Theological Journal – June 27 For a Time Such as This
This story from Brother to a Dragonfly by
the late Will Campbell hits right at the heart of what it means to be a
Christian today in race-torn America.
Campbell was a maverick minister and civil rights
activist. He was born and raised in Mississippi, and by the age of 17 he was
ordained and preaching in local Baptist churches. He served as a medic in the
Second World War, and then attended Yale divinity school. It was in the
mid-1950s that he joined the Civil Rights movement. In 1957 he became the only
white person to be invited by Martin Luther King to the inauguration of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and in 1963 he joined King’s campaign
of marches and sit-ins in Birmingham, Alabama.
Campbell had a good friend named Jonathan Daniels, a 26-year-old Episcopal seminarian and fellow civil-rights worker who in August 1965 was in Lowndes County, Alabama, registering black citizens to vote. On being released from jail for “agitating” (as the local folks put it), Daniels, a Catholic priest, and two black women stopped at a grocery store for a cold drink. On the way out, they were confronted by a deputy sheriff named Thomas Coleman. Coleman pointed his 12-gauge shotgun at one of the women. Daniels stepped in front of her as Coleman pulled the trigger. Daniels was killed instantly, the priest mortally wounded.
When Campbell heard the news of Daniels’ murder, he was with an old friend, P. D. East, a religious gadfly who, a few years earlier, had goaded Campbell into giving a 10-word summary of the gospel. Campbell used just 9: “We’re all bastards,” he said, “but God loves us anyway.” Now, at this moment of crisis, East decided to put his friend to the test. Here is Campbell on what happened next:
Campbell had a good friend named Jonathan Daniels, a 26-year-old Episcopal seminarian and fellow civil-rights worker who in August 1965 was in Lowndes County, Alabama, registering black citizens to vote. On being released from jail for “agitating” (as the local folks put it), Daniels, a Catholic priest, and two black women stopped at a grocery store for a cold drink. On the way out, they were confronted by a deputy sheriff named Thomas Coleman. Coleman pointed his 12-gauge shotgun at one of the women. Daniels stepped in front of her as Coleman pulled the trigger. Daniels was killed instantly, the priest mortally wounded.
When Campbell heard the news of Daniels’ murder, he was with an old friend, P. D. East, a religious gadfly who, a few years earlier, had goaded Campbell into giving a 10-word summary of the gospel. Campbell used just 9: “We’re all bastards,” he said, “but God loves us anyway.” Now, at this moment of crisis, East decided to put his friend to the test. Here is Campbell on what happened next:
“Come on,
Brother [P. D. said]. Let’s talk about your definition… Was Jonathan a
bastard?”
I said I was sure that everyone is a sinner in one way or another but that he was one of the sweetest and most gentle guys I had ever known.
“But was he a bastard?” His tone was almost a scream. “Now that’s your word. Not mine. You told me one time that everybody is a bastard. That’s a pretty tough word. I know. Cause I am a bastard. A born bastard. A real bastard. My Mamma wasn’t married to my Daddy. Now, by god, you tell me, right now, yes or no and not maybe, was Jonathan Daniels a bastard?”
I knew that if I said no he would leave me alone and if I said yes he wouldn’t. And I knew my definition would be blown if I said no.
So I said, “Yes.”
“All right. Is Thomas Coleman a bastard?”
That one was a lot easier. “Yes. Thomas Coleman is a bastard.”
“Okay. Let me get this straight now. I don’t want to misquote you. Jonathan Daniels was a bastard. Thomas Coleman is a bastard. Right?... Which one of these two bastards do you think God loves the most?” His voice now was almost a whisper as he leaned forward, staring me directly in the eyes.
I made some feeble attempt to talk about God loving the sinner and not the sin, about judgment, justice, and [the] brotherhood of all humanity. But P. D. shook his hands in a manner of cancellation. He didn’t want to hear about that.
“You’re trying to complicate it. Now you’re the one always told me about how simple it was. Just answer the question.” …
He leaned his face closer to mine, patting first his own knee and then mine, holding the other hand aloft in oath-taking fashion.
“Which one of these two bastards does God love the most? Does he love that little dead bastard Jonathan the most? Or does He love that living bastard Thomas the most?”
Suddenly everything became clear. Everything. It was a revelation. The glow of the malt [whisky] which we were well into by then seemed to illuminate and intensify it. I walked across the room and opened the blind, staring directly into the glare of the street light. And I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter. It was a strange experience. I remember trying to sort out the sadness and the joy. Just what was I crying for and what was I laughing for. Then this too became clear.
I was laughing at myself, at twenty years of ministry, which had become, without my realizing it … An attempted negation of Jesus … and … [a] denying not only the Faith I professed to hold but my history and my people – the Thomas Colemans. Loved. And if loved, forgiven. And if forgiven, reconciled. Yet sitting in his own jail cell, the blood of two of his and my brothers on his hands.
I said I was sure that everyone is a sinner in one way or another but that he was one of the sweetest and most gentle guys I had ever known.
“But was he a bastard?” His tone was almost a scream. “Now that’s your word. Not mine. You told me one time that everybody is a bastard. That’s a pretty tough word. I know. Cause I am a bastard. A born bastard. A real bastard. My Mamma wasn’t married to my Daddy. Now, by god, you tell me, right now, yes or no and not maybe, was Jonathan Daniels a bastard?”
I knew that if I said no he would leave me alone and if I said yes he wouldn’t. And I knew my definition would be blown if I said no.
So I said, “Yes.”
“All right. Is Thomas Coleman a bastard?”
