Regarding my last blog post, I just received another e-mail from Shirley Gilmore. It turns out that she's now the Senior Pastor of Elwood United Methodist Church. In other words, she has my dad's old job. Apparently, they still can't afford a full-time pastor, because she described herself as a "lay minister" in her letter.
Here's a link she sent to me, containing a photo of the church. Their lawn is much greener and nicer than it was when I was a kid, and I'm guessing that they have a real paved parking lot there now.
Can you say "country"? Yes, Elwood was a real country church. So was Oakland United Methodist Church, where my father preached for the three years subsequent to leaving Elwood. But Oakland was considerably bigger than Elwood. It actually had a basement! And the sanctuary was much larger, too. Still, both churches seem as small as broom closets in comparison with some of the megachurches I've attended in later years.
For example, my mother now attends James River Assembly of God. Here's a photo of that church, located in Ozark, MO. It should be clear just from a comparison of the two photos that James River is many times as large as Elwood. (If you were to speak with my mother, I doubt that she would have any trouble explaining the reason for that fact.)
The folks at Elwood still seem to be meeting in the same tiny building they met in during the 1960's! I'm assuming that they must have spent a fair amount of money on repairs and renovations over the years, because the building looks pretty nice in the photo. But the church never did have adequate room for more than a small handful of people, and there doesn't seem to be any indication from the photo that they've substantially expanded the size of the sanctuary.
Size isn't everything when it comes to churches. But I'm inclined to think that churches which are carrying out the Great Commission by actively sharing the gospel with others ought to show some signs of growth over the years! Based on the available evidence, I would guess that Elwood hasn't grown much over the years in terms of attendance (which was usually fewer than 100 people when my father was the pastor there). They still only have one service there on Sundays, judging by the information on the aforementioned web page.
I'm not sure what the explanation is for the lack of growth at churches like Elwood and Oakland, but at the risk of offending Shirley and the others at her church, I could hazard a guess. I might guess that it is related to the same spiritual apathy which caused my father to violate his marital vows, commit adultery, and become an alcoholic who never repented (to my knowledge) of having caused substantial harm to me, my mother and my brother, prior to his death in 1999.
I distinctly remember the conversation, right around the time when he was on the verge of divorcing my mother, in which Dad told me that he was no longer sure if Jesus was the Son of God. To say that I was horrified would be an understatement. From the time when I was a tiny child at Elwood, I'd always looked up to my father, even when he'd punished me physically in a manner which was totally disproportionate and undeserved. When I sat on the front pew at Oakland, listening to his sermons, I thought that he was the wisest man who ever lived. My, how time can change one's perspective on such matters!
What was particularly hurtful to me and my family was the fact that the folks at Elwood continued to invite my father back to their church after the divorce, asking him to perform the occasional wedding or funeral, as if he had not forfeited his spiritual authority when he openly committed adultery, abandoned his first family, and took a new wife. It seemed as if the folks at Elwood approved of what Dad had done to us. In my view, my father's new wife was a pretender who had destroyed our family. When I saw that the folks at Elwood had posted photos of my father and his new wife, as if it was no big deal that my mother was no longer in the picture, it frankly made me want to vomit.
I know, of course, that the folks at Elwood were not motivated by malice towards me, my mother or brother. In fact, I doubt that many people there even stopped to consider how such treatment might make us feel. But I'm not sure that that's a good excuse.
I believe that the Church should always stand willing to forgive leaders caught in transgression, but there should be conditions for that forgiveness. In my view, they should have refrained from treating my father as if he was a pastor in good standing until they saw clear indications of contrition and repentance.
What accounted for their unwillingness to rebuke my father for his open sin and for their failure to impose church discipline? I think that it was just a reflection of the general moral relativism which has infected the United Methodist Church in recent years. There are exceptions, of course, but many leaders in the United Methodist Church have substituted the tenets of modernism (and more recently, postmodernism) for the tenets of the scriptures. The United Methodist Church has been shamefully spineless when confronting modern evils such as legal abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration and other manifestations of moral relativism. The same thing has been true with regard to the need to stand firm on issues such as the authority of the scriptures and the necessity of evangelism.
Some people, particularly in mainline denominations such as the United Methodist Church, seem to think that merely attending church and partaking in its rituals on a regular basis is a substitute for an intimate relationship with God. Such people think that because they were baptized as infants and raised in the church, that automatically makes them Christians.
I understand where such people are coming from, because that was the way my family raised me during the time period when my father was a Methodist lay minister. Prior to her own spiritual renewal, I distinctly remember my mother telling me, "We're not Christians. We're Methodists." She thought Christianity was just another denomination! Of course, she knows better now. She also told me, when we were at Elwood, that being "saved" was a Baptist doctrine. Having never grasped the significance of the cross in terms of redemption, she loathed the old hymn that talked about being "washed in the blood of Jesus". We Methodists were too "sophisticated" for such things!
I loved my father, but I cannot recall ever hearing him preach about the need to repent for one's sins or to ask Jesus to be one's personal Savior. I hate to say it, but I suspect that the reason he never preached such things is that he'd never really fully committed his life to Christ himself.
Fortunately for me, a series of events led me to fully commit my life to Jesus Christ. Not to a ritual or a tradition, but to a living, risen Savior who had died so that I might live. Not long after that, my mother experienced a similar spiritual transformation.
As a former pastor, one would think that my father would have been thrilled to see that my mother and I were growing in our faith. One would be dead wrong. He ridiculed us for our new interest in Christianity on a number of occasions, and he explicitly forbade me from attending a nondenominational group of young Christians who met regularly in a small house just west of Park Central. He was particularly incensed to learn that I had gone to Springfield Lake with that group one night in order to be baptized.
I'd been baptized as an infant, but I had concluded after reading the scriptures that the practice of infant baptism had no scriptural foundation. It certainly didn't seem to offer me the opportunity to publicly proclaim my new commitment to Christ.
Interestingly, the United Methodist Church now teaches that there are two kinds of baptism --- infant baptism and "believer's baptism" --- judging by the information on this web page. That's news to me! Here my father was a Methodist lay minister, and I cannot recall ever hearing about any kind of baptism other than infant baptism!
Over the years, I've attended churches from a number of different denominations. At one time, I identified myself as a Methodist. Now I just call myself a Christian. My loyalty is to Christ and his word, not to any individual denomination or church body. Where the Church has done what it ought to have done, I like to think that I have been quick to recognize that fact. But I have no reluctance to criticize the Church if and when such criticism seems to be appropriate, keeping in mind that I too am fallible.
I don't know what things are now like at Elwood. I don't know how committed Pastor Gilmore is to Christ in terms of her own personal life. I pray for her sake, and for the sake of her family, that she is a more committed disciple of Christ than my father was. I pray that her vocation as a pastor is the expression of a deep faith in the Lord, and not just a vocational choice which she made because she discovered that she had a gift (as my father did) for public speaking. That isn't even a good reason to become a politician, and it's an even poorer reason for becoming a pastor.
There is a Bible verse which says, "To whom much is given, much will be required." God holds us accountable for the gifts which he gives to us, and that is particularly true in the case of positions of church leadership. Church leaders who arrogantly act as if they are above God's laws should be removed from positions of authority, because they are failing in their responsibilities to teach obedience to God by the example of their own lives.
