(EDITOR'S NOTE: On Monday, Chad Chaddick, pastor of Northeast Baptist Church, San Antonio, testified before a Texas Senate committee on the payday and auto title lending bill that is being considered by the Texas legislature. We publish his prepared testimony here with his permission.)
Two years ago, I testified before the Senate Committee on Business and Finance regarding what I had witnessed first hand involving the devastation visited upon a family by a payday loan. It was a story that involved a $700 loan rolled over 9 times at $200 a roll-over with interest and fees amounting to a 740% APR. Ultimately, the loan was paid off by a church. I told the story because I found those numbers to be shockingly unjust, and I hoped that others would as well.
Since I told that story, I have heard many stories with similar numbers, and some stories with even worse numbers. I have witnessed and heard about extended families that have been drawn into cycles of debt from which they could not escape. I have seen my church and others forced to give charitable gifts to those who have been trapped by such loans or watch these families slide into homelessness, or lose their children to protective services because they could not afford to keep their utilities connected. I have considered that the taxpayers of this state are forced to fund the payday industry as those who get trapped in cycles of debt become ever more dependent on state and government services. In the process of hearing these stories and witnessing these scenarios, I must admit that I am no longer shocked by the numbers. Interest rates of 500%, 700%, 900% are so common that they cease to move any real emotion in me. I suspect that the shock value of these numbers is ultimately lost on all of us who look often enough at the situation.
So today I want to take another approach - an approach that does not appeal to the shock value of these brutal interest rates and fees. Instead, I want to make a moral argument. I do so, not only because I see that our natural moral inclinations are becoming desensitized by the sheer volume of stories about “700% interest loans,” but also because I hear a decided shift in this discussion away from thoughts about moral responsibility and towards a supposedly amoral standard for our decision-making. More and more I hear appeals to “The Market.” I have lost count of how many times recently I have heard the phrase “The Market will bear” in discussions about these kinds of loan products. I would like to point out that The Market is a poor standard for helping us measure what is good for ourselves, for our fellow citizens, or for our state. The Market has and will continue to bear a great many things that are not good. The Market bears all manner of human rights abuses around the world. Not to distract us from the issue at hand, but to emphasize this point, The Market will bear the sale and transport of underage girls for sexual slavery. One could well use the argument that if there were not a desire for these products, the sex-trade industry would not exist. But it does, and the desires that drive it do not justify its existence. Likewise, The Market will not only bear but will encourage illegal immigration in our state. Clearly, there is a demand for cheap labor - so much so that despite the regulations we have in place, men and women are seeking to illegally cross our borders and our citizens are hiring them. The fact that there is a demand for these products does not justify deregulation.
We could spend a long time elucidating the number of things that The Market will bear Some of those things we have called good, and we have encouraged these good things through a lack of regulation and through positive incentives. But some of those things that The Market will bear we have said it should not bear. These things we either sought to eliminate completely or we have sought to regulate. Either way, we have acted out of moral impulses for the good of our citizens and for our own protection. In every case, we have looked at the amoral Market and sought to influence it with our moral judgments. The Market is wholly without moral sensibility and it is up to us - and more directly, it is up to you - to invest The Market with moral guidance.
Clearly, The Market will bear 700% short-term loans. Clearly, The Market will bear the entrapment of families into cycles of debt from which they cannot escape. Clearly, The Market will bear the repossession of 35,000 vehicles through auto-title loans. The Market will bear it but should it? And should it bear it without regulations?
Consider the scenario we are all familiar with in which The Market bore a very specific type of predatory lending. I am speaking of the sub-prime housing loans and the mess they have made of our wider economy. A lot of money was made from these lending practices. A lot of people took advantage of those with poor credit even though they knew the borrowers could not afford the loans they were taking. Lenders, realtors, and peer pressure within The Market itself encouraged people to avail themselves of these overly available lines of credit. The Market bore these excesses - for a time. And now we are looking for protective regulations to insure that the issuing of credit does not unsustainably prop up individuals, families, or industries.
The Payday and Auto-Loan industry is not so different from sub-prime lending. The product they offer often unsustainably props up individuals and families. In fact, the products are more profitable the more unsustainable they are. It is better for the industry if the product is rolled over multiple times rather than being repaid in full. The result of this lending is increased debt and increased hardship on families. People lose houses when their finances are unsustainably propped up by quick loans they cannot afford. People lose cars, and then they lose their jobs when they can’t get to those jobs without their cars. And who pays for these failed loans? Who pays for the cycle of debt that is created through this easy, unregulated, artificial cash-flow? My church does, and other benevolent agencies do. The taxpayer does as the government assistance programs are burdened. Every day, we are bailing out those families that have become trapped by these unregulated predatory lending practices. The great irony, of course, is that these lenders exist as Credit Service Organizations - organizations that were intended to be a help to citizens in rebuilding their credit and rebuilding their lives.
That The Market will bear these excesses and predatory practices is a poor justification for crushing the citizens of Texas with debt. Other states have recognized the moral component in this, and they have passed regulations to protect their citizens. The payday industry in their states continues to do business showing that The Market will bear these regulations. Let me say that again: The Market will bear these regulations. As a citizen, as a taxpayer, and as a moral human being, I urge you to not simply consider what The Market will bear, for The Market knows nothing of right and wrong. I urge you to do what is right for the citizens of Texas and to guide an amoral Market away from abuse and toward the greater financial health of our citizens. In this case, siding with what the amoral Market will bear will place you squarely on the side of immoral financial oppression. Texans deserve better.
Respectfully submitted,
Chad R. Chaddick, D.Min
Pastor
Northeast Baptist Church
San Antonio, Texas
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Christians and Race, part 2: Christians Must Challenge Racist Attitudes
Christians should be Christ-followers.
Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? No earth-shaking sentiment there.
In theory, it's simple. In practice, it's the hardest thing you'll ever do - follow Christ, live according to His teachings, live in accordance with His example.
Or, as T. B. Maston liked to say, "walk as Jesus walked." (Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did, 1 John 2:6)
I was recently at lunch with a few friends, all Christians, all white males. At one point, the conversation turned to President Obama's recent State of the Union message to Congress and, in turn, to the state of our nation as those in the group perceived it.
You know, we white Christians in this country like to think that racism is ancient history. We believe we live in a more enlightened age than our parents and grandparents, and that we, in turn, have racial attitudes that are enlightened. Some even go so far as to say that everyone is playing on a level field these days, that laws are no longer needed to enforce equal opportunity. When our African-American and Hispanic friends, among others, assert that they are still discriminated against by our society and our legal system, and that racism is alive and well in America, their concerns are met with denial and even derision by some white Christians.
I'm not used to this stuff, friends. I don't normally hear such attitudes expressed by people I hang out with, and I like to tell myself that such attitudes are ancient history. But they're not. I have to admit I was stunned by his frank reply, "the blacks." And I didn't try to hide my astonishment or my disgust. I practically shouted at him, "where in the world are you getting this stuff?"
