Some of our historic New Orleans restaurants have relocated to the Northshore, around Covington or Slidell, and are drawing in the customers, according to a front page article in Sunday’s Times-Picayune. I expect there’s a lot of that happening in other cities, too, from Houston to Dallas to Memphis, as New Orleanians decide either not to return or to wait until the city boasts enough residents to support them.

The Steve Kelley editorial cartoon in Sunday’s paper shows the Grinch, labeled IRS, taking down the children’s stockings from the mantel (marked “Road Home”). The various stockings are labeled “G-R-A-N-T-S.”

Still no letters to the editor about the Joshua and Delores Thompson fiasco, although columnist Jarvis DeBerry gives it his attention. He has no new information, but repeats the Associated Press story of this couple bilking the Memphis church out of the new house then reselling it, but he clothes the account in a biblical story. The Matthew 25 account of the tenants investing the talent entrusted to them and the one servant burying his is seen as a parable for this saga. The scared servant, the one who feared his master’s wrath and buried his talent, is described by the master as wicked, lazy, and worthless. DeBerry says, “Similar adjectives might be used to describe Delores and Joshua Thompson….”

He continues, “There will always be those Delores Thompsons whose attitudes validate Mark Twain’s rather pithy distinction of the species: ‘If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.’ Twain wrote, ‘This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.'”

DeBerry ends with a message to the Thompsons: “Verily I say unto them, God don’t like ugly. While burying one’s talents is lazy and wicked, even that’s better than selfishly taking those talents earmarked for the truly needy.”

My Mom on the Nauvoo, Alabama, farm read the same story in the Birmingham News, so apparently the sad tale of these shameful New Orleanians is everywhere.

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The IRS is now announcing that local homeowners who receive grants from the LRA–those checks amounting to as much as $150,000–may have to pay taxes on it, particularly if they showed losses on their 2005 income taxes. The 2006 grants are meant to off-set those losses, therefore, this new money would be taxable. Our senators are quietly saying that in all the rush for legislation to assist Katrina victims, they overlooked this possibility.

Saturday’s Times-Picayune announced that the agency handling these large grants for the state fully intend to meet the governor’s goal of 10,000 residents receiving their checks by the end of this month. Some 80,000-plus have filed applications for the money, and nearly 9,000 have been approved. To date, however, only 44 people have received their money.

The snag in the process, we are told, has been the insurance companies. As the oversight agency considers a home-owner’s application, it deducts all insurance settlements that have been received. Problem is, the insurance companies have had no incentive whatever to come forth with information on how much money they paid to our citizens. Some have insisted, “That’s private stuff.” I have no idea how the agency is getting around this, particularly as the governor applies the screws.

Here and there throughout the metro area where new houses are going up, you see mounds of dirt–many truckloads–hauled in, dumped, and leveled off. A new home is going up across my back street in River Ridge, and even though we live on the highest ground around and have never had flooding, it looks like 20 loads of dirt have been unloaded. Now, Jefferson Parish is restricting the use of “fill dirt” under houses in certain areas. Recently, in Old Metairie–the oldest section of our parish and probably the highest-priced–neighbors watched as recent heavy rains washed dirt from under newly built homes into the streets and adjoining yards. Christie Perdigao, chair of the Old Metairie Commission says, “In addition to impeding drainingage, filling entire lots with new layers of dirt kills trees and creates an uneven landscape damaging to neighborhood aesthetics.”

Last week, the Jefferson Parish Council passed a motion which stops filling whole lots with dirt and calls for planners to study other ways of rebuilding neighborhoods.

In Friday’s Times-Picayune every letter to the editor was about St. Frances Cabrini Church, whether it should be demolished to make way for Holy Cross School or whether it is an architectural treasure. A few quotes….

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I knew the National Association of Realtors held their convention in our city last week, and that it was 30,000 strong–the biggest yet since Katrina–but until this morning, Thursday, had not heard how things had gone.

What makes this particularly relevant to Southern Baptists is that last June at our annual meeting in Greensboro, NC, David Crosby made a motion that the SBC hold its 2008 convention in New Orleans, and several leaders pooh-poohed the idea. “New Orleans won’t be ready for us by then,” one said to me. No amount of argument and reasoning from our corner did anything to dislodge that notion.