Church membership has been declining in the United Methodist Church and other similar mainline denominations for a number of years. There's a reason for that. People long for the truth, even when it makes strong demands on their lives. They want leaders they can respect, not leaders who capitulate to the latest trends without regard for the timeless truths of God's Word. They want the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They want a faith which isn't just a Sunday morning kind of thing. They want a faith which is relevant to their lives every day of the week. They want a faith which motivates them to transform society for the betterment of humankind.
Hatred is incompatible with an abiding faith in Christ, so I don't hate the people who continue to attend the United Methodist Church. Many of them are very nice people, and some of them are even committed Christians who regularly do their best to combat the moral relativism which has infected their church.
(For instance, I regularly get a newsletter, known as LifeWatch, from conservative United Methodists who seek to return the UMC to the days before it became difficult to tell the difference between United Methodists and Unitarians.)
I wish those people the best, but frankly, I have no stomach for that kind of constant conflict and confrontation. I don't expect perfection when I attend a church, but I do expect people to be united in a common commitment to Christ and to God's word. Unfortunately, the United Methodist churches where that is the case are few and far between.
Showing posts with label my father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my father. Show all posts
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Message from Shirley Gilmore
An E-Mail I Just Received:
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:10:37 -0700
From: (E-Mail Address Hidden; Sent by Shirley Gilmore)
Subject: Mark Pettigrew from Springfield?
To: mwp1212@gmail.com
Did you grow up in Springfield, Mo, and was your father Don Pettigrew the optometrist and preacher?
My Reply
Yes, Shirley, I'm that Mark Pettigrew.
I still remember playing with you, Mary Ginn and Ronnie Ginn, before and after church at Elwood United Methodist Church. I still remember the wart you got when you were a kid, and how I was afraid that I'd catch it! (I got one of my own years later when I was in college. Not pleasant! Now Dr. Scholl's makes an ointment designed to freeze them off.)
You may recall the incident where Wally Springer let out a few choice words not normally heard during church after a wasp found its way up his pants leg one day.
Perhaps you recall the many grasshoppers which loved to gather on the lawn in front of the church, and behind the church, on hot summer days. You probably recall the wooden fans with which folks kept themselves cool during worship services, since there was no air conditioning. You may also recall the small house, just north of the church, where you and Mary and Ronnie and I used to play.
You may recall the various events, such as softball games and hayrides and pot luck dinners, which Elwood held for its members. And who could forget Vacation Bible School!
You may or may not also know that my first serious girlfriend was Karen Smoots, who I met when my Dad took me on a return visit to Elwood. (I think Karen started going to Elwood after Dad stopped serving Elwood as its regular pastor, because I don't remember her being there when I was younger.)
I still think of you from time to time, especially when I see that TV show entitled "Gilmore Girls". It's great hearing from you!
If you're interested, you should know that I have a blog, at http://markpettigrew.blogspot.com/. I have another website at http://www.artisticchristians.com/. Feel free to check them out and let me know what you think. And be sure to let me know more about what your life is like these days.
Sincerely,
Mark W. Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue, Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60654
-------------------------
NOTE: I don't normally publish e-mail exchanges in the form of blog posts, but in this case, most of the contributions to the preceding e-mail discussion were mine, and I figured that there wasn't anything in my reminiscences which was too private to share with others.
Incidentally, Ron Ginn, the father of Mary and Ronnie, was the Sheriff of Greene County for a while, and my father was his campaign manager.
Initially, I published Shirley's e-mail address when I posted the article, and then it occurred to me that she probably would prefer that I not do so without her express permission, so I edited that part slightly.
If Shirley hadn't contacted me, I probably would have written a blog post about this subject at some point anyway. My memories from the three years when my father was the "Methodist lay minister" at Elwood are part of what makes me the person I am today.
It's interesting to see the way that the Internet and e-mail can facillitate reunions of people who haven't seen one another for many, many years.
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:10:37 -0700
From: (E-Mail Address Hidden; Sent by Shirley Gilmore)
Subject: Mark Pettigrew from Springfield?
To: mwp1212@gmail.com
Did you grow up in Springfield, Mo, and was your father Don Pettigrew the optometrist and preacher?
My Reply
Yes, Shirley, I'm that Mark Pettigrew.
I still remember playing with you, Mary Ginn and Ronnie Ginn, before and after church at Elwood United Methodist Church. I still remember the wart you got when you were a kid, and how I was afraid that I'd catch it! (I got one of my own years later when I was in college. Not pleasant! Now Dr. Scholl's makes an ointment designed to freeze them off.)
You may recall the incident where Wally Springer let out a few choice words not normally heard during church after a wasp found its way up his pants leg one day.
Perhaps you recall the many grasshoppers which loved to gather on the lawn in front of the church, and behind the church, on hot summer days. You probably recall the wooden fans with which folks kept themselves cool during worship services, since there was no air conditioning. You may also recall the small house, just north of the church, where you and Mary and Ronnie and I used to play.
You may recall the various events, such as softball games and hayrides and pot luck dinners, which Elwood held for its members. And who could forget Vacation Bible School!
You may or may not also know that my first serious girlfriend was Karen Smoots, who I met when my Dad took me on a return visit to Elwood. (I think Karen started going to Elwood after Dad stopped serving Elwood as its regular pastor, because I don't remember her being there when I was younger.)
I still think of you from time to time, especially when I see that TV show entitled "Gilmore Girls". It's great hearing from you!
If you're interested, you should know that I have a blog, at http://markpettigrew.blogspot.com/. I have another website at http://www.artisticchristians.com/. Feel free to check them out and let me know what you think. And be sure to let me know more about what your life is like these days.
Sincerely,
Mark W. Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue, Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60654
-------------------------
NOTE: I don't normally publish e-mail exchanges in the form of blog posts, but in this case, most of the contributions to the preceding e-mail discussion were mine, and I figured that there wasn't anything in my reminiscences which was too private to share with others.
Incidentally, Ron Ginn, the father of Mary and Ronnie, was the Sheriff of Greene County for a while, and my father was his campaign manager.
Initially, I published Shirley's e-mail address when I posted the article, and then it occurred to me that she probably would prefer that I not do so without her express permission, so I edited that part slightly.
If Shirley hadn't contacted me, I probably would have written a blog post about this subject at some point anyway. My memories from the three years when my father was the "Methodist lay minister" at Elwood are part of what makes me the person I am today.
It's interesting to see the way that the Internet and e-mail can facillitate reunions of people who haven't seen one another for many, many years.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Thoughts About Getting Older
I was at the bookstore yesterday, and there was a special edition of U.S. News and World Report, dedicated to the Civil War. There was a photo of Abraham Lincoln on the cover, and it was one of the photos, taken late in his life, which made him look particularly old and haggard. There was another, somewhat similar photo inside the magazine.
I was looking at the dates when they said Lincoln was born and when they said he'd died, and I realized with a bit of a start that he'd only been a few years older than I am now when he was assasinated. Specifically, he was 56 years, two months and four days old; whereas I'm almost 52 years old.