His answer? "Why, TV," he replied. He didn't even attempt to cloak his ignorance; he admitted it upfront. "Why, TV," as if he couldn't imagine getting his information anywhere else.
His answer? "Why, TV," he replied. He didn't even attempt to cloak his ignorance; he admitted it upfront. "Why, TV," as if he couldn't imagine getting his information anywhere else.
But our friend was just getting started. He later talked about "wetbacks" and the problems, he asserted, that they've caused in our state for decades; as with "the blacks" mentioned earlier, he said that the "wetbacks" were lazy parasites. When a couple of members of our group began talking about the reality that white people are becoming the minority in both Texas and America, our friend said, "yeah, it's frightening."
It's good to have friendly discussions among friends. But this man's statements were not, to my mind, a "friendly discussion." They were racism and bigotry; they were stereotyping, fear, condescension, and even hatred toward others for no other reason than that they are of a different skin color or from another culture.
One or two others in our group also challenged this man's attitudes, though they probably did so in a manner that reflected T. B. Maston better than I did. In part 1 of this post, T. B. Maston and Race Relations, taken from material written by my father, Jase Jones, we find that Maston's responses to expressions of racism and bigotry were "kind and noncondemnatory" toward the person expressing those attitudes and that "he refused to let anyone make him angry." I wasn't quite so controlled in my response; I replied not just in disagreement but in attack mode. I simply couldn't help myself and probably sounded pretty strident as I responded to this man's comments.
It's good to have friendly discussions among friends. But this man's statements were not, to my mind, a "friendly discussion." They were racism and bigotry; they were stereotyping, fear, condescension, and even hatred toward others for no other reason than that they are of a different skin color or from another culture.
One or two others in our group also challenged this man's attitudes, though they probably did so in a manner that reflected T. B. Maston better than I did. In part 1 of this post, T. B. Maston and Race Relations, taken from material written by my father, Jase Jones, we find that Maston's responses to expressions of racism and bigotry were "kind and noncondemnatory" toward the person expressing those attitudes and that "he refused to let anyone make him angry." I wasn't quite so controlled in my response; I replied not just in disagreement but in attack mode. I simply couldn't help myself and probably sounded pretty strident as I responded to this man's comments.
On my way home, I momentarily felt a little guilty, simply because I don't like to hurt people's feelings, I don't like to attack others. But my guilt was only momentary, because I then began to think of my very dear African-American and Hispanic friends, and the aspersions this man had casually - and hatefully - cast onto them. I realized that I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had let his assertions pass without attacking them with every ounce of my being in the most vigorous way possible.
When a group of white Christian men discuss those who are different - of another race, another culture, or even the opposite gender - we should speak and act as we would if we were joined by those about whom we are speaking, in a way that we would not be ashamed of our words and actions if we were joined by those who are different than us. But, truth be told, all of us Christians could stand some self-examination every so often; we all likely harbor one attitude or another for which we should ask forgiveness.
My only regret is that I wasn't better prepared to ask our friend some key questions that might have helped him to recognize the emptiness of his thinking and the unChristlikeness of his attitudes. That's the way Jesus did it - asked probing questions that caused painful but needed self-examination. I still have a ways to go in learning to be like Jesus.
Ninety years ago, T. B. Maston was speaking out, teaching, and writing to oppose unChristlike racial attitudes and behaviors. Unfortunately, as he himself asserted in the last sentence quoted in my previous post, that work isn't finished. People Jesus loves - the "least of these" - are still oppressed, derided, and marginalized by those who call themselves Christian. If we say we belong to Christ, then we must confront and challenge these oppressive, superior, hateful attitudes wherever we find them, even - or perhaps especially - when we find them in our Christian friends. It's a matter of walking as Jesus walked.
Christians and Race, part 1: T. B. Maston and Race Relations
(This post consists entirely of excerpts from the chapter, "Maston's Contributions to Race Relations," by Jase Jones, in An Approach to Christian Ethics: The Life, Contribution, and Thought of T. B. Maston, William M. Pinson, Jr., Compiler/Contributor, copyright 1979, Broadman Press.)
In 1938 . . . Maston offered a new course, Social Problems of the South, half of which dealt with the race problem. A full course on race, The Church and the Race Problem, began in 1944. In this course, distinguished black leaders addressed the class. The students were taken on a field trip through the Fort Worth black community. . . .
His first published writing on race (pamphlet) bore the title Racial Relations, and was published by Woman's Missionary Union in 1927. Integration, a pamphlet published by the Christian Life Commission (SBC), was first prepared in 1956 at the request of the Advisory Council of Southern Baptists for Work with Negroes to be read at its annual meeting. Another booklet, Interracial Marriage, was published by the Christian Life Commission in 1963. The Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention published The Christian and Race Relations (pamphlet) in the same year.
In 1932, Maston wrote a Training Union monthly program series on the social teachings of the Bible. Race and class was the subject of one month's program. Another Training Union program on race appeared in November, 1941. Maston wrote the Graded Lessons Sunday School for Sixteen Year Pupils in the thirties, with one quarter's lessons on social problems. Another Sunday School lesson in 1943 was entitled "Christianity Crosses Racial Lines." . . .
Of Maston's many books, the following dealt solely with the subject of race: Of One (1946), The Bible and Race (1959), and Segregation and Desegregation (1959). Race was dealt with in parts of six other Maston books. Maston considers Segregation and Desegregation to be his major scholarly work on race. He thinks that The Bible and Race has been his most influential book on race. Woman's Missionary Union chose it as a study book in 1962, and Broadman Press published over 50,000 copies.
The speech which Maston made before the Southern Baptist Convention in Kansas City in 1956 drew more reaction and was probably more influential than any other that he made on the race issue. Carried by the Associated Press, it was widely reported in secular and religious publications. Coming as it did not long after the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, it is of historical significance. . . .
When Dallas, Texas, was ordered to desegregate its school system, the Baptist pastors of Dallas asked Maston to speak to them on the subject, "A Pastor in a Community Facing Desegregation." His speech was reported in word and picture by the secular press, and it caused a reaction next in size to the Kansas City speech.
Maston spoke quite often before interracial meetings of pastors and laymen in a number of states. . . . Frank Leavell, Southern Baptist student work leader, called upon him to speak many times, usually on the race issue. Carson-Newman College in Tennessee invited him to speak on race at its faculty conference. Maston spoke several times at conferences of Southern Baptist workers with Negroes. After he had spoken about love at one of these, a young black worker asked a question that Maston says he has never been able to get away from. "Isn't there a real danger that one may make love a substitute for justice, a mere sentimentality?" Maston answered, "Not genuine Christian love. It is inclusive of justice." . . .
Maston participated in a variety of denominational and community organizations. He was one of the principal founders, along with J. Howard Williams, A. C. Miller, and W. R. White, of the Christian Life Commission of Texas. The race issue has been a major concern of the commission since its founding. . . .
Southwestern Seminary opened its regular classes to blacks in 1951. Maston had urged it for many years. . . .
