Literate Baptists and the North Carolina Senate Race
Not long ago I shared a couple links at the Clay County Progress Facebook wall on the North Carolina Senate Race. Hayesville, N.C. and Clay County is the birthplace of George W. Truett and where I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and was Baptized in 1959.
I don't think Truett were he with us today would vote for Art Pope and the Koch Brothers Tea Party Candidate Tillis. A studious hearing of Elizabeth Warren's hour long conversation on NPR's Diane Rehm show--drshow.org--yesterday further convinces me of such, not to mention the Moral Monday's crusade this last year in North Carolina.
About a month ago, a good man, Guy Sayles, of FBC Asheville, N.C. had an easily googled piece at ethicsdaily.com I found quite naive. In effect a leader of the progressive Baptist movement in North Carolina who does much good, came across to me as not being in a much better place in this Tea Party Onslaught as were the 8 ministers to whom Martin Luther King sent his letter from the Bham Jail in 1963.
Senator Warren makes clear this is not about race. This is about the future of the working middle class getting a fair shake in the face of Citizens United and the Koch Brothers Oligarchy. I don't think King, nor Truett woulda been doubleminded on that.
On Monday I had a cordial but straightforward chat with an administrator of the now fundamentalist Baptist Southeastern Seminary, I recommended Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason to him, as well as Randall Balmer's new bio of President Carter and Joe Crespino's Strom Thurmond's America.
Twenty years ago, Sayles predecessor at FBC Asheville told me Bill Friday told him the most significant event in the 1980's decade in North Carolina was the fundamentalist takeover of SEBTS. Because in that takeover fundamentalists of the Jesse Helms, Paul Pressler stripe had a route into the pulpit of every hamlet, suburb and precinct in North Carolina with what has now become a Tea Party ideologue.
In that Friday and Sherman trump Saylyes well meaning attempt at Solomonic wisdom for North Carolina. In these days the center fielder is not holding!
I don't think Truett were he with us today would vote for Art Pope and the Koch Brothers Tea Party Candidate Tillis. A studious hearing of Elizabeth Warren's hour long conversation on NPR's Diane Rehm show--drshow.org--yesterday further convinces me of such, not to mention the Moral Monday's crusade this last year in North Carolina.
About a month ago, a good man, Guy Sayles, of FBC Asheville, N.C. had an easily googled piece at ethicsdaily.com I found quite naive. In effect a leader of the progressive Baptist movement in North Carolina who does much good, came across to me as not being in a much better place in this Tea Party Onslaught as were the 8 ministers to whom Martin Luther King sent his letter from the Bham Jail in 1963.
Senator Warren makes clear this is not about race. This is about the future of the working middle class getting a fair shake in the face of Citizens United and the Koch Brothers Oligarchy. I don't think King, nor Truett woulda been doubleminded on that.
On Monday I had a cordial but straightforward chat with an administrator of the now fundamentalist Baptist Southeastern Seminary, I recommended Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason to him, as well as Randall Balmer's new bio of President Carter and Joe Crespino's Strom Thurmond's America.
Twenty years ago, Sayles predecessor at FBC Asheville told me Bill Friday told him the most significant event in the 1980's decade in North Carolina was the fundamentalist takeover of SEBTS. Because in that takeover fundamentalists of the Jesse Helms, Paul Pressler stripe had a route into the pulpit of every hamlet, suburb and precinct in North Carolina with what has now become a Tea Party ideologue.
In that Friday and Sherman trump Saylyes well meaning attempt at Solomonic wisdom for North Carolina. In these days the center fielder is not holding!
posted by foxofbama | 11:23 AM
3 Comments:
Thank you for this challenge to my musings about the need for civility in hospitable, not hostile, places where genuine dialogue across differences is possible. I worry about the concern you raise: that such advocacy for civility can mask an unwillingness to be passionately engaged in pressing the ways of Jesus, the ways of justice and peace, in the political and public arenas. I am gratefully and regularly haunted--I need to be--by MLK's challenge to white moderates, since, Godhelpus, I am white and a moderate. I think Sherman and Friday lived into this tension in ways from which I need to learn more fully. Again, thank you.
Dr Sayles: In all sincerity it is an honor to have your reply at my blog.
Just yesterday I had a good sitting at Barnes and Noble with my friend Charles Marsh's new bio of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Troubling passage where Bonhoeffer is frustrated with "stupid people", the herd, otherwise good people who were pulled into a horrible atrocity blindly following Hitler's cooptation of the German church. The Tea Party is not quite there yet in N.C. but I think Tim Tyson and the MOral Mondays folks are making a strong case it's a matter of degree. The Koch Brothers tea Party is a milder version of the Brown Shirts.
Read Marsh on Bonhoeffer, Balmer on President Carter even today's ABPstory on Sunday School teachers as culture warriors.
Again, sincere thanks for the reply.
FTR, I like your West Virginia Backstory as my East Tennessee grandparents story is much the same. And to that end Preacher McIntyre in Ron Rash's Serena is a must read as well.
I bought the Marsh biography of Bonhoeffer yesterday at my local Barnes and Noble. I have followed his work with interest and he has helped me.
I will add Balmer on Carter to my list. I thought the ABP story on SS teachers was well-done. I will revisit Rash's Serena with our conversation in view.
Again, I appreciate your critique and, now, your suggestions.
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