Now, I won't claim that time hasn't taken a toll on me physically. I went bald a long time ago. Financial problems have contributed to the inability to afford the kind of medical and dental care I would have preferred, so I'm missing several teeth, and I have some other medical issues which still haven't been properly addressed. Earlier this year, I had a patch of skin cancer removed by a dermatologist, and it left a slight bump on my head which wasn't there previously. I'm now taking a number of medications for hypertension, which was never an issue for me (to my knowledge) until just this past year.
Nevertheless, all things considered, I think I've aged fairly well. My skin still looks fairly youthful. I've only recently started to see a few gray hairs on my head and in my beard and moustache (although I'm "clean shaven" at the moment). I can still climb the stairs to my apartment on the 12th floor, although I do sometimes have to stop and rest for a minute or so, on the way up, to catch my breath.
Based on outward appearances, I think I've aged in a manner which is somewhat similar to how "Meet The Press" reporter Tim Russert aged. He still looked fairly youthful even during his final year on earth.
Nevertheless, looks can be deceiving. Tim Russert died just last week of a heart attack, at the age of 58. The intensity of the tributes now being paid to him is obviously a reflection of the affection people felt for him, largely on account of the fair and professional manner with which he dealt with the guests on his show. But it's likely that people were also a bit shocked that someone who seemed as vigorous as he seemed to be would die so soon of natural causes.
Another person I looked up to for many years was Christian rock musician Larry Norman. He was about three years older than Tim Russert when he died earlier this year. That death wasn't so much of a shock, because Larry had been in ill health for a number of years.
Obviously, one reason why Lincoln looked so old prior to his death was that he'd had a hard and stressful life, and no part of it was harder or more stressful than the years when he served as the president. And of course, medical care back then wasn't what it is now. Generally, people just didn't live quite as long. Lincoln obviously didn't die of natural causes, but it seems unlikely that he would have lived very many more years, even if there had been no John Wilkes Booth.
More and more, I find myself comparing my age to the age of other people at the times of their deaths, perhaps because of my awareness that I'm only about 13 years away from the age of 65, when my father died, and when my maternal grandfather died as well.
When I look back at my life and think about how quickly 12 or 13 years can fly by, it makes me deeply aware of my own mortality. It makes me sadly aware of how little I've really accomplished, in comparison with my goals, and how little time remains in which to make a real difference. Of course, there's no way to know for sure how long my own life span will be. But if one were to assume that I was destined to die at the age of 65, that would mean that I had already lived 80% of my total lifespan.
Then again, nothing is guaranteed to anyone in terms of longevity. I just read an article about a 14-year-old kid in Chicago who was murdered in a foolish dispute involving a bicycle. Compared with that kid, I've been abundantly blessed already with a long life.
Comparing one's life to the lives of others can be a futile enterprise, and somewhat pointless. Every human life is unique, and the circumstances with which each person has to deal are also somewhat unique. People do have free will, but they sometimes fail to achieve their full potential for reasons which are largely beyond their control. I think that God understands that.
Jesus Christ only lived 33 years on this earth (according to most scholars), but he accomplished more during that brief time span than other men can ever hope to accomplish.
The true value of a person's life is something which no man or woman or child can really accurately assess. Only God really knows that value.
In any event, life isn't really a competition with other people (even though that may seem to be the case in the short term), because God doesn't grade on the curve. His standard is nothing less than perfection. We all fall short of God's standards. It's only a question of how much we fall short. Thank God for His mercy and grace. We'll all be judged when we die, but our ultimate focus should not be on ourselves or our accomplishments, except to the degree that those things indicate whether or not we did our best to serve God and to make the most of the time we were given. Ultimately, our focus should be on God.
It would be nice, when I die, to receive the commendations of men. But that may or may not happen. In any event, I know that God knows and sees all, so I'll be happy, when I die, if I can hear the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
I was looking at the dates when they said Lincoln was born and when they said he'd died, and I realized with a bit of a start that he'd only been a few years older than I am now when he was assasinated. Specifically, he was 56 years, two months and four days old; whereas I'm almost 52 years old.
Now, I won't claim that time hasn't taken a toll on me physically. I went bald a long time ago. Financial problems have contributed to the inability to afford the kind of medical and dental care I would have preferred, so I'm missing several teeth, and I have some other medical issues which still haven't been properly addressed. Earlier this year, I had a patch of skin cancer removed by a dermatologist, and it left a slight bump on my head which wasn't there previously. I'm now taking a number of medications for hypertension, which was never an issue for me (to my knowledge) until just this past year.
Nevertheless, all things considered, I think I've aged fairly well. My skin still looks fairly youthful. I've only recently started to see a few gray hairs on my head and in my beard and moustache (although I'm "clean shaven" at the moment). I can still climb the stairs to my apartment on the 12th floor, although I do sometimes have to stop and rest for a minute or so, on the way up, to catch my breath.
Based on outward appearances, I think I've aged in a manner which is somewhat similar to how "Meet The Press" reporter Tim Russert aged. He still looked fairly youthful even during his final year on earth.
Nevertheless, looks can be deceiving. Tim Russert died just last week of a heart attack, at the age of 58. The intensity of the tributes now being paid to him is obviously a reflection of the affection people felt for him, largely on account of the fair and professional manner with which he dealt with the guests on his show. But it's likely that people were also a bit shocked that someone who seemed as vigorous as he seemed to be would die so soon of natural causes.
Another person I looked up to for many years was Christian rock musician Larry Norman. He was about three years older than Tim Russert when he died earlier this year. That death wasn't so much of a shock, because Larry had been in ill health for a number of years.
Obviously, one reason why Lincoln looked so old prior to his death was that he'd had a hard and stressful life, and no part of it was harder or more stressful than the years when he served as the president. And of course, medical care back then wasn't what it is now. Generally, people just didn't live quite as long. Lincoln obviously didn't die of natural causes, but it seems unlikely that he would have lived very many more years, even if there had been no John Wilkes Booth.
More and more, I find myself comparing my age to the age of other people at the times of their deaths, perhaps because of my awareness that I'm only about 13 years away from the age of 65, when my father died, and when my maternal grandfather died as well.
When I look back at my life and think about how quickly 12 or 13 years can fly by, it makes me deeply aware of my own mortality. It makes me sadly aware of how little I've really accomplished, in comparison with my goals, and how little time remains in which to make a real difference. Of course, there's no way to know for sure how long my own life span will be. But if one were to assume that I was destined to die at the age of 65, that would mean that I had already lived 80% of my total lifespan.
Then again, nothing is guaranteed to anyone in terms of longevity. I just read an article about a 14-year-old kid in Chicago who was murdered in a foolish dispute involving a bicycle. Compared with that kid, I've been abundantly blessed already with a long life.
Comparing one's life to the lives of others can be a futile enterprise, and somewhat pointless. Every human life is unique, and the circumstances with which each person has to deal are also somewhat unique. People do have free will, but they sometimes fail to achieve their full potential for reasons which are largely beyond their control. I think that God understands that.
Jesus Christ only lived 33 years on this earth (according to most scholars), but he accomplished more during that brief time span than other men can ever hope to accomplish.
