How not to elect anybody to anything, but to keep it safe

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This was a New Yorker article in July 2010. Writer Anthony Gottlieb was reviewing a book with the intriguing title “Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present.”  Something he told I found fascinating.

In old Italy, when the time came for the city of Venice to elect a new doge (think of a mayor with royal powers), the process by which the city officials conducted this election was something to behold. Tprocess involved seven steps.  Here was the procedure….

–An official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica. Along the way, he grabbed the first kid off the streets he could find and took back to the palace to pull out ballots from a box. Inside were the names of all the grand families of Venice. The child was selecting people for an electoral college.

–Thirty electors were chosen that way. Then, a second drawing reduced the number to nine.

–Those nine nominated forty candidates, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors to make it to the next stage. The forty were then whittled down to 12.

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How cults operate

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In 1939, American journalist Virginia Cowles went to Russia. Two years later, she wrote about what she saw in Looking For Trouble.

After a few days of trying in vain to get Russians to talk with her, Cowles found out why they were afraid. Stalin had just killed untold millions of his own people for what he called anti-Communistic actions. Some of those actions were nothing more than studying a foreign language or befriending a foreigner. Consequently, people were afraid to speak to any stranger.

Cowles then gives us her analysis of life in that sad country:

The chief distinction between man and animal is the critical faculty of the human mind. In the Soviet Union–just as in Germany–the critical faculty was carefully exterminated, so that the mass might sweat out their existence as uncomplainingly as oxen, obedient to the tyranny of the day. Truth was a lost word. Minds were doped with distorted information until they became so sluggish they had not even the power to protest against their miserable conditions. The ‘Pravda’ never tired of revealing to its readers the iniquities of the outside world, always pointing (out) how blessed were the people of the Soviet Union.

This is precisely how religous cults operate. They cannot stand for their people to think for themselves, have independent opinions, or ask troublesome questions. Dissension is treated as rebellion and rebellion gets you ousted.

By the word “cult,” I do not mean bad people. In fact, personally, in using the word I don’t mean all those off-beat groups that appear on the religious landscape from time to time. By “cult,” I mean variations of Christianity that claim they and they alone have the truth and all the rest of us are either deceived or deceitful.

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If there is no hell

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“Joe,” Walt Grayson messaged me, “you need to get to know Gordon Cotton, retired curator of the Old Capitol Museum, Vicksburg.”

Walt Grayson, a friend of fifty years or more, is an institution in Mississippi television, as he covers the state with reports on fascinating people and unforgettable places.  Amazon will tell you how to purchase his books.  Anyway…

“You remember Daniel Pearl? Reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was killed in Pakistan following 9/11.”

I said I do indeed.

Pearl was researching something and he and Gordon spent a lot of time talking on the phone. They talked about everything, not just history. Including religion. And one day, Daniel Pearl told Gordon he did not believe in hell.

Gordon Cotton said, “If you don’t believe in hell, then where is Sherman?”

That became the headline for Pearl’s article in the Wall Street Journal the next day.

That is a reference to General William Tecumseh Sherman whose “March to the Sea” helped to bring the Civil War to a close by killing untold numbers of southerners and destroying their property. When he said, “War is hell,” Sherman spoke as a practitioner of the art.

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Preaching about America in the worst possible way

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Preacher Driftwater told me, “I want to preach about America in the worst way.”

I told him it’s been done.

What he said is not what he meant, of course.

The worst way to preach about America is negatively.

“The world is going to hell.” “America is decaying from within.”  “The country is becoming socialist.”  “The president is our worst enemy.”  “The Supreme Court is ruining America.”  “The home is breaking down. Marriage is a thing of the past. You can’t get a good two-dollar steak any more.”

Okay, strike that last one.

After the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that homosexuals can marry in any state in the union, we all agree that this has forever changed this country.  For better or for worse depends on who’s talking.

Christians I know are justifiably concerned. But once the SCOTUS rules, we are stuck with their decision.

Since then, things have continued to go south.  I’ll spare you the list.

So! Does all this mean the United States is through? Will God write ‘Ichabod’ over what used to be a great country?  Should we preachers deliver its eulogy from our pulpits?

Not so fast.

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The most amazing/wonderful thing we do when reading Scripture

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Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17).

“Whosoever surely meaneth me.”  — Gospel song by James E. McConnell, 1910.   

“He included me.”  — Gospel song by Johnson Oatman. 1909.

Every Christian I know does this and I do it too.  And yet there seems to be no easy explanation for it.

In Scripture, we will be reading where God is telling Israel how much He loves them, how He has loved them from the first, how His love is endless and that He has big plans for them, and what do we do?  We copy off those words and plaster them around the house, memorize them, and write them into songs of inspiration. We put them on bumper stickers and coffee mugs and t-shirts, and we build sermons around them.