The Advisory Council of Southern Baptists for Work with Negroes was another organization in which Maston served. He was its first chairman and was reelected chairman several times. The council performed a valuable service for leaders of the Baptist boards and agencies represented on the council by keeping them abreast of the issues, concepts, and developments in the race struggle. Other groups to which Maston belonged were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the local Urban League (serving on the Executive Committee), and the Southern Regional Council.
The Mastons are members of Gambrell Street Baptist Church, Fort Worth, where Maston is a deacon. A black man once called Maston when the Gambrell Street pastor was out of town and said, "We're looking for a church home, and my pastor suggested I call you." Maston invited him to visit the church that Wednesday night. He met him on the sidewalk and escorted him into the church, where the visitor was warmly welcomed. A fellow deacon later said, "Here's the fellow (Maston) more responsible than anybody else for the church's open-door membership policy." This statement reminds one of a remark made by Theodore F. Adams after Maston's speech in Kansas City: "The progress that we have made among Southern Baptists on this matter of race is due to men like you and O. T. Binkley."
Maston developed strong personal relationships in the black community. He describes the "real kinship of spirit" which exists between himself and J. M. Ellison, longtime chancellor of Virginia Union University and editor of The Religious Herald, and tells of visiting in the Ellison home. Ellison calls Maston his "very real friend." He tells of being a guest at the Maston table, of being an overnight guest in the home, and of sharing "the full meaning of their fellowship and thinking as we had devotional moments together."
The black students of Southwestern Seminary were Maston's friends. One of these, Clarence Lucas, now pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, said, "At a time when I wasn't even allowed to live in dormitories, Maston would come and talk with me. He offered some direction, then let me as a proud human being struggle with it myself . . . I personally prefer this to any paternalism."
Maston has extensive files of correspondence which came as a result of his writing and speaking. . . . He never failed to reply when the person identified himself as a Southern Baptist. A perusal of the files reveals that his answers were polite, factual, kind, and noncondemnatory, even to the most vicious letters. To a young colleague troubled by the ugly letters, Maston said, "If we are right, the Lord and time are on our side."
To those aspiring to be active in the racial struggle, Maston said, "Don't go into this if you have to be accepted by everybody." Colleagues said that two keys to his effectiveness were that he knew when to act and when to wait and that he refused to let anyone make him angry. . . .
Maston says of the future, "Of course, I don't think the race issue is settled by any means. There are plenty of things that still need to be done."
In 1938 . . . Maston offered a new course, Social Problems of the South, half of which dealt with the race problem. A full course on race, The Church and the Race Problem, began in 1944. In this course, distinguished black leaders addressed the class. The students were taken on a field trip through the Fort Worth black community. . . .
His first published writing on race (pamphlet) bore the title Racial Relations, and was published by Woman's Missionary Union in 1927. Integration, a pamphlet published by the Christian Life Commission (SBC), was first prepared in 1956 at the request of the Advisory Council of Southern Baptists for Work with Negroes to be read at its annual meeting. Another booklet, Interracial Marriage, was published by the Christian Life Commission in 1963. The Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention published The Christian and Race Relations (pamphlet) in the same year.
In 1932, Maston wrote a Training Union monthly program series on the social teachings of the Bible. Race and class was the subject of one month's program. Another Training Union program on race appeared in November, 1941. Maston wrote the Graded Lessons Sunday School for Sixteen Year Pupils in the thirties, with one quarter's lessons on social problems. Another Sunday School lesson in 1943 was entitled "Christianity Crosses Racial Lines." . . .
Of Maston's many books, the following dealt solely with the subject of race: Of One (1946), The Bible and Race (1959), and Segregation and Desegregation (1959). Race was dealt with in parts of six other Maston books. Maston considers Segregation and Desegregation to be his major scholarly work on race. He thinks that The Bible and Race has been his most influential book on race. Woman's Missionary Union chose it as a study book in 1962, and Broadman Press published over 50,000 copies.
The speech which Maston made before the Southern Baptist Convention in Kansas City in 1956 drew more reaction and was probably more influential than any other that he made on the race issue. Carried by the Associated Press, it was widely reported in secular and religious publications. Coming as it did not long after the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, it is of historical significance. . . .
When Dallas, Texas, was ordered to desegregate its school system, the Baptist pastors of Dallas asked Maston to speak to them on the subject, "A Pastor in a Community Facing Desegregation." His speech was reported in word and picture by the secular press, and it caused a reaction next in size to the Kansas City speech.
Maston spoke quite often before interracial meetings of pastors and laymen in a number of states. . . . Frank Leavell, Southern Baptist student work leader, called upon him to speak many times, usually on the race issue. Carson-Newman College in Tennessee invited him to speak on race at its faculty conference. Maston spoke several times at conferences of Southern Baptist workers with Negroes. After he had spoken about love at one of these, a young black worker asked a question that Maston says he has never been able to get away from. "Isn't there a real danger that one may make love a substitute for justice, a mere sentimentality?" Maston answered, "Not genuine Christian love. It is inclusive of justice." . . .
Maston participated in a variety of denominational and community organizations. He was one of the principal founders, along with J. Howard Williams, A. C. Miller, and W. R. White, of the Christian Life Commission of Texas. The race issue has been a major concern of the commission since its founding. . . .
Southwestern Seminary opened its regular classes to blacks in 1951. Maston had urged it for many years. . . .
The Advisory Council of Southern Baptists for Work with Negroes was another organization in which Maston served. He was its first chairman and was reelected chairman several times. The council performed a valuable service for leaders of the Baptist boards and agencies represented on the council by keeping them abreast of the issues, concepts, and developments in the race struggle. Other groups to which Maston belonged were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the local Urban League (serving on the Executive Committee), and the Southern Regional Council.
The Mastons are members of Gambrell Street Baptist Church, Fort Worth, where Maston is a deacon. A black man once called Maston when the Gambrell Street pastor was out of town and said, "We're looking for a church home, and my pastor suggested I call you." Maston invited him to visit the church that Wednesday night. He met him on the sidewalk and escorted him into the church, where the visitor was warmly welcomed. A fellow deacon later said, "Here's the fellow (Maston) more responsible than anybody else for the church's open-door membership policy." This statement reminds one of a remark made by Theodore F. Adams after Maston's speech in Kansas City: "The progress that we have made among Southern Baptists on this matter of race is due to men like you and O. T. Binkley."
Maston developed strong personal relationships in the black community. He describes the "real kinship of spirit" which exists between himself and J. M. Ellison, longtime chancellor of Virginia Union University and editor of The Religious Herald, and tells of visiting in the Ellison home. Ellison calls Maston his "very real friend." He tells of being a guest at the Maston table, of being an overnight guest in the home, and of sharing "the full meaning of their fellowship and thinking as we had devotional moments together."
The black students of Southwestern Seminary were Maston's friends. One of these, Clarence Lucas, now pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, said, "At a time when I wasn't even allowed to live in dormitories, Maston would come and talk with me. He offered some direction, then let me as a proud human being struggle with it myself . . . I personally prefer this to any paternalism."