The true value of a person's life is something which no man or woman or child can really accurately assess. Only God really knows that value.
In any event, life isn't really a competition with other people (even though that may seem to be the case in the short term), because God doesn't grade on the curve. His standard is nothing less than perfection. We all fall short of God's standards. It's only a question of how much we fall short. Thank God for His mercy and grace. We'll all be judged when we die, but our ultimate focus should not be on ourselves or our accomplishments, except to the degree that those things indicate whether or not we did our best to serve God and to make the most of the time we were given. Ultimately, our focus should be on God.
It would be nice, when I die, to receive the commendations of men. But that may or may not happen. In any event, I know that God knows and sees all, so I'll be happy, when I die, if I can hear the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Racial Paranoia and Jeremiah Wright
By now, anyone who isn't aware of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's paranoid rants against America has probably been hiding in the same cave as Osama bin Laden. (I'd be willing to bet that bin Laden knows about them, too, if he's still alive.) The news is all over the web, so I won't waste your time by repeating it here. That's what Google searches are for.
What I would like to do, though, is to comment on several aspects of the controversy.
In Wright's latest speech, he asserted that criticism of him was tantamount to an attack on all black churches. What unmitigated arrogance! The idea that there might be African American pastors and church members who disagree with his paranoid statements doesn't seem to have occurred to him. In his exalted opinion of himself, he speaks for all black Americans, not just for some of them. I'll grant you, the black community seems to exhibit less diversity of thought than many other demographic groups, but the diversity is there, nevertheless.
Reverend Wright needs to spend time talking with conservative African American Christians such as Alan Keyes. I'm not sure whether Ward Connerly or Larry Elder consider themselves to be Christians, but they're definitely conservative African Americans. Having read the insightful things which they have written, I can just about guarantee that they do not share Reverend Wright's bleak and unpatriotic outlook on life.
Another African American who seems to understand racial issues a lot better than Reverend Wright is John L. Jackson, Jr. Mr. Jackson wrote a book entitled Racial Paranoia. I found that book at Barnes and Noble the other day, and I found it to be so fascinating that I read the entire book right there in the store.
Reverend Wright expressed the opinion that the U.S. government had created AIDS to destroy African Americans, as if black folks were the only people who had been killed by that disease! In his book, John L. Jackson, Jr. discusses that conspiracy theory, and he also discusses the conspiracy theory which followed Hurricane Katrina (to the effect that the government had planted a bomb in New Orleans' black neighborhood). Those are just a couple of examples of the type of paranoia demonstrated by putative black leaders such as Reverend Wright. In both cases, those theories seem to be politically motivated, with the obvious intention of portraying Republicans such as myself (and George Bush in particular) as evil people. (Never mind that it was a Republican named Abraham Lincoln who liberated them from slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation.)
Of course, racial paranoia isn't always politically motivated. Sometimes it's more personal. I could cite a number of examples from my own experiences here in Chicago and elsewhere. I have witnessed and been involved in incidents in which accusations of racism were made recklessly and without any factual basis other than the accusers' assumptions to the effect that the things which they found to be disagreeable must have been motivated by racism.
To my way of thinking, such accusations are a sign of racism on the part of the accuser, not on the part of the accused! The mere fact that a white man criticizes a black man for something does not constitute proof that the criticism is motivated by racism. The mere fact that a white man says "no" to a request for money from a black street beggar does not constitute proof that the white man is a racist.
Given a choice between hiring someone who takes criticism well or hiring a person to responds to any and all criticisms by saying, "You're just saying that because I'm black and you're white," who would you want to hire if you were currently looking for a new employee? The answer is obvious. In today's climate, in which accusations of racism seem to be made at the drop of a hat, hiring black folks can be seen, by some, as a very risky thing to do. So racial paranoia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Knee jerk accusations of racism, in the absence of any substantive proof, are irresponsible and counterproductive. They foster the perception that African Americans do not take criticism very well at all. They foster the perception that African Americans think that the world owes them a living. And they foster resentment on the part of people who, in many cases, may have previously been sympathetic with the goals of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. They may even lead, in some cases, to a backlash which is ultimately harmful to the African American community.
I am particularly fascinated by the thesis of Racial Paranoia, as expressed by its subtitle: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness. In essence, Jackson argues that racial paranoia actually increases as genuine episodes of white-against-black racism decrease. The reason, he argues, is that many African Americans are aware of the societal stigma which is attached these days to racist words and acts spoken and committed by white folks. White folks who have made racist statements or done racist things have often lost their jobs, and sometimes even more, as a result of their words or actions. Consequently, there are often lingering suspicions on the part of African Americans to the effect that racism never really went away --- it just went "underground".
There may be rare occasions in which such suspicions are justified by the facts, but the unsubstantiated nature of the suspicions makes it highly probable that there are many more instances in which such suspicions amount to little more than vicious slander.
Racial paranoia makes it virtually impossible for a white person to do anything to disprove accusations of racism. Such a person can vehemently state that he or she believes strongly in racial equality and the need for civil rights, and can even cite examples of incidents in which that person took a stand against racism --- but a person who is guilty of racial paranoia is so solidly attached to his or her assumptions that actual evidence is ignored whenever it contradicts those assumptions.
When you create a no-win situation for white folks who genuinely reject the racism of the past and who fervently desire to see the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.' s famous dream, it tends to create resentment among the very people who once counted themselves as your allies.
If you treat people as if they're guilty whether they're guilty or not, then you remove the incentive for them to do right and you create a strong incentive for them to do wrong. That just isn't very bright! Even if you aren't motivated by any sense of right and wrong, it's in your best interest to refrain from making accusations which are likely to diminish the number of your friends and allies.
But there are considerations which go beyond utilitarian concerns. The Golden Rule is a universally recognized rule of ethics which states that you should treat people as you would wish to be treated. What does that mean? Among other things, it means giving people the benefit of the doubt, if indeed a reasonable doubt exists. It means not accusing people of malevolent motivations when you have nothing more than vague suspicions on which to base such accusations.
People who do not act in accordance with the Golden Rule forfeit their own moral authority. If they aren't willing to treat other people with fairness, as they would wish to be treated, then they have no right to expect others to treat them fairly, either. In the case of civil rights issues, that isn't smart, because the Civil Rights movement never could have triumphed as it did without a general recognition on the part of numerous white Americans such as myself that Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers had integrity and moral authority.
By casting a dark cloud over Barack Obama's campaign, Reverend Wright's intemperate words have diminished the likelihood that Barack Obama will be the first African American president of the United States. Is that really in the best interests of the black community, or in the best interests of Barack Obama? Wright doesn't seem to have given much thought to the likely consequences of his own actions. No wonder Barack Obama has been quick to criticize Reverend Wright publicly.
I was raised by parents who both taught me from a very early age that racism and racial discrimination were wrong. I was sympathetic with the goals of the Civil Rights movement. My heroes included men such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and George Washington Carver (whose birthplace in Diamond, Missouri was just a short distance from my home town).
