A Letter to the Record-Courier

It's Christmas. My brother and I are sitting in the living room. My dad has just brought downstairs a copy of an article he wrote which was recently published in the local paper. The article is a response to the tragedy in Newtown. Following up on a previous discussion, my brother said, "Dad. I have an assignment for you. Every week I want you to send me a one page paper telling me what you're thinking about this week, and I'll post it on a blog." Dad wasn't so interested in a blog, but he was interested in the assignment. So he's doing the assignment, we're doing the blog. He's been talking about writing a book, publishing all his sermons, for years. So...here we go. This is the first article.  (The follow-up article to this one is being revised as we speak, so that'll be the next installment.) We'll see how it goes. Enjoy!

I am about to enter my 86^th year, and through those years, I have sought, and continue to seek to worship and serve the God who was manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, and to remain open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and have tried to convey this heritage to my children, and to the congregations which I have served as minister.

But I am weary, and  not a little angry with the sort of “God-talk” which has been voiced in response to last week's tragic slaughter of innocents in Connecticut:  either that this tragedy is a result of failure to teach about God, prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the public schools, or that this is God's “punishment” of our society for its separation of  public education from such religious instruction and practice.  

I grew up in Alabama  during a time in which prayer and Bible reading began every school day, and the Ten Commandments hung on many classroom walls.  And yet this was a time of “Jim Crow” and racial segregation, and it occurred to few that God or the Commandments would have any  problem with this.  At my sainted grandmother's knee, I was taught that “the Bible teaches that the races should be separate.”   My Mississippi forebears were constant in prayer and Bible reading......but were also slave-holders.  In the first congregation I served in East Mississippi (before “Civil Rights” legislation was passed), while we were holding special services in the church one morning, a couple of black men were beaten bloody in the square outside because they had tried to register to vote.

The story of my transition to the pastorate of a largely black congregation on Chicago's south side is too long to tell here, but over decades of ministry, I learned that there are many and diverse sorts of “God-talk”, and that “God-talk” in itself  has to be assessed for its deeper meaning, and for its implications for the complexities of the particular situation.  Even in the Bible there is a diversity of  “God-talk”.  In one place, God is said to have told Saul to slaughter the Amalekites and destroy them …...” Spare no one; put them all to death, men and women, children and babes in arms, herds and flocks, camels and asses.” (I Samuel 15:3) ….. and yet Jesus advised : “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;  pray for those who treat you spitefully.  When a man strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too.” (Luke 6: 29)

It's interesting that people are being beaten and killed in Egypt today because religious adherents are trying to force a certain sort of “God-talk” into their new constitution.   Our forefathers saw the danger in that, and so took a different course respecting the public status of  religious speech and instruction.

So, over the years, I have grown to believe that the deeper issues, challenges, and threats of life are complex, and cannot be reduced to “formulas” of whatever religious, or non-religious tradition.......that the practice of  leaving instruction in prayer, Bible reading (including Ten Commandments), and “God-talk” to families and communities of faith is a sound practice in our diverse society.......and the suggestion that the roots of  the horrendous event of last week are due to this separation is simply small-minded.