We revel in those words.

We do this not because we are so impressed by God’s love of Israel nor touched by their closeness.  We do it for another overwhelming reason.

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Pastors, you never know who’s in your audience

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Leslie said to me, “Pastor Joe, when you performed Mom’s wedding to John, are you aware that Sandra Bullock was in the audience?”  Wow.  No, I was not. Sandra Bullock is one of the great stars of Hollywood.  I do recall hearing that Leslie’s mom Anne was related to Sandra Bullock, and maybe her godmother.

I said, “I wish I had known.”

Leslie answered, “Well, she was only ten years old at the time.”

I still laugh at that.

When a pastor stands to preach, he never knows who is listening. If his sermon is being recorded or broadcast, he has no clue who will be hearing his words. He will do well to make sure he knows what he’s talking about.

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Rescuing your spiritual life from bondage to your emotions

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“Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh”. ” (Galatians 5:16)

Brothers and sisters.  If you would be spiritually mature and successful in the Christian life, you must rescue your spiritual life from bondage to your emotions.”  –J. Sidlow Baxter, speaking to Mississippi Baptists in the mid-1970s.

She said to me. “If I don’t feel like doing something, my heart would not be in it, and the Lord said we are to serve Him with all our heart. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”

I said, “So, if you don’t feel like reading your Bible or going to church or apologizing to a neighbor, you don’t do it.  Right?”

She: “Right.  It would be hypocritical.”

Me: “Well. May I ask you, do you ever wake up on Monday morning and not feel like going to work?  Or, when you were a teen, were there early mornings when you did not feel like getting up and going to school?”

She: “That’s different.”

Me: “How is it different?”

She: “It just is.”

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Using humor in a sermon or a speech

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Watch this.  This is how it’s done.

Some years ago, Robert Mueller was giving a commencement address at the College of William and Mary.  This former director of the FBI in the first Bush administration is the epitome of dignity and class.  He is anything but a comic or comedian.  That day, speaking on “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,” the motto of the Bureau, he demonstrated a great way to use humor in a serious talk.

In one of my first positions with the Department of Justice, more than thirty years ago, I found myself head of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.  I soon realized that lawyers would come into my office for one of two reasons: either to ‘see and be seen’ on the one hand, or to obtain a decision on some aspect of their work, on the other hand.  I quickly fell into the habit of asking one question whenever someone walked in the door, and that question was ‘What is the issue?’

One evening I came home to my wife, who had had a long day teaching and then coping with our two young daughters.  She began to describe her day to me.  After just a few minutes, I interrupted, and rather peremptorily asked, ‘What is the issue?’

The response, as I should have anticipated, was immediate.  ‘I am your wife,’ she said. ‘I am not one of your attorneys. Do not ever ask me ‘What is the issue?’  You will sit there and  you will listen until I am finished.’ And of course, I did just that.

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Life’s intersections: What if that person had not shown up that day?

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Last evening and today, I’ve been texting with a friend of 60+ years as we set up the reunion for the church in Birmingham that ministered to me so thoroughly when I was a student at nearby Birmingham-Southern Baptist Church.  Everything that follows below is relevant to that. 

I’m 81 years old. Not decrepit or senile, thank you very much. And, not ancient or feeble by any means, you understand.  But the calendar is what it is and the white hair belies my protestations.  Honestly, l feel like I’m 15.  Okay, sort of.

However.

The time is here when it’s perfectly acceptable to look back and remember and give thanks to God for what He has done.

Thinking of all the blessings of people and incidents, of words and books and jobs and churches, I constantly thank God that He did “this” and not “that” or something else entirely.

You are looking at one blest man. (Okay, to the extent you are actually “looking” at me, that is.)

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When I get old, how I do not want to be

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Hey, I’m only 81.  But common sense and regular observation assures me my time is coming.  Anyway, here’s what happened…

The old man stood at the checker’s station in my grocery store. The line behind him stretched out for a half-dozen people.

He’d bought a few things, but the process of paying for it was taking forever.  He fumbled around in his pocket for his wallet, then struggled with it in search of his debit card.  Only with the checker’s help was he able to insert it into the machine and complete the transaction.  In the process, the old guy flirted with the lady behind him, the one just ahead of me, and made friendly comments to anyone else who might be overhearing this.

I was interested to see that both the checker and the woman customer were patient with him.

When he finished, the man seemed in no hurry to pick up his purchase and move out of the way for the next customer.  He looked at the line forming behind him and muttered something about being 82 years old, as though this were an achievement for which he was being honored.

You will not believe this since I’m writing about it, but I was not impatient with him, and said nothing to anyone.  I did not roll my eyes, did not even react, but sent up a quick prayer for the old gentleman.

But I was warned.

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