My father took our family to Carver's birthplace on two separate occasions, because he wanted us to know where he stood on the issue of race. Dad bragged about having run in a track meet with Dick Gregory, in a way which made it clear that he admired Mr. Gregory. My father served as the Chairman of the Mayor's Commission on Human Rights, and he took a stand against racial discrimination even though there really wasn't any great public pressure to do so (since there were very few black folks in my home town of Springfield, MO). He preached at an African American church (Pitts Chapel United Methodist Church) at the request of the Rev. Houston Montgomery, who later became a good friend of ours.
In short, I didn't admire my father in every respect, but I strongly admired his stand against racism, and I incorporated those values into my own beliefs.
I don't regret having done so, but I have come to realize, over the years, that the issues are more complex than I once realized. Yes, there are racists in this world. Some of them are white. But more than a few of them are black.
White racists are absolutely on the wrong track, but that doesn't mean that all of their criticisms of the black community are completely unfounded. Some African Americans are good people who are worthy of admiration on many levels, but there are also a lot of black people whose behavior could be accurately characterized as dysfunctional, antisocial and morally bankrupt.
In short, black folks and white folks have a lot in common with each other. Members of both groups have a lot of good qualities and a lot of bad qualities. It's important to praise praiseworthy things, but it's equally important to speak the truth about things which ought to appall us. That's the only way that we will ever move closer to the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream of a world in which men and women are judged according to the contents of their character.
Creating an atmosphere in which people of both races are free to speak honestly will go a long way towards ending the racial paranoia which currently characterizes large numbers of African Americans. It's disingenuous to claim that you want "dialog" about race, when what you really mean is that you want a one-sided monolog in which only black folks have a voice.
I am growing weary of African American leaders, such as Dr. Wright, who claim to believe that racial discrimination and racism are wrong, while simultaneously demonstrating through their words and actions that they are guilty of the very things they claim to abhor. The divisive and hostile words spoken by such people hinder the chances that we will ever overcome America's tragic legacy of racism.
UPDATE: Here's a link to a good article about the relationship between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright.
To his credit, Obama has recently spoken out against Wright's conspiracy theories and anti-American words.
However, I can't help but observe that if John McCain's pastor had been an outspoken white supremacist, the chances of McCain ever been nominated or elected for president of the United States would be virtually nil, especially if McCain's relationship with that pastor had been as well-documented as Obama's relationship with Wright. Unless we wish to embrace double standards based on race --- in other words, racial discrimination --- we should hold Barack Obama to similar standards. Jeremiah Wright's views are every bit as racist and repugnant as any white supremacist's views.
Obama has claimed that he wasn't aware of Wright's paranoid views until very recently. How credible is that claim? Not very. In light of Wright's truculent response to criticism during the recent past, I find it likely that Wright made his views known to all of the members of his church on a fairly regular basis. The only way that Barack Obama could have been ignorant of those views would be if he had basically slept through most of the worship services, or stayed at home on those Sundays when such views were promoted from the pulpit. And if indeed he was ignorant of Wright's views, what does that say about his level of commitment to his church? Any way that one looks at it, the situation reflects poorly on his character.
What I would like to do, though, is to comment on several aspects of the controversy.
In Wright's latest speech, he asserted that criticism of him was tantamount to an attack on all black churches. What unmitigated arrogance! The idea that there might be African American pastors and church members who disagree with his paranoid statements doesn't seem to have occurred to him. In his exalted opinion of himself, he speaks for all black Americans, not just for some of them. I'll grant you, the black community seems to exhibit less diversity of thought than many other demographic groups, but the diversity is there, nevertheless.
Reverend Wright needs to spend time talking with conservative African American Christians such as Alan Keyes. I'm not sure whether Ward Connerly or Larry Elder consider themselves to be Christians, but they're definitely conservative African Americans. Having read the insightful things which they have written, I can just about guarantee that they do not share Reverend Wright's bleak and unpatriotic outlook on life.
Another African American who seems to understand racial issues a lot better than Reverend Wright is John L. Jackson, Jr. Mr. Jackson wrote a book entitled Racial Paranoia. I found that book at Barnes and Noble the other day, and I found it to be so fascinating that I read the entire book right there in the store.
Reverend Wright expressed the opinion that the U.S. government had created AIDS to destroy African Americans, as if black folks were the only people who had been killed by that disease! In his book, John L. Jackson, Jr. discusses that conspiracy theory, and he also discusses the conspiracy theory which followed Hurricane Katrina (to the effect that the government had planted a bomb in New Orleans' black neighborhood). Those are just a couple of examples of the type of paranoia demonstrated by putative black leaders such as Reverend Wright. In both cases, those theories seem to be politically motivated, with the obvious intention of portraying Republicans such as myself (and George Bush in particular) as evil people. (Never mind that it was a Republican named Abraham Lincoln who liberated them from slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation.)
Of course, racial paranoia isn't always politically motivated. Sometimes it's more personal. I could cite a number of examples from my own experiences here in Chicago and elsewhere. I have witnessed and been involved in incidents in which accusations of racism were made recklessly and without any factual basis other than the accusers' assumptions to the effect that the things which they found to be disagreeable must have been motivated by racism.
To my way of thinking, such accusations are a sign of racism on the part of the accuser, not on the part of the accused! The mere fact that a white man criticizes a black man for something does not constitute proof that the criticism is motivated by racism. The mere fact that a white man says "no" to a request for money from a black street beggar does not constitute proof that the white man is a racist.
Given a choice between hiring someone who takes criticism well or hiring a person to responds to any and all criticisms by saying, "You're just saying that because I'm black and you're white," who would you want to hire if you were currently looking for a new employee? The answer is obvious. In today's climate, in which accusations of racism seem to be made at the drop of a hat, hiring black folks can be seen, by some, as a very risky thing to do. So racial paranoia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Knee jerk accusations of racism, in the absence of any substantive proof, are irresponsible and counterproductive. They foster the perception that African Americans do not take criticism very well at all. They foster the perception that African Americans think that the world owes them a living. And they foster resentment on the part of people who, in many cases, may have previously been sympathetic with the goals of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. They may even lead, in some cases, to a backlash which is ultimately harmful to the African American community.
I am particularly fascinated by the thesis of Racial Paranoia, as expressed by its subtitle: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness. In essence, Jackson argues that racial paranoia actually increases as genuine episodes of white-against-black racism decrease. The reason, he argues, is that many African Americans are aware of the societal stigma which is attached these days to racist words and acts spoken and committed by white folks. White folks who have made racist statements or done racist things have often lost their jobs, and sometimes even more, as a result of their words or actions. Consequently, there are often lingering suspicions on the part of African Americans to the effect that racism never really went away --- it just went "underground".
There may be rare occasions in which such suspicions are justified by the facts, but the unsubstantiated nature of the suspicions makes it highly probable that there are many more instances in which such suspicions amount to little more than vicious slander.
Racial paranoia makes it virtually impossible for a white person to do anything to disprove accusations of racism. Such a person can vehemently state that he or she believes strongly in racial equality and the need for civil rights, and can even cite examples of incidents in which that person took a stand against racism --- but a person who is guilty of racial paranoia is so solidly attached to his or her assumptions that actual evidence is ignored whenever it contradicts those assumptions.