The realtors had second thoughts about coming here early on, and especially as the dates drew near. The shooting of five people in a French Quarter bar didn’t help. Convention-goers read in the papers about the National Guard patroling the streets. This did not sound like a place they wanted to attend.

The president of the Pennsylvania Realtors said, “The press outside your area is unbelievable,” painting a negative picture of a city in deep crisis. My own take on this is that we are in a crisis but not the kind that affects visitors who fly into the city, taxi downtown, stay in the hotels, and eat in the restaurants. Our crisis has more to do with the devastated residential areas and our stymied political leaders. By the way, the National Guard is here to patrol those flooded, sparsely settled sections of the city, freeing up the police for patrols where people live and work.

The realtors were smart and sent some members of their team in early as “mystery shoppers,” staying in downtown hotels and eating in the restaurants and walking the streets to see what conventioneers could expect. Then they put out the word that New Orleans is open for business–that the water is safe to drink, airlines are working to add more flights, top hotels are open, plenty of restaurants are running, and the downtown streets are safe.

I said the realtors were smart. Some of them came to town back in June and worked as volunteers when the American Library Association met, in order to see how the city was able to accommodate those 18,000 visitors. Then, in order to deal with the still-low number of airline flights in and out of Armstrong International every day, they urged incoming delegates to spread their arrivals over several days. Many came in early or stayed late and helped Habitat build houses or assisted in the cleanup of City Park. Are these people something or what?

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We need to apologize to a church in Memphis.

Members of the Deliverance Temple Church of God in Christ bought a $75,000 house in Memphis for a New Orleans couple displaced by Katrina. The couple–Joshua and Delores Thompson–never even moved into the house, but sold it and pocketed $88,000, then returned to New Orleans. Got a problem with that? “Take it up with God,” Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter who confronted him.

We are outraged and I expect the people of Memphis are, too. There is a time for anger and this is it.

According to Wednesday’s Times-Picayune, the couple came to Memphis literally begging for a new home. The church had decided it would do something special for a Katrina-displaced family, in addition to its other ministries to evacuees. They established a committee which interviewed a number of applicants, and chose the Thompsons. According to Delores, they were in great need. She had lost her job as a nurse and Joshua lost his in the import-export business. Their home and possessions had been destroyed, and their two children–a 14 year old girl and a 16 year old son–were eager to get back in school. They would be so honored to resettle in Memphis.

They took possession of the house in February and sold it in September.

Questions have arisen as to whether the Thompsons were truthful. Property transfer records for the resale of the Memphis house list Delores as unmarried; papers from the original sale show her as married. She claimed they were living in a FEMA-provided apartment in Memphis, but no one ever saw it. The realtor–a member of the Deliverance Temple church–says, “She didn’t want me coming over there. She’d say, ‘I’ll meet you.'” No one has verified the past history of this family, whether they actually held jobs in this city or for that matter, whether they owned a house down here and if so, if it was destroyed.

I’ll tell you this. People like this did not start taking advantage of others only after a hurricane. Check into it and you will find that such calloused people have a long record of this kind of shenanigans. The Memphis church says it has not discussed legal action, but I hope the District Attorney there will get involved. Fraud is a crime whether the church initiates a lawsuit or not.

On the subject of their selling that house at an instant profit….

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Last Monday, Wanda Murfin sent a note from Silverhill, Alabama, asking, “Did this happen? I read about the revival in New Orleans with Billy and Franklin Graham, but somehow I must have missed this.”

She forwarded an internet article showing photos of Billy Graham and a French Quarter scene. The reporter purports to tell what happened on Sunday evening March 12 of this year at the end of Mr. Graham’s sermon in the New Orleans Arena. It’s fascinating and would be wonderful if it had happened. But it didn’t. No way. None of it.

Here’s what the phantom writer–whoever he or she may be–says took place that night. “Graham invited the packed house of evangelical Christians and the hundreds of new converts to join him on the one mile walk from the arena to New Orleans’ infamous Bourbon Street.”

The mysterious writer quotes Mr. Graham, “I last preached in the City of New Orleans in 1954 and I felt then that there was some unfinished business. Tonight, in what very well might be my last evangelistic service, I aim to finish that business and lead as many of you that would follow me to the multitude of lost souls that fill Bourbon Street tonight…. That is where we shall see the harvest!”