Maston has extensive files of correspondence which came as a result of his writing and speaking. . . . He never failed to reply when the person identified himself as a Southern Baptist. A perusal of the files reveals that his answers were polite, factual, kind, and noncondemnatory, even to the most vicious letters. To a young colleague troubled by the ugly letters, Maston said, "If we are right, the Lord and time are on our side."
To those aspiring to be active in the racial struggle, Maston said, "Don't go into this if you have to be accepted by everybody." Colleagues said that two keys to his effectiveness were that he knew when to act and when to wait and that he refused to let anyone make him angry. . . .
Maston says of the future, "Of course, I don't think the race issue is settled by any means. There are plenty of things that still need to be done."
Friday, January 18, 2013
Suzii Paynter named to lead CBF: Reflections on a friend
Yesterday it was announced that Suzii Paynter, director of Texas Baptists' Christian Life Commission (CLC) and Advocacy/Care Center, has been nominated to succeed Daniel Vestal as executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF).
Suzii is one of our own, a longtime supporter of the T. B. Maston Foundation and member of our Board of Trustees. More than that, though, Suzii and her husband, Roger - senior pastor of Austin's First Baptist Church - are Maston practitioners; they live lives that are grounded in the kind of biblical Christian ethics that Dr. Maston lived and taught, that walking as Jesus walked kind of ethics, that loving and ministering to the least of these kind of ethics, that seeing Christ in all you meet and being His presence everywhere you go kind of ethics.
I'm not writing a biography here. You can get details about Suzii's life, ministry, and qualifications from the CBF press releases. For that matter, you can see her heart, her passion for ministry, in the wonderful introductory video that CBF has produced, and I urge you to watch it. It moved me, and I guarantee it will move you.
But I just want to write a brief reflection about the Suzii and Roger Paynter who I know, and I don't know how you talk about the one without talking about the other, because - as the video so warmly shows - the two of them are truly one, a part of each other.
I first got to knowing Roger in the late 1990s, after my dad joined First Baptist. Whenever we would visit Daddy in Austin, we would go to church with him on Sunday morning. In fact, my family and I were blessed on our numerous visits to get to know several wonderful people there at First Baptist. In the CBF video, Suzii talks about the privilege of getting to hear Roger preach every Sunday morning; I understand what she's talking about, because I was always challenged by Roger's preaching and inevitably took out my pen and made a note or two during his sermon.
But beyond his preaching, Roger has been a good friend to me. I always love talking with him, because I know I'm going to learn something but, more importantly, I'm hoping a little of his graciousness will rub off on me.
Where I really got to knowing Suzii was at the BGCT Annual Meetings back in the early 2000s. At that time, my wife and I were still attending a church that was lurching toward Fundamentalism, and I was struggling to influence people in that church to turn back to Baptist principles of grace and freedom. So at those BGCT Annual Meetings, I would stop by the CLC booth and talk to Phil Strickland and Suzii Paynter, sharing my frustrations, telling them about my apparently futile attempts to change the church's direction. The most important thing that Phil and Suzii did was listen to me and let me know that they cared about what I was experiencing and that they appreciated my conviction. They were great encouragers to me at a difficult time. When Joanna and I finally decided, in 2004, that it was time to find another church, it was Phil Strickland who led us to Wilshire in Dallas.
Over the years, Suzii has continued to be a great friend and encourager to me. When I was asked to lead Texas Baptists Committed 2 years ago, it was a new world for me; I had never led an organization like this, had never done anything close to this. At times, I have turned to people like Suzii, as well as Rick McClatchy at CBF Texas, for guidance. Both of them are savvy, experienced, and always willing to share their knowledge and experience.
Last spring, I attended the Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics - named for David Currie and Phil Strickland - at Howard Payne University. At the gracious invitation of Dean Donnie Auvenshine, I was privileged to attend not only the public lectures but the following day's sessions as well, in which the lecturers - Suzii Paynter and Stephen Reeves of the CLC, and Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance - met with students and answered their questions.
This morning, I looked back at the blog post I wrote concerning that day. In summarizing the session that Suzii and Stephen held with Howard Payne's Ministerial Alliance members, I wrote about Suzii's characterization of the BGCT as "a relational body, not an institutional body"; her emphasis on the diversity of those who are on the receiving end of the BGCT's ministries; and her description of the CLC as "a witness to the whole community."
In her message on the first day, "Leading Your Church to Be Politically Responsible," Suzii always brought the focus back to ministry, urging listeners, "look beyond the walls of your church"; "don't start with politics; start with ministry"; and "be unapologetic about bringing a biblical rationale and theological perspective to any issue."
That's the Suzii Paynter I'm blessed to call my friend. In the T. B. Maston tradition, Suzii is always about ministering to those who need us; advocating for justice for "the least of these"; seeking mercy and healing and redemption for those who are hurting; in short, being the presence of Christ. That's exactly what CBF should be about.
If there's one thing I've learned in leading TBC, it's that no one can carry out a weighty mission like ours on her or his own. As I wrote a few weeks ago on the Texas Baptists Committed blog, it takes cooperation and partnerships. Suzii will lead CBF in the right direction, but she can't do it alone. I pray that all of us who support the mission of CBF - and the missions focus of CBF - will partner with Suzii and each other in being Christ's presence in our own corner of the world and throughout the world.
Suzii is one of our own, a longtime supporter of the T. B. Maston Foundation and member of our Board of Trustees. More than that, though, Suzii and her husband, Roger - senior pastor of Austin's First Baptist Church - are Maston practitioners; they live lives that are grounded in the kind of biblical Christian ethics that Dr. Maston lived and taught, that walking as Jesus walked kind of ethics, that loving and ministering to the least of these kind of ethics, that seeing Christ in all you meet and being His presence everywhere you go kind of ethics.
I'm not writing a biography here. You can get details about Suzii's life, ministry, and qualifications from the CBF press releases. For that matter, you can see her heart, her passion for ministry, in the wonderful introductory video that CBF has produced, and I urge you to watch it. It moved me, and I guarantee it will move you.
But I just want to write a brief reflection about the Suzii and Roger Paynter who I know, and I don't know how you talk about the one without talking about the other, because - as the video so warmly shows - the two of them are truly one, a part of each other.
I first got to knowing Roger in the late 1990s, after my dad joined First Baptist. Whenever we would visit Daddy in Austin, we would go to church with him on Sunday morning. In fact, my family and I were blessed on our numerous visits to get to know several wonderful people there at First Baptist. In the CBF video, Suzii talks about the privilege of getting to hear Roger preach every Sunday morning; I understand what she's talking about, because I was always challenged by Roger's preaching and inevitably took out my pen and made a note or two during his sermon.
But beyond his preaching, Roger has been a good friend to me. I always love talking with him, because I know I'm going to learn something but, more importantly, I'm hoping a little of his graciousness will rub off on me.