When you create a no-win situation for white folks who genuinely reject the racism of the past and who fervently desire to see the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.' s famous dream, it tends to create resentment among the very people who once counted themselves as your allies.
If you treat people as if they're guilty whether they're guilty or not, then you remove the incentive for them to do right and you create a strong incentive for them to do wrong. That just isn't very bright! Even if you aren't motivated by any sense of right and wrong, it's in your best interest to refrain from making accusations which are likely to diminish the number of your friends and allies.
But there are considerations which go beyond utilitarian concerns. The Golden Rule is a universally recognized rule of ethics which states that you should treat people as you would wish to be treated. What does that mean? Among other things, it means giving people the benefit of the doubt, if indeed a reasonable doubt exists. It means not accusing people of malevolent motivations when you have nothing more than vague suspicions on which to base such accusations.
People who do not act in accordance with the Golden Rule forfeit their own moral authority. If they aren't willing to treat other people with fairness, as they would wish to be treated, then they have no right to expect others to treat them fairly, either. In the case of civil rights issues, that isn't smart, because the Civil Rights movement never could have triumphed as it did without a general recognition on the part of numerous white Americans such as myself that Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers had integrity and moral authority.
By casting a dark cloud over Barack Obama's campaign, Reverend Wright's intemperate words have diminished the likelihood that Barack Obama will be the first African American president of the United States. Is that really in the best interests of the black community, or in the best interests of Barack Obama? Wright doesn't seem to have given much thought to the likely consequences of his own actions. No wonder Barack Obama has been quick to criticize Reverend Wright publicly.
I was raised by parents who both taught me from a very early age that racism and racial discrimination were wrong. I was sympathetic with the goals of the Civil Rights movement. My heroes included men such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and George Washington Carver (whose birthplace in Diamond, Missouri was just a short distance from my home town).
My father took our family to Carver's birthplace on two separate occasions, because he wanted us to know where he stood on the issue of race. Dad bragged about having run in a track meet with Dick Gregory, in a way which made it clear that he admired Mr. Gregory. My father served as the Chairman of the Mayor's Commission on Human Rights, and he took a stand against racial discrimination even though there really wasn't any great public pressure to do so (since there were very few black folks in my home town of Springfield, MO). He preached at an African American church (Pitts Chapel United Methodist Church) at the request of the Rev. Houston Montgomery, who later became a good friend of ours.
In short, I didn't admire my father in every respect, but I strongly admired his stand against racism, and I incorporated those values into my own beliefs.
I don't regret having done so, but I have come to realize, over the years, that the issues are more complex than I once realized. Yes, there are racists in this world. Some of them are white. But more than a few of them are black.
White racists are absolutely on the wrong track, but that doesn't mean that all of their criticisms of the black community are completely unfounded. Some African Americans are good people who are worthy of admiration on many levels, but there are also a lot of black people whose behavior could be accurately characterized as dysfunctional, antisocial and morally bankrupt.
In short, black folks and white folks have a lot in common with each other. Members of both groups have a lot of good qualities and a lot of bad qualities. It's important to praise praiseworthy things, but it's equally important to speak the truth about things which ought to appall us. That's the only way that we will ever move closer to the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream of a world in which men and women are judged according to the contents of their character.
Creating an atmosphere in which people of both races are free to speak honestly will go a long way towards ending the racial paranoia which currently characterizes large numbers of African Americans. It's disingenuous to claim that you want "dialog" about race, when what you really mean is that you want a one-sided monolog in which only black folks have a voice.
I am growing weary of African American leaders, such as Dr. Wright, who claim to believe that racial discrimination and racism are wrong, while simultaneously demonstrating through their words and actions that they are guilty of the very things they claim to abhor. The divisive and hostile words spoken by such people hinder the chances that we will ever overcome America's tragic legacy of racism.
UPDATE: Here's a link to a good article about the relationship between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright.
To his credit, Obama has recently spoken out against Wright's conspiracy theories and anti-American words.
However, I can't help but observe that if John McCain's pastor had been an outspoken white supremacist, the chances of McCain ever been nominated or elected for president of the United States would be virtually nil, especially if McCain's relationship with that pastor had been as well-documented as Obama's relationship with Wright. Unless we wish to embrace double standards based on race --- in other words, racial discrimination --- we should hold Barack Obama to similar standards. Jeremiah Wright's views are every bit as racist and repugnant as any white supremacist's views.
Obama has claimed that he wasn't aware of Wright's paranoid views until very recently. How credible is that claim? Not very. In light of Wright's truculent response to criticism during the recent past, I find it likely that Wright made his views known to all of the members of his church on a fairly regular basis. The only way that Barack Obama could have been ignorant of those views would be if he had basically slept through most of the worship services, or stayed at home on those Sundays when such views were promoted from the pulpit. And if indeed he was ignorant of Wright's views, what does that say about his level of commitment to his church? Any way that one looks at it, the situation reflects poorly on his character.
Monday, November 14, 2005
From Jesus Freaks to Control Freaks
In the 1970's, shortly after becoming a Christian in 1969, I became a part of the budding "Jesus movement". There were a lot of young people, in those days, who, despite the fact that we dressed like hippies and listened to rock music, loved the Lord. We were sometimes known as "Jesus freaks".
I miss those days. Some of my best friendships were developed during that time of my life. People weren't perfect, of course, but the people who were part of that movement did seem to have a genuine love for God and for all people, saved or otherwise.
These days, it seems to me, the church could use a lot more Jesus freaks, and a lot fewer control freaks. Many of our pastors (some of whom, ironically, were once part of the Jesus movement, and some of whom think that they still are) have become bullies who believe that the fact that they're in charge entitles them to run roughshod over the feelings and needs of others in their congregations. They may give lip service to the idea that ministers of the gospel ought to emulate Christ by serving others, but their actions speak more loudly than their words.
This is particularly true when it comes to the way many pastors treat musicians. Even though it would be extremely difficult to find a really successful church which had no talented musicians on its worship team, there are still pastors who treat musicians as if they are expendable, and as if their needs, material and otherwise, are utterly unimportant.
Even in cases where there is no evidence to substantiate such accusations, musicians are often presumed to be immature people who need to be "humbled" (or, to be more accurate, repeatedly denigrated and humiliated) in the name of spiritual discipline, for no better reason than the fact that they are musicians! And then people wonder why they aren't constantly bubbling over with the "joy of the Lord".
Admittedly, there are some musicians, just as there are Christians in all other walks of life, who deserve to be accused of being self-centered and immature. If and when that is the case, then it is appropriate for Christian leaders to speak the truth about such matters, provided that they are guided by love and humility when they communicate such things. But musicians have no monopoly on immaturity.
My father, for example, was once considered a "pillar of the community". He was an optometrist, and he loved the prestige which came from being called "Dr. Pettigrew". He was head of the local PTA, a well-known figure at Rotary and Toastmaster meetings, the Chairman of the Mayor's Commission on Human Rights, and (at one time) the president of the Missouri Optometric Association. He even had a photo of himself shaking hands with the Governor of Missouri, in his official capacity as the president of the MOA.
