, California, went to Texas in order to bring back with him his wife’s unemployed brother. Edwards was subsequently prosecuted and, upon admitting the facts, was convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. …
… I based reversal on the Commerce Clause, which had been frequently construed by the Court as protecting the interstate travel of persons as well as commodities. The social phenomenon of large-scale migration of citizens did not admit of diverse treatment by the several states; for if one state could deny admission to a person regarded as indigent, others would surely adopt retaliatory measures.
On Tuesday night, we watched Lawrence O’Donnell interview Vice President Kamala Harris on MSNBC’s The Last Word. I realized that I had been unconsciously influenced by a narrative I’ve heard in casual conversation and from some pundits that says Harris is a weak addition to the Democratic ticket.
She spoke from the heart. I’m proud she’s our Vice President. Given the reality that the two most faithful groups in the Democratic Party are women and people of color, she may have made the difference in the very close election of 2020. She’s an under-appreciated asset for Democrats and for America.
From the 20-minute interview, via YouTube. The video concludes with a brief, inspiring clip of young girls in Zambia welcoming Harris to their country. She makes me proud to be an American.
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