Where I really got to knowing Suzii was at the BGCT Annual Meetings back in the early 2000s. At that time, my wife and I were still attending a church that was lurching toward Fundamentalism, and I was struggling to influence people in that church to turn back to Baptist principles of grace and freedom. So at those BGCT Annual Meetings, I would stop by the CLC booth and talk to Phil Strickland and Suzii Paynter, sharing my frustrations, telling them about my apparently futile attempts to change the church's direction. The most important thing that Phil and Suzii did was listen to me and let me know that they cared about what I was experiencing and that they appreciated my conviction. They were great encouragers to me at a difficult time. When Joanna and I finally decided, in 2004, that it was time to find another church, it was Phil Strickland who led us to Wilshire in Dallas.
Over the years, Suzii has continued to be a great friend and encourager to me. When I was asked to lead Texas Baptists Committed 2 years ago, it was a new world for me; I had never led an organization like this, had never done anything close to this. At times, I have turned to people like Suzii, as well as Rick McClatchy at CBF Texas, for guidance. Both of them are savvy, experienced, and always willing to share their knowledge and experience.
Last spring, I attended the Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics - named for David Currie and Phil Strickland - at Howard Payne University. At the gracious invitation of Dean Donnie Auvenshine, I was privileged to attend not only the public lectures but the following day's sessions as well, in which the lecturers - Suzii Paynter and Stephen Reeves of the CLC, and Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance - met with students and answered their questions.
This morning, I looked back at the blog post I wrote concerning that day. In summarizing the session that Suzii and Stephen held with Howard Payne's Ministerial Alliance members, I wrote about Suzii's characterization of the BGCT as "a relational body, not an institutional body"; her emphasis on the diversity of those who are on the receiving end of the BGCT's ministries; and her description of the CLC as "a witness to the whole community."
In her message on the first day, "Leading Your Church to Be Politically Responsible," Suzii always brought the focus back to ministry, urging listeners, "look beyond the walls of your church"; "don't start with politics; start with ministry"; and "be unapologetic about bringing a biblical rationale and theological perspective to any issue."
That's the Suzii Paynter I'm blessed to call my friend. In the T. B. Maston tradition, Suzii is always about ministering to those who need us; advocating for justice for "the least of these"; seeking mercy and healing and redemption for those who are hurting; in short, being the presence of Christ. That's exactly what CBF should be about.
If there's one thing I've learned in leading TBC, it's that no one can carry out a weighty mission like ours on her or his own. As I wrote a few weeks ago on the Texas Baptists Committed blog, it takes cooperation and partnerships. Suzii will lead CBF in the right direction, but she can't do it alone. I pray that all of us who support the mission of CBF - and the missions focus of CBF - will partner with Suzii and each other in being Christ's presence in our own corner of the world and throughout the world.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
George Mason: Will we choose fear that destroys or Jesus' love that transforms?
(NOTE: The following is excerpted from a sermon, "East Side Story," preached by George Mason, senior pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, January 6, 2013; and published here with Dr. Mason's gracious permission.)
Let me ask you, this morning: what good decisions have you made in your life that were impulsively driven by fear?
The big lie the Devil tells us is that if we are afraid, the best way—and maybe the only way—to deal with that fear is to arm ourselves against it. If we will just get more powerful, if we will just become so protected that no one can hurt us, if we will just destroy our enemies with brute force, then we will be secure.
You think? Ever consider the spiritual and psychological consequences of that reasoning? Even if you are not attacked or harmed by your enemy, you are forced to live in fear forever. You have to keep alive the idea that you are always under threat.
And if you nurture that sense that you are always on the lookout for bad people, for people who would do you harm, how do you flip the switch to suddenly learn to love your enemies and do good to them who hurt you? How do you look for opportunities to witness to the light of Christ?
It makes you a divided self. If following Jesus does anything, it should drive away fear and fill you with love in a way that transforms your very being and makes you one kind of person, not two kinds.
Let me ask you, this morning: what good decisions have you made in your life that were impulsively driven by fear?
The big lie the Devil tells us is that if we are afraid, the best way—and maybe the only way—to deal with that fear is to arm ourselves against it. If we will just get more powerful, if we will just become so protected that no one can hurt us, if we will just destroy our enemies with brute force, then we will be secure.
You think? Ever consider the spiritual and psychological consequences of that reasoning? Even if you are not attacked or harmed by your enemy, you are forced to live in fear forever. You have to keep alive the idea that you are always under threat.
And if you nurture that sense that you are always on the lookout for bad people, for people who would do you harm, how do you flip the switch to suddenly learn to love your enemies and do good to them who hurt you? How do you look for opportunities to witness to the light of Christ?
It makes you a divided self. If following Jesus does anything, it should drive away fear and fill you with love in a way that transforms your very being and makes you one kind of person, not two kinds.
Friday, December 21, 2012
It's a Small Word, After All . . . by George Gagliardi
A baby was born,
long ago on a Christmas morn in a manger, etc. And the aching soul,
having borne one too many burdens, may well be tempted to say, “That’s nice” or
perhaps even more harshly, “So what?”
What indeed? What does a birth of
a Jewish kid some 2000 or more years ago have to say to me now?
It’s a good question and it deserves a
good answer. However, I don’t have one – at least not exactly. I don’t have one
custom made for you as you try and make sense of that which makes no sense. I
don’t have one that makes the pain go away or fills the empty heart. But what I do have is this … hope.
It’s a small word,
easily lost among the clichés of the world and not hard to submerge beneath a
sea of cynicism and anger. But let’s think about this word for a moment.
What if hope were
not just a word but a person? A person who knew firsthand about heartache and loneliness and being abandoned. A person whose birth was
cause for violence and greed and hatred for some and, at the same time, an
occasion to bring out the whole angelic choir – trumpets included, I’ll betcha – for others.
It was the kind of
birth that was so remarkably unremarkable in its locale as to be ludicrous. If
this is God’s idea of how to introduce eternal hope to the world, well… man,
what could you have been thinking! This baby boy is it? This is the hope we’ve
been waiting for? And I suspect He was smiling as He was saying, “Yes, just
wait and see.”
I guess that’s the
hardest part of hope sometime, the waiting. But turns out God was right. Jesus
did more than “make good”; he “made good” by making miracles and making the
lives of people better, people who most
folk had given up on. Well, I’d say when hope looks like that, then it’s worth
putting your faith in or at least investigating.
Well, that’s what people of faith, me included, believe about Jesus. He
was/is the embodiment of hope, that God is not “asleep at the switch,” even
when it seems He is.
I
wish, for all of you who find sadness an unwelcome companion this Christmas,
the hope that He brings, that He ushered into this crazy, mixed-up, unfair,
unjust world that first Christmas years ago when he was born. It’s a hope as
vital and alive as the heart that receives the gift of love and gives the gift
of love. And with all my heart, I wish that kind of hope for you this Christmas
and the whole year through.
Merry Christmas (Anyway),
George
Gagliardi, December, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Seeing People in a New Light: The Ethics of Being All About the Numbers
I seem never to get enough of reading up on church growth strategies.