He was also a part-time minister (or what was called a "lay minister") in the Methodist church. Every Sunday morning, the people would stream out of the small country churches he led, saying things such as "What a wonderful sermon, Dr. Pettigrew!" They were right. My father had "charisma", and he could preach a magnificent sermon.
At one time in my life, I was actually very proud of him, despite his propensity for beating the living daylights out of me with his thin leather belt for the most trivial of offenses. But there came a time when I could no longer feel proud of my father. By the time he died in 1999, he had:
Gosh, I guess it's a good thing he wasn't a musician, too --- then he would have been really bad!
Pastors need to get their own houses in order before they start taking musicians to task. This, by the way, includes pastors who also happen to be talented musicians.
One such person, from the Chicago area, is Glenn Kaiser, the very talented singer and guitarist who once led the Resurrection Band, which I still consider to be one of the best bands in the history of rock music. (Notice that I didn't qualify that by saying, "one of the best Christian bands". They were that good.) Glenn, who is a pastor at Jesus People U.S.A. (where I lived for several months in 1991), recently stated the following (in his Blogger.com blog): "Talent doesn't EVER equal spiritual maturity. Never. Nada." He's right, it doesn't. And that's as applicable to his talent as it is to anyone else's.
By the same token, a position of authority in a local church or national ministry should never be automatically equated with spiritual maturity, either. From Jim Jones to Jim Bakker to Jimmy Swaggart to Jesse Jackson to the Catholic priests who have been convicted of the sexual abuse of minors, there are just too many examples of incompetent, self-centered, blatantly sinful pastors and priests for anyone but the most naive to think that authority in the church is equal to spiritual maturity.
Amazingly, despite many decades in which contemporary Christian music has had the opportunity to demonstrate its compatibility with the goals of the church, there are still pastors (usually theologically conservative pastors) who believe, despite the absence of any scriptures to support their views, that rock music is "of the Devil". When asked to cite the applicable scriptures, chapter and verse, they are unable to do so, of course, because no such scriptures exist in any known translation of the holy scriptures. Yet, rather than seeing Christian rock musicians as allies in the fight against the Devil's lies, they see such musicians as enemies to be opposed. Sometimes this opposition is very blatant, other times it's much more subtle, but in all instances, it can be a source of real spiritual stress for those who are doing their best to serve the Lord with the musical talents and extremely limited material resources given to them.
CCM, also known as Contemporary Christian Music, was a genre of music started by "Jesus freaks" who believed that it was irrational for Christians who claimed to be guided by the word of God to invent prohibitions (such as the prohibition against rock music) which had no basis in scripture. They saw no reason not to play or enjoy such music, and they saw it as a potent tool which could be used for evangelistic purposes.
Indeed, it was, as I saw firsthand when I promoted a Sweet Comfort Band concert when I was in college. Numerous people accepted Christ as Savior at that concert. That was hardly an isolated event. Many Christian rock concerts have led to conversions to the faith.
Yet, right from the start, Christian rock musicians faced an uphill battle. They were too Christian for the secular music market, and too radical for many of the older people who shared their Christian beliefs.
Eventually, after several decades of struggle, the vast majority of the church acknowledged that pop and rock music could be legitimate expressions of the faith. (Walk through any Bible bookstore today, if you don't believe me.) Unfortunately, it now seems legitimate to ask if it matters anymore. Somewhere along the way, people involved in the Christian music industry lost sight of why the pioneers (such as Larry Norman and Barry McGuire) had played and recorded contemporary Christian music in the first place.
The vision for changing the world with such music was lost. Instead of seeing CCM as a potent evangelistic tool, Christians started seeing such music as a "safe alternative" to worldly rock music. Instead of wanting to storm the gates of Hell, they wanted to retreat to a nice, warm castle which would protect them from the influence of the enemy.
I'm not completely unsympathetic. In any war, it's sometimes necessary to go on the defensive if you want to survive to see another day. But you'll never win any major wars if you stay on the defensive forever. To win wars, it's necessary to leave your comfort zone and take risks. These days, far too few Christians are willing to do that. There are a few Christian musicians who continue to try to bridge the gap between the church subculture and the larger culture which surrounds them, without compromising their faith or their commitment to musical excellence, but they seem to be the exception, not the rule.
As a result, American culture is on a downward path in terms of the collective moral values of our nation. While Christians hide behind stained glass doors and play church, people are dying outside.
Nostalgia can be a bad thing, of course. Even if we wanted to do so, it's highly doubtful that we could ever return to the glory days of the Jesus movement. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad idea to look at what we've lost, why we lost it, and what we could do and ought to do in order to recover that which was lost.
First of all, pastors need to stop selectively choosing to focus on only those scriptures which support their personal ambitions. They need to remind themselves that God is no respecter of persons. Every person in the Body of Christ is valuable. Therefore it is a disservice to the church and to Christ to run one's church in such a way that most people have no real voice with regard to the policies and practices within their own churches. In particular, Christians who seek to use the arts as a means of reconnecting the church to disenfranchised people ought to be encouraged and supported in those efforts.
Likewise, pastors need to recommit themselves to the principal that only the scriptures constitute God's word. Imposing their own personal preferences and prejudices on others, without any real scriptural justification for doing so, is simply unacceptable.
Second, Christians need to do some soul-searching with regard to their attitudes towards the lost. Do we really care about the masses of people who don't know the Lord? If so, why aren't we willing to reach out to them and communicate the gospel in a manner which will transcend the superficial cultural barriers which have prevented them from taking our message seriously? And why do we endlessly snipe at each other, when the only purpose that serves is to distract us from the task of fulfilling the Great Commission?
Ultimately, the Jesus Movement was not about superficial styles of clothing or music. It was about an attitude, one which transcends time and space, and that's the attitude that people matter. No one is expendable. Just because people dress differently or like different styles of music, that's no reason to treat them as if they are unimportant.
When the church becomes insular, when its focus is primarily on preserving the status quo rather than transforming it, it betrays the Lord, who came and died in order to seek and save all who were lost.
I miss those days. Some of my best friendships were developed during that time of my life. People weren't perfect, of course, but the people who were part of that movement did seem to have a genuine love for God and for all people, saved or otherwise.
These days, it seems to me, the church could use a lot more Jesus freaks, and a lot fewer control freaks. Many of our pastors (some of whom, ironically, were once part of the Jesus movement, and some of whom think that they still are) have become bullies who believe that the fact that they're in charge entitles them to run roughshod over the feelings and needs of others in their congregations. They may give lip service to the idea that ministers of the gospel ought to emulate Christ by serving others, but their actions speak more loudly than their words.
This is particularly true when it comes to the way many pastors treat musicians. Even though it would be extremely difficult to find a really successful church which had no talented musicians on its worship team, there are still pastors who treat musicians as if they are expendable, and as if their needs, material and otherwise, are utterly unimportant.
Even in cases where there is no evidence to substantiate such accusations, musicians are often presumed to be immature people who need to be "humbled" (or, to be more accurate, repeatedly denigrated and humiliated) in the name of spiritual discipline, for no better reason than the fact that they are musicians! And then people wonder why they aren't constantly bubbling over with the "joy of the Lord".