That one was a lot easier. “Yes. Thomas Coleman is a bastard.”
“Okay. Let me get this straight now. I don’t want to misquote you. Jonathan Daniels was a bastard. Thomas Coleman is a bastard. Right?... Which one of these two bastards do you think God loves the most?” His voice now was almost a whisper as he leaned forward, staring me directly in the eyes.
I made some feeble attempt to talk about God loving the sinner and not the sin, about judgment, justice, and [the] brotherhood of all humanity. But P. D. shook his hands in a manner of cancellation. He didn’t want to hear about that.
“You’re trying to complicate it. Now you’re the one always told me about how simple it was. Just answer the question.” …
He leaned his face closer to mine, patting first his own knee and then mine, holding the other hand aloft in oath-taking fashion.
“Which one of these two bastards does God love the most? Does he love that little dead bastard Jonathan the most? Or does He love that living bastard Thomas the most?”
Suddenly everything became clear. Everything. It was a revelation. The glow of the malt [whisky] which we were well into by then seemed to illuminate and intensify it. I walked across the room and opened the blind, staring directly into the glare of the street light. And I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter. It was a strange experience. I remember trying to sort out the sadness and the joy. Just what was I crying for and what was I laughing for. Then this too became clear.
I was laughing at myself, at twenty years of ministry, which had become, without my realizing it … An attempted negation of Jesus … and … [a] denying not only the Faith I professed to hold but my history and my people – the Thomas Colemans. Loved. And if loved, forgiven. And if forgiven, reconciled. Yet sitting in his own jail cell, the blood of two of his and my brothers on his hands.
“The Lesson was over.” Well, almost. Campbell still
had one thing to say to the teacher, P.D.: “I’ve got to amend the definition…
We’re all bastards but you’ve got to be the biggest bastard of us all… Because,
damned if you ain’t made a Christian out of me. And I’m not sure I can stand
it.”
This “revelation” was a turning point in Campbell’s life. His old friend East had forced Campbell to look at violent racists like Thomas Coleman (who, by the way, would soon be acquitted of Daniels’ murder by an all-white jury) in the light of God’s kindness and mercy, not only for the saintly, the good, the pretty-good, and the not-too-bad, but even for the downright-wicked. And thus opened a new chapter in ministry for Campbell: a vocation to share this radical gospel of grace with the implacable enemies of the Civil Rights Movement, with – wait for it! – the malignant white supremacists of the Ku Klux Klan, reaching out to them, befriending them, visiting them in their homes, in jails and hospitals, marrying and burying them.
So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that too often our commitment to working for justice and peace tends to dispense with this radical gospel of grace. I’m thinking that, in extremis – and it’s only in extremis, in crises, that the tire of faith really hits the road – when, say, we are confronted with an atrocity, with, say, a man flying a plane carrying 150 people into a French mountainside, or with a racist shooting in a church in Charleston, or a terrorist shooting on a beach in Tunisia – I’m thinking that here we draw the line. I mean, don’t we? We think surely God cannot extend his kindness and mercy to the perpetrators of such savagery.
Andreas Lubitz, the homicidal pilot of that plane; Dylann Roof, the murderer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church; Seifeddine Rezgui, the murderer at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel: I wonder what Will Campbell would say about these brutal events, these wicked men? And I’m thinking I know – and thinking that the answer – “We’re all bastards and God loves us anyway” – thinking how it questions me, challenges me, and (dare I say) even shames me. Yes, because it suggests that I might just be one of those Christians who is “ashamed,” as Jesus says, “of me and my teaching”. Because, as Will Campbell admitted, “I’m not sure I can stand it.”
The cross of Christ is hard to bear. Can we stand it? Lord, have mercy!
https://www.faith-theology.com/2015/09/can-we-stand-it-sermon-for-racial.html
This “revelation” was a turning point in Campbell’s life. His old friend East had forced Campbell to look at violent racists like Thomas Coleman (who, by the way, would soon be acquitted of Daniels’ murder by an all-white jury) in the light of God’s kindness and mercy, not only for the saintly, the good, the pretty-good, and the not-too-bad, but even for the downright-wicked. And thus opened a new chapter in ministry for Campbell: a vocation to share this radical gospel of grace with the implacable enemies of the Civil Rights Movement, with – wait for it! – the malignant white supremacists of the Ku Klux Klan, reaching out to them, befriending them, visiting them in their homes, in jails and hospitals, marrying and burying them.
So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that too often our commitment to working for justice and peace tends to dispense with this radical gospel of grace. I’m thinking that, in extremis – and it’s only in extremis, in crises, that the tire of faith really hits the road – when, say, we are confronted with an atrocity, with, say, a man flying a plane carrying 150 people into a French mountainside, or with a racist shooting in a church in Charleston, or a terrorist shooting on a beach in Tunisia – I’m thinking that here we draw the line. I mean, don’t we? We think surely God cannot extend his kindness and mercy to the perpetrators of such savagery.
Andreas Lubitz, the homicidal pilot of that plane; Dylann Roof, the murderer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church; Seifeddine Rezgui, the murderer at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel: I wonder what Will Campbell would say about these brutal events, these wicked men? And I’m thinking I know – and thinking that the answer – “We’re all bastards and God loves us anyway” – thinking how it questions me, challenges me, and (dare I say) even shames me. Yes, because it suggests that I might just be one of those Christians who is “ashamed,” as Jesus says, “of me and my teaching”. Because, as Will Campbell admitted, “I’m not sure I can stand it.”
The cross of Christ is hard to bear. Can we stand it? Lord, have mercy!
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