Such is probably due to the fact that many of the churches I know are
growing older or declining. We need people to fill some big shoes!
Perhaps growing a church can serve as a great ego boost to a pastor, as
well. So, my interest was sparked the other day when I came across an
entry on the “Vision Room” website called “We’re All About the Numbers”
by Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
When it comes to numerical church growth, Furtick asks, “What else matters? What else should we be about?” To add biblical and theological credence to his thesis, Furtick adds that Luke, in writing the book of Acts, showed an intense interest in emphasizing and quantifying church growth. Indeed, “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Furtick also points out that John’s vision in Revelation included “a great multitude that no one could count (Revelation 7:9).” Furtick consequently writes, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait until I die to see this.”
Furtick’s points interest me from a pastoral standpoint, as I am impressed with his presentation of the gospel and his expectation that “thousands of people” would make a profession of faith in Christ during each week’s worship service. Considering that such astounding numerical growth may not be literally possible in some rural church across my state, perhaps Furtick’s analysis and vision is shared by many pastors and lay leaders today no matter the location. I do admire evangelicals who fervently respond to the Great Commission and note that, as Jesus offered, the fields are white unto harvest. May I, however, add a few words of caution concerning the uptick in numbers-driven evangelism in our day and time?
First, churches are in danger when they measure success in what Dr. T.B. Maston called “worldly terms.”[1] In fact, Furtick’s article may be indicative of something that can easily lead a church and her leaders down a broad path rather than a narrow way: the tendency to quantify ministry by the numbers. For instance, I would like to ask Furtick if he and his ministry staff feel like failures when a certain amount of people do not make professions of faith in a week. Should not our greatness in God’s kingdom be measured not by numbers of followers or church members but by walking as Jesus walked?
Second, we ought to consider some other biblical examples of so-called “church growth” in the Bible. Saul slew his thousands, and David slew his ten-thousands, but David’s kingdom collapsed. Daniel remained faithful but was thrown to lions and into a fire pit. Jeremiah never had a positive response to his sermons. In fact, he was derided by his hearers, who nicknamed him “Old Death and Destruction.” Jonah helped an entire city to repent of sin but he then sat dejected and depressed, angry at a merciful God.
Jesus, through whom we interpret the whole of the Bible, began his ministry with great crowds. Yet, only a handful remained when he hung on a cross, notably two of the most unlikely candidates for church growth: a Roman soldier and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. In fact, the crowds seemed genuinely unimpressed and even a bit nauseated with his talk of death. His message of repentance and justice almost got him killed during his first sermon! Consider, too, that Jesus ministered to crowds but invested more time in a small group of disciples. Also, it is important to note that even some of Jesus’ closest friends needed some intensive one-on-one help by the risen Lord himself in order to believe and to be put in right relationship.
The astounding growth in the early church was not due to either Peter’s mystifying preaching or the entertaining ministry of the Apostles. The Apostles clearly did not press for numerical growth. They pressed for the gospel, and with that they endured prison time, martyrdom, racism, and a host of other problems that most of our churches do not want to deal with these days in order to be truly successful in the ways of the Kingdom.
Paul’s list of challenges remains astounding (2 Corinthians 11). It seems to me that God did not necessarily call Paul to “grow churches.” In fact, in one of Paul’s most intense visions, the Spirit motivated the great missionary and his team to go to Macedonia and “help” people. Note that Paul usually began a church with meager success in worldly or business terms. Oftentimes, Paul’s church starts involved painful trials and rioting.
Isn’t it interesting that John’s revelatory vision came when he and his fellow church members felt most alone and in decline?
For the record, then, let’s answer Furtick’s question regarding numbers of church members: “What else should we be about?” Maston would likely say, “Jesus’ disciples, and we claim to be in that company, were and are to make other disciples of Him and then teach them what it means to be a real disciple of Him. Here is evangelism and ethics tied together in one bundle.”[2] It seems, therefore, that church growth ought to be less about the numbers of church members and more about us walking as Jesus walked and teaching others to do the same.
When it comes to numerical church growth, Furtick asks, “What else matters? What else should we be about?” To add biblical and theological credence to his thesis, Furtick adds that Luke, in writing the book of Acts, showed an intense interest in emphasizing and quantifying church growth. Indeed, “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Furtick also points out that John’s vision in Revelation included “a great multitude that no one could count (Revelation 7:9).” Furtick consequently writes, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait until I die to see this.”
Furtick’s points interest me from a pastoral standpoint, as I am impressed with his presentation of the gospel and his expectation that “thousands of people” would make a profession of faith in Christ during each week’s worship service. Considering that such astounding numerical growth may not be literally possible in some rural church across my state, perhaps Furtick’s analysis and vision is shared by many pastors and lay leaders today no matter the location. I do admire evangelicals who fervently respond to the Great Commission and note that, as Jesus offered, the fields are white unto harvest. May I, however, add a few words of caution concerning the uptick in numbers-driven evangelism in our day and time?
First, churches are in danger when they measure success in what Dr. T.B. Maston called “worldly terms.”[1] In fact, Furtick’s article may be indicative of something that can easily lead a church and her leaders down a broad path rather than a narrow way: the tendency to quantify ministry by the numbers. For instance, I would like to ask Furtick if he and his ministry staff feel like failures when a certain amount of people do not make professions of faith in a week. Should not our greatness in God’s kingdom be measured not by numbers of followers or church members but by walking as Jesus walked?
Second, we ought to consider some other biblical examples of so-called “church growth” in the Bible. Saul slew his thousands, and David slew his ten-thousands, but David’s kingdom collapsed. Daniel remained faithful but was thrown to lions and into a fire pit. Jeremiah never had a positive response to his sermons. In fact, he was derided by his hearers, who nicknamed him “Old Death and Destruction.” Jonah helped an entire city to repent of sin but he then sat dejected and depressed, angry at a merciful God.
Jesus, through whom we interpret the whole of the Bible, began his ministry with great crowds. Yet, only a handful remained when he hung on a cross, notably two of the most unlikely candidates for church growth: a Roman soldier and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. In fact, the crowds seemed genuinely unimpressed and even a bit nauseated with his talk of death. His message of repentance and justice almost got him killed during his first sermon! Consider, too, that Jesus ministered to crowds but invested more time in a small group of disciples. Also, it is important to note that even some of Jesus’ closest friends needed some intensive one-on-one help by the risen Lord himself in order to believe and to be put in right relationship.
The astounding growth in the early church was not due to either Peter’s mystifying preaching or the entertaining ministry of the Apostles. The Apostles clearly did not press for numerical growth. They pressed for the gospel, and with that they endured prison time, martyrdom, racism, and a host of other problems that most of our churches do not want to deal with these days in order to be truly successful in the ways of the Kingdom.