Admittedly, there are some musicians, just as there are Christians in all other walks of life, who deserve to be accused of being self-centered and immature. If and when that is the case, then it is appropriate for Christian leaders to speak the truth about such matters, provided that they are guided by love and humility when they communicate such things. But musicians have no monopoly on immaturity.
My father, for example, was once considered a "pillar of the community". He was an optometrist, and he loved the prestige which came from being called "Dr. Pettigrew". He was head of the local PTA, a well-known figure at Rotary and Toastmaster meetings, the Chairman of the Mayor's Commission on Human Rights, and (at one time) the president of the Missouri Optometric Association. He even had a photo of himself shaking hands with the Governor of Missouri, in his official capacity as the president of the MOA.
He was also a part-time minister (or what was called a "lay minister") in the Methodist church. Every Sunday morning, the people would stream out of the small country churches he led, saying things such as "What a wonderful sermon, Dr. Pettigrew!" They were right. My father had "charisma", and he could preach a magnificent sermon.
At one time in my life, I was actually very proud of him, despite his propensity for beating the living daylights out of me with his thin leather belt for the most trivial of offenses. But there came a time when I could no longer feel proud of my father. By the time he died in 1999, he had:
- Violently thrown me up against the wall because I inadvertently left my football out in the front yard.
- Committed adultery.
- Denied that Christ had risen from the dead (during a conversation which I remember vividly, despite the passage of more than 30 years).
- Divorced my mother.
- Ridiculed both me and my mother for our growing Christian faith.
- ... and gone from being a "tee-totaller" to an alcoholic who, at one point, was so drunk that he couldn't even put his own pants on.
Gosh, I guess it's a good thing he wasn't a musician, too --- then he would have been really bad!
Pastors need to get their own houses in order before they start taking musicians to task. This, by the way, includes pastors who also happen to be talented musicians.
One such person, from the Chicago area, is Glenn Kaiser, the very talented singer and guitarist who once led the Resurrection Band, which I still consider to be one of the best bands in the history of rock music. (Notice that I didn't qualify that by saying, "one of the best Christian bands". They were that good.) Glenn, who is a pastor at Jesus People U.S.A. (where I lived for several months in 1991), recently stated the following (in his Blogger.com blog): "Talent doesn't EVER equal spiritual maturity. Never. Nada." He's right, it doesn't. And that's as applicable to his talent as it is to anyone else's.
By the same token, a position of authority in a local church or national ministry should never be automatically equated with spiritual maturity, either. From Jim Jones to Jim Bakker to Jimmy Swaggart to Jesse Jackson to the Catholic priests who have been convicted of the sexual abuse of minors, there are just too many examples of incompetent, self-centered, blatantly sinful pastors and priests for anyone but the most naive to think that authority in the church is equal to spiritual maturity.
Amazingly, despite many decades in which contemporary Christian music has had the opportunity to demonstrate its compatibility with the goals of the church, there are still pastors (usually theologically conservative pastors) who believe, despite the absence of any scriptures to support their views, that rock music is "of the Devil". When asked to cite the applicable scriptures, chapter and verse, they are unable to do so, of course, because no such scriptures exist in any known translation of the holy scriptures. Yet, rather than seeing Christian rock musicians as allies in the fight against the Devil's lies, they see such musicians as enemies to be opposed. Sometimes this opposition is very blatant, other times it's much more subtle, but in all instances, it can be a source of real spiritual stress for those who are doing their best to serve the Lord with the musical talents and extremely limited material resources given to them.
CCM, also known as Contemporary Christian Music, was a genre of music started by "Jesus freaks" who believed that it was irrational for Christians who claimed to be guided by the word of God to invent prohibitions (such as the prohibition against rock music) which had no basis in scripture. They saw no reason not to play or enjoy such music, and they saw it as a potent tool which could be used for evangelistic purposes.
Indeed, it was, as I saw firsthand when I promoted a Sweet Comfort Band concert when I was in college. Numerous people accepted Christ as Savior at that concert. That was hardly an isolated event. Many Christian rock concerts have led to conversions to the faith.
Yet, right from the start, Christian rock musicians faced an uphill battle. They were too Christian for the secular music market, and too radical for many of the older people who shared their Christian beliefs.
Eventually, after several decades of struggle, the vast majority of the church acknowledged that pop and rock music could be legitimate expressions of the faith. (Walk through any Bible bookstore today, if you don't believe me.) Unfortunately, it now seems legitimate to ask if it matters anymore. Somewhere along the way, people involved in the Christian music industry lost sight of why the pioneers (such as Larry Norman and Barry McGuire) had played and recorded contemporary Christian music in the first place.
The vision for changing the world with such music was lost. Instead of seeing CCM as a potent evangelistic tool, Christians started seeing such music as a "safe alternative" to worldly rock music. Instead of wanting to storm the gates of Hell, they wanted to retreat to a nice, warm castle which would protect them from the influence of the enemy.
I'm not completely unsympathetic. In any war, it's sometimes necessary to go on the defensive if you want to survive to see another day. But you'll never win any major wars if you stay on the defensive forever. To win wars, it's necessary to leave your comfort zone and take risks. These days, far too few Christians are willing to do that. There are a few Christian musicians who continue to try to bridge the gap between the church subculture and the larger culture which surrounds them, without compromising their faith or their commitment to musical excellence, but they seem to be the exception, not the rule.
As a result, American culture is on a downward path in terms of the collective moral values of our nation. While Christians hide behind stained glass doors and play church, people are dying outside.
Nostalgia can be a bad thing, of course. Even if we wanted to do so, it's highly doubtful that we could ever return to the glory days of the Jesus movement. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad idea to look at what we've lost, why we lost it, and what we could do and ought to do in order to recover that which was lost.
First of all, pastors need to stop selectively choosing to focus on only those scriptures which support their personal ambitions. They need to remind themselves that God is no respecter of persons. Every person in the Body of Christ is valuable. Therefore it is a disservice to the church and to Christ to run one's church in such a way that most people have no real voice with regard to the policies and practices within their own churches. In particular, Christians who seek to use the arts as a means of reconnecting the church to disenfranchised people ought to be encouraged and supported in those efforts.
Likewise, pastors need to recommit themselves to the principal that only the scriptures constitute God's word. Imposing their own personal preferences and prejudices on others, without any real scriptural justification for doing so, is simply unacceptable.
Second, Christians need to do some soul-searching with regard to their attitudes towards the lost. Do we really care about the masses of people who don't know the Lord? If so, why aren't we willing to reach out to them and communicate the gospel in a manner which will transcend the superficial cultural barriers which have prevented them from taking our message seriously? And why do we endlessly snipe at each other, when the only purpose that serves is to distract us from the task of fulfilling the Great Commission?
Ultimately, the Jesus Movement was not about superficial styles of clothing or music. It was about an attitude, one which transcends time and space, and that's the attitude that people matter. No one is expendable. Just because people dress differently or like different styles of music, that's no reason to treat them as if they are unimportant.
When the church becomes insular, when its focus is primarily on preserving the status quo rather than transforming it, it betrays the Lord, who came and died in order to seek and save all who were lost.
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