Carl Jordan and Alan Bury were some of my best friends in that
their palpable goodwill towards me could include good-natured challenges to my
imperfections—Carl saying with a winning smile when I was hesitant to help provide roller
skates for the children in our immediate neighborhood (lilting to the tune of the O’jays…"I
know what you’re interested in…”'Money, Money, Money'’’) and then Alan as my university
Wesley Foundation chaplain at a student conference saying ”Now go over and make
James feel welcome": (James Hood who had just integrated with great controversy the
University of Alabama). Of course, my
friends' cheerful manner overflowing with certainty that I would “straighten up and
fly right” made it easy for me to do so. Think how different I would have felt if anger and cynicism had replaced
their winning confidence and trust that I would do the right thing. (Witness such trust and confidence in an American President:
https://www.wayneblogs.com/2018/05/more-than-thoughts-and-prayers.html)
https://www.wayneblogs.com/2018/05/more-than-thoughts-and-prayers.html)
Somehow, I wish that same goodwill and certainty could have
been embedded with the challenges facing the church in America when it witnessed the
Vietnam War—many congregations prayed for our soldiers but never once challenged
or even explored the wisdom of the war or how it was executed. Likewise, the church found it difficult to move
from broad, general endorsements of brotherly love to the nitty-gritty cruelties
of Jim Crow Racism.
In these matters fear (and consequential ironclad complicit silences)
filled the hearts and minds of Christ’s church.
All dreaded that out-of-the-closet integrity and honesty would result in organizational disintegration and death. All were filled with self-doubt that Christian love could
be any match for the passions of political tribalism. Pathetically, they attempted to enlist as an
unqualified mantra: “do not judge” to the degree that the devil himself (the very master
of deceit) could remain head deacon. All
the while, it is never lost on any Christian that Christ was crucified not because
he assiduously avoided judgment, but rather because he manifestly judged the plainly evident
failures of the scribes and Pharisees with uncompromising passion, conviction and out-there plain speaking. (And we might ask ourselves, "What did these people so deeply invested in the status quo really fear?)
TODAY I ONLY WISH TO LOOK UPON THE CHURCH WITH A SMILE OF GOODWILL
AND CLEARLY EVIDENT CONFIDENCE THAT IT WILL STAND UP AND STAND TALL TO PLAINLY EVIDENT TRUMPISM CORRUPTION—TO
TRULY TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART!!!
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