Paul’s list of challenges remains astounding (2 Corinthians 11). It seems to me that God did not necessarily call Paul to “grow churches.” In fact, in one of Paul’s most intense visions, the Spirit motivated the great missionary and his team to go to Macedonia and “help” people. Note that Paul usually began a church with meager success in worldly or business terms. Oftentimes, Paul’s church starts involved painful trials and rioting.
Isn’t it interesting that John’s revelatory vision came when he and his fellow church members felt most alone and in decline?
For the record, then, let’s answer Furtick’s question regarding numbers of church members: “What else should we be about?” Maston would likely say, “Jesus’ disciples, and we claim to be in that company, were and are to make other disciples of Him and then teach them what it means to be a real disciple of Him. Here is evangelism and ethics tied together in one bundle.”[2] It seems, therefore, that church growth ought to be less about the numbers of church members and more about us walking as Jesus walked and teaching others to do the same.
[1] T. B. Maston, “Trends to Watch—Success Orientation,” Baptist Standard, April 23, 1975, 13.
[2] T.B. Maston, “Both/And”—Evangelism and Ethics,” Baptist Standard, February 18, 1981, 11.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Hal Haralson, a man after God's own heart
Hal Haralson knew God intimately, loved Him deeply, and served Him faithfully. Earlier this week, God welcomed Hal into Heaven.
Why did I title this post, "Hal Haralson, a man after God's own heart"? I read somewhere an explanation of that phrase as applied to David in Scripture. It went like this: David was called a man after God's own heart because "David recognized that the only good in him was the God in him."
I think that's an apt explanation, and an attitude that all of us should share, but few do. However, that attitude - that the only good he had resulted from God's presence in him and with him - simply oozed from every pore of Hal Haralson.
If you didn't know Hal, you missed out. Although, I have to add, you can still read his books and feel like you knew him, because Hal wrote from his heart, and he wrote about his most personal struggles, experiences, and even triumphs. There was a common thread running through Hal's accounting of all of them - God's faithfulness, God's grace and mercy, God's constant presence throughout.
Hal studied under T. B. Maston and was instrumental as a member of the Maston Foundation Board and Executive Committee in those founding years of the 1980s. As an attorney, he worked on the official papers that established the Foundation as a not-for-profit corporation with the State of Texas.
Personally, he was a good friend to me and to my parents, and even served as my parents' attorney for a number of years, including the drawing up and filing of their wills.
But it was in his writing that I got to know Hal even better. From the early days of the journal Christian Ethics Today, founder and editor Foy Valentine (and later, editor Joe Trull) regularly published a column written by Hal, in which he wrote - simply but most eloquently - about real life, almost always drawn from his real life.
And you could count on Hal drawing lessons from those real-life experiences, lessons of God's grace and care for our lives, lessons of life's journey, lessons of not giving up no matter what. From some people, such lessons might have seemed trite. But from Hal, they were authentic and reached the depths of one's soul, because you knew that Hal wasn't writing abstractly - if he was writing about it, he had lived it . . . experienced it.
I never missed an opportunity, whenever I saw Hal in those years, to tell him that his column was the first thing I read as soon as Christian Ethics Today hit my mailbox, because I knew that, in reading his story, I would wind up reading my own story as well. You couldn't read Hal Haralson without circling back to - and reflecting on - something in your own life. That was Hal's gift to us all.
Hal published collections of his stories in two books, Gentle Mercies: Stories of faith in faded blue jeans and The Lost Saddle. An autographed copy of Gentle Mercies is one of the most treasured volumes I own, but I just learned about The Lost Saddle from Hal's obituary. Now I'm going to have to find a copy.
This morning, I took Gentle Mercies down from my bookshelves and read back through a few of his stories. Here are a just a few selections. For those of us who knew Hal, they serve as reminders of the friend who just left us. For those who read his stories over the years, they prod us to go back and re-read them, letting God continue to minister to us through His servant Hal Haralson. For those who haven't known or read Hal, they'll give you just a smidgen of insight into a man who truly was a man after God's own heart, and perhaps whet your appetite to buy his books and read more.
Not giving up no matter what? Hal learned that lesson the hard way . . . by first giving up. In "The View from a Padded Cell," he tells of attempting to commit suicide in 1963, setting fire to his house in the process, and ultimately being committed to the San Antonio State Hospital for 3 months. But why suicide? Because the young pastor had, for two years, "wrestled with questions about my 'calling' as a pastor without telling anyone of my dilemma." This had led to feelings of guilt, of failing his wife and congregation, and of wasting his many years of education and other preparation. In the hospital, he was "diagnosed as manic-depressive (later as bipolar)" and advised by a psychiatrist to "find another line of work."
Then a friend, an Episcopal priest, said, "Hal, . . . be of good cheer . . . everything is going to be all right." Hal recognized that he would have to deal with his illness the rest of his days but wrote, "It was as if God said to me through Ed, 'I have been here all along. I will never leave you or forsake you.'"
In "Starting Over," Hal writes about looking for work after leaving the ministry. He listed his abilities and experience, including "good public speaker"; "experience advising students regarding college and job placement . . . [in] my job in public relations at Hardin-Simmons University"; and "good counselor . . many hours [as pastor] helping people with their problems." In all of his job interviews, he was honest about his suicide attempt & mental illness - "I felt then, and still do, that honesty is the only way to go when dealing with mental illness. It takes the pressure off and reduces the stigma that is so often a problem." What a lesson for us in dealing with all of our struggles!
Hal writes, however, that his honesty wasn't very helpful in finding a job. Until, that is, he interviewed with Lloyd Flood at Montgomery Ward. Two days after receiving what he thought was just the "standard brush off" . . . "'We will get in touch with you,'" he was called back for a second interview with Mr. Flood and offered the position of director of personnel and public relations . . . "speak at civic clubs and schools . . . listen to [employees'] problems in their marriages and with their children . . . employees get into conflict with each other, and someone needs to hear them out and settle disputes . . . interview applicants and place them where they can benefit themselves and Montgomery Ward the most."
Hal goes on to write, "Mr. Flood had just described a job that allowed me to use every experience I had had up to that point in my life. He had just confirmed my belief that, if I had read God right in leaving the ministry, there was a place waiting that would allow me to use my gifts and experience."
In "Perfect Timing," Hal tells of being admitted to the University of Texas Law School in 1968, after making a last-minute plea to the dean of the Law School, despite not having taken the Law School Admission Test (normally a prerequisite) or even having submitted an application. Later, during his third year in Law School, he learned that "between 1960 and 1970, there were three times as many applicants as there were openings at U.T. Law School . . . except for the fall of 1968. The Vietnam War had taken so many undergraduates that there were still openings when school began."
The lesson? "There are times when the presence of God is felt in events in a way that cannot be explained as coincidence."
In "Hiring Cornelia," Hal tells about putting up his shingle and starting his own law practice after graduating from Law School, then hiring his first secretary. She was instrumental in the ultimate success of his practice and worked for Hal for seven years. "Then and now," Hal writes, "I find myself in awe. The people on the journey are all placed there. There are no accidents."