The writer says the stadium erupted in cheers that lasted several minutes, then Graham boarded a scooter and joined Franklin and headed for the French Quarter. The capacity crowd followed in a 20 minute trek while singing “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

According to the article, Christians outnumbered sinners up and down Bourbon Street and soon the raunchy music which normally emanates from the bars was silent, as people began to pray and weep. Veteran police officers say they’ve never seen anything like it. After two hours of this, Mr. Graham departed, leaving behind hundreds of believers witnessing on the streets. “New Orleans will never be the same.”

Alas, it didn’t happen. None of it. Oh that it would. I have read this bogus article to several people who were present for Mr. Graham’s service at the New Orleans Arena and halfway through, they’re shaking their heads saying, “That didn’t happen.” I invite skeptics to go back to my blog from March 12, 2006, and read of Mr. Graham’s visit. I took notes on everything he said and sat down at the computer that very evening and recorded it all here. (NOTE: I just checked and the date on my blog-article is March 13, which is a Monday. But I wrote it Sunday night.)

So, where did this come from? And why was it written as factual, like a genuine newspaper account? I haven’t the slightest.

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Last Thursday afternoon, as CBS-TV’s resident curmudgeon Andy Rooney sat on the panel at the World War II Conference, someone in the audience asked him why so many veterans who returned from the war were reluctant to talk about it, while he and others write entire books about their experiences. “I’ll tell you why most of them don’t talk about it,” he said. “They didn’t do anything worth talking about. They served in the 10th Shoe Repair Batallion.” He explained that only about 10 percent of the members of the armed services actually shot at the enemy or were themselves shot at.

Now, I realize he said it that way to make his point, and being a journalist/humorist, he doesn’t mind offending you a little in the process. But it was offensive.

The members of the “Shoe Repair Batallion,” as he put it, are the soldiers and sailors who fed and clothed the men on the front lines, who served as medics and truck-drivers and communications people and mechanics. In other words, you couldn’t have won the war without them.

There’s a good point from early in the life of the future king David that works here. David and his six hundred men (perhaps not unlike Robin Hood and his merry men, outlaws and living on the lam) were chasing some bad guys who had raided their camp and taken everything they owned as well as their people. Day and night they traveled. Finally, some of David’s men were exhausted, so he allowed them to stay behind and guard the baggage which allowed the others to travel lighter and faster. A day or so later, David and his victorious four hundred return. They’ve recaptured all their people, made short work of the enemies, and taken all their treasures. That’s when a dispute arose.

The four hundred who had actually faced the enemy insisted that the two hundred who had stayed behind would not share in the bounty. “Give them their people back and their possessions which were stolen, but nothing more,” they protested. David held up his hand. “You must not do this, my brethren, with what the Lord has given us.” Then he instituted a principle which has come down through the centuries as the ultimate in fairness.

“As his share who goes down to battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.” (I Samuel 30:24)

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Who Taught Us To Call God ‘Father’?

When I was a freshman at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, in the late 1950’s, our chaplain was a lovely cherubic gentleman who looked a lot like Winston Churchill. Dr. Gresham was a superb speaker and was admired by everyone. Now, I was 18 years old and 3 years away from the call into the ministry, but I remember like it was yesterday something he said about “God the Father.”

“Occasionally, I hear people say, ‘I believe in God the Father but I do not believe in Jesus Christ.’ I always ask them, ‘Who taught you to call God ‘Father’?’ Because it was Jesus. You can search the writings of antiquity and you will not find anywhere the teachings that God is our Father. The Old Testament has a couple of places where the Jews referred to Him as the Father of Israel, but no individual ever looked up toward Heaven and addressed Him as ‘Father.’ It was Jesus who gave us this privilege.”

You will recall that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He said, “When you pray, say, ‘Father….'” That was new. Now, I’ve not done the research but I’ve heard that the Koran has over 90 names for God, but not one of them is Father.

(NOTE: The reason I attribute this to Dr. Gresham instead of just proclaiming it myself is simply that I have not delved into all the historical writings in various cultures on God, and have no way of knowing whether what he said is true or not. I want to believe it; it sounds right. Our history professor, Mae Parrish, said she had never caught Dr. Gresham in a historical inaccuracy, and she was not particularly favorably inclined toward preachers.)

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Love, Love, Love–Is Christianity So Sentimental?

Back in 1968, Joe McGinnis worked on the Richard Nixon campaign for president. Later, he wrote a book on what he observed, calling it “The Selling of the President 1968,” a takeoff on the Theodore White books “The Making of the President 1960,” 1964, etc. McGinnis said they packaged and sold Nixon like he was a brand of cigarettes. And he told one little story I’ve been telling ever since.

The campaign’s advertising agency prepared a one minute television commercial depicting Nixon’s views on the Vietnam war. They took a series of black and white photos from the way and lined them up, then had the camera pan down them. What you saw on the TV screen was all these photos going by, and you heard Nixon’s voice telling what he would do about the war if he were elected. The final photo showed an American soldier in full battle gear and wearing a helmet with the word “LOVE” scrawled across the front.

Now, remember that this was in the days of the hippie movement, free love, etc. As soon as the commercial began airing on TV, the campaign headquarters started receiving irate phone calls from Nixon supporters. “Get that hippie off that ad,” one said. Another said, “That is no word for a soldier to wear on his helmet when he’s going into battle to kill or be killed.” Well, when you’re running for president, you don’t want to offend needlessly, so the Nixon people told the ad agency to pull the commercial and change the last photograph.

The agency was reluctant to make the change. Their people had thought what an interesting young man that soldier must be to go into battle wearing the word “LOVE” on his helmet. But they complied and put a picture of a soldier with a generic helmet on the ad.

The upshot was a few days later, the Nixon people received a letter from that soldier’s mother. She said, “It was so nice of you to use my son’s photo. He’s on the other side of the world and I worry about him. It made my day to see his picture on the television screen.” The letter was signed, “Mrs. William C. Love.”

Can’t a fellow even wear his name on his helmet?

I use that story to illustrate how the wonderful concept of love has fallen onto hard times. It’s used in a thousand ways and many of them bad. Perfect love, the ideal, what God intended in the first place is what I John is all about.

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We Shall Be Like Him

The British poet Francis Thompson–forever enshrined in the hearts of Christians for his “The Hound of Heaven”–was in France and ran into an old friend. He called her name across a crowded sidewalk and she came over. “Shhhh,” she said. “Don’t call me by my name. I’m traveling in embryo.”

Thompson laughed and said, “I think you mean you’re traveling in cognito. In embryo means you’re not born yet!”

Reading I John 3:1-2, Christians see how both of those Latin terms apply to us. “In cognito” means “unknown,” and John says “the world does not know us.” “In embryo” means “unborn,” and he adds, “it has not yet appeared what we shall be.”

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Sunday morning, little First Baptist Church of St. Rose, Louisiana, about 5 minutes west of the New Orleans airport, honored its longtime pastor Rev. W. O. Cottingham and his incredible wife Alpha. They birthed that church in 1959 and led it until the middle of 2005, when they retired for health reasons. Former members, friends, and family drove in from long distances to be there to honor them. W. O.’s cousin and full-time music evangelist Ronnie Cottingham of Mississippi led the worship and sang, and I preached the morning message. The sermon from Hebrews 6:10 was a new one for me, but I think I was more blessed than anyone there. (Ask any preacher. You know when you have one from the Lord!) We printed the outline here a day or two ago.

As the director of missions, I have an unofficial membership in each Southern Baptist church in metro New Orleans, and so try to use that advantage to say something to the churches which almost no one else can. I reminded this congregation that it’s hard for a church to change gears after nearly half a century of the same pastor, and to follow a new leader. “And yet, Larry Pittman is your pastor. He will not do things the way Brother Cottingham did. The question is whether you will let him be himself and lead out.”

In similar situations to this, I frequently tell a church that when I left the First Baptist Church of Kenner in 2004, after 14 years, I was replaced by a 27-year-old pastor, Tony Merida, who had never pastored before. I let that sink in, then add, “In a church business meeting to discuss him, someone said, ‘He doesn’t have any experience.’ Someone else said, ‘Well, he’s about to get some!'” Then I tell them, “And he’s wonderful. He’s my pastor.”

Pray for this church and Pastor Pittman.

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