Just permit me two more. I'll leave it to you to read the stories, but it's sufficient here just to repeat the lessons, the "morals" of the stories: "Don't give up if you catch the wrong bus!" ("Mom Goes Back to School") and "Celebrate your differences!" ("Vive la différence").
Hal Haralson celebrated life - the good and the bad - because he had discovered that God is with us in all of it. Hal never stopped learning, because he had discovered that God always has new things to teach us that we can carry with us on the next steps of the journey. Finally, Hal loved people, appreciated their differences, and saw God's being and God's presence in all he met. What a gift!
Thanks be to God for placing Hal Haralson along my own journey.
Why did I title this post, "Hal Haralson, a man after God's own heart"? I read somewhere an explanation of that phrase as applied to David in Scripture. It went like this: David was called a man after God's own heart because "David recognized that the only good in him was the God in him."
I think that's an apt explanation, and an attitude that all of us should share, but few do. However, that attitude - that the only good he had resulted from God's presence in him and with him - simply oozed from every pore of Hal Haralson.
If you didn't know Hal, you missed out. Although, I have to add, you can still read his books and feel like you knew him, because Hal wrote from his heart, and he wrote about his most personal struggles, experiences, and even triumphs. There was a common thread running through Hal's accounting of all of them - God's faithfulness, God's grace and mercy, God's constant presence throughout.
Hal studied under T. B. Maston and was instrumental as a member of the Maston Foundation Board and Executive Committee in those founding years of the 1980s. As an attorney, he worked on the official papers that established the Foundation as a not-for-profit corporation with the State of Texas.
Personally, he was a good friend to me and to my parents, and even served as my parents' attorney for a number of years, including the drawing up and filing of their wills.
But it was in his writing that I got to know Hal even better. From the early days of the journal Christian Ethics Today, founder and editor Foy Valentine (and later, editor Joe Trull) regularly published a column written by Hal, in which he wrote - simply but most eloquently - about real life, almost always drawn from his real life.
And you could count on Hal drawing lessons from those real-life experiences, lessons of God's grace and care for our lives, lessons of life's journey, lessons of not giving up no matter what. From some people, such lessons might have seemed trite. But from Hal, they were authentic and reached the depths of one's soul, because you knew that Hal wasn't writing abstractly - if he was writing about it, he had lived it . . . experienced it.
I never missed an opportunity, whenever I saw Hal in those years, to tell him that his column was the first thing I read as soon as Christian Ethics Today hit my mailbox, because I knew that, in reading his story, I would wind up reading my own story as well. You couldn't read Hal Haralson without circling back to - and reflecting on - something in your own life. That was Hal's gift to us all.
Hal published collections of his stories in two books, Gentle Mercies: Stories of faith in faded blue jeans and The Lost Saddle. An autographed copy of Gentle Mercies is one of the most treasured volumes I own, but I just learned about The Lost Saddle from Hal's obituary. Now I'm going to have to find a copy.
This morning, I took Gentle Mercies down from my bookshelves and read back through a few of his stories. Here are a just a few selections. For those of us who knew Hal, they serve as reminders of the friend who just left us. For those who read his stories over the years, they prod us to go back and re-read them, letting God continue to minister to us through His servant Hal Haralson. For those who haven't known or read Hal, they'll give you just a smidgen of insight into a man who truly was a man after God's own heart, and perhaps whet your appetite to buy his books and read more.
Not giving up no matter what? Hal learned that lesson the hard way . . . by first giving up. In "The View from a Padded Cell," he tells of attempting to commit suicide in 1963, setting fire to his house in the process, and ultimately being committed to the San Antonio State Hospital for 3 months. But why suicide? Because the young pastor had, for two years, "wrestled with questions about my 'calling' as a pastor without telling anyone of my dilemma." This had led to feelings of guilt, of failing his wife and congregation, and of wasting his many years of education and other preparation. In the hospital, he was "diagnosed as manic-depressive (later as bipolar)" and advised by a psychiatrist to "find another line of work."
Then a friend, an Episcopal priest, said, "Hal, . . . be of good cheer . . . everything is going to be all right." Hal recognized that he would have to deal with his illness the rest of his days but wrote, "It was as if God said to me through Ed, 'I have been here all along. I will never leave you or forsake you.'"
In "Starting Over," Hal writes about looking for work after leaving the ministry. He listed his abilities and experience, including "good public speaker"; "experience advising students regarding college and job placement . . . [in] my job in public relations at Hardin-Simmons University"; and "good counselor . . many hours [as pastor] helping people with their problems." In all of his job interviews, he was honest about his suicide attempt & mental illness - "I felt then, and still do, that honesty is the only way to go when dealing with mental illness. It takes the pressure off and reduces the stigma that is so often a problem." What a lesson for us in dealing with all of our struggles!
Hal writes, however, that his honesty wasn't very helpful in finding a job. Until, that is, he interviewed with Lloyd Flood at Montgomery Ward. Two days after receiving what he thought was just the "standard brush off" . . . "'We will get in touch with you,'" he was called back for a second interview with Mr. Flood and offered the position of director of personnel and public relations . . . "speak at civic clubs and schools . . . listen to [employees'] problems in their marriages and with their children . . . employees get into conflict with each other, and someone needs to hear them out and settle disputes . . . interview applicants and place them where they can benefit themselves and Montgomery Ward the most."
Hal goes on to write, "Mr. Flood had just described a job that allowed me to use every experience I had had up to that point in my life. He had just confirmed my belief that, if I had read God right in leaving the ministry, there was a place waiting that would allow me to use my gifts and experience."
In "Perfect Timing," Hal tells of being admitted to the University of Texas Law School in 1968, after making a last-minute plea to the dean of the Law School, despite not having taken the Law School Admission Test (normally a prerequisite) or even having submitted an application. Later, during his third year in Law School, he learned that "between 1960 and 1970, there were three times as many applicants as there were openings at U.T. Law School . . . except for the fall of 1968. The Vietnam War had taken so many undergraduates that there were still openings when school began."
The lesson? "There are times when the presence of God is felt in events in a way that cannot be explained as coincidence."
In "Hiring Cornelia," Hal tells about putting up his shingle and starting his own law practice after graduating from Law School, then hiring his first secretary. She was instrumental in the ultimate success of his practice and worked for Hal for seven years. "Then and now," Hal writes, "I find myself in awe. The people on the journey are all placed there. There are no accidents."
Just permit me two more. I'll leave it to you to read the stories, but it's sufficient here just to repeat the lessons, the "morals" of the stories: "Don't give up if you catch the wrong bus!" ("Mom Goes Back to School") and "Celebrate your differences!" ("Vive la différence").
Hal Haralson celebrated life - the good and the bad - because he had discovered that God is with us in all of it. Hal never stopped learning, because he had discovered that God always has new things to teach us that we can carry with us on the next steps of the journey. Finally, Hal loved people, appreciated their differences, and saw God's being and God's presence in all he met. What a gift!
Thanks be to God for placing Hal Haralson along my own journey.
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