Oral Roberts / Jerry Falwell / Joe McCarthey / William Jennings Bryan / Jim Bakker / Elmer Gantry --All described better than I in the book / movie "Elmer Gantry."
Or Carl Sandburg's Poem, "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter:"
You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling aboutJesus.Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
he never made any fake passes and everything
he said went and he helped the sick and gave the
people hope.
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers
over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all
going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't
throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I
know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or dirty people but
they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your
crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers
hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out
of the running.
I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
now lined up with you paying your way.
This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened
good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful
from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands
wherever he passed along.
You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human
blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching
about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who
lived a clean life in Galilee.When are you going to quit making the carpenters build
emergency hospitals for women and girls driven
crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about
Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get that
stuff; what do you know about Jesus?
Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash
a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.
Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your
nutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare the
women and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat.
I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when
he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.
I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great
original performance, but you--you're only a bug-house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it
up all right with them by giving them mansions in
the skies after they're dead and the worms have
eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need
is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without
having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of
age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross
and he'll be all right.
You tell poor people they don't need any more money
on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job,
Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gotta
do is take Jesus the way you say.
I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you're handing out.
Jesus played it different. The bankers
and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and
murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus
wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with
the big thieves.
I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works
except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory
except the face of the woman on the American
silver dollar.
I ask you to come through and show me where you're
pouring out the blood of your life.
I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha,
where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is
straight it was real blood ran from His hands and
the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red
drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed
in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.
Brother Carl, you sat on a mountainside near Hendersonville, NC. You looked out over God's creation. You knew your Bible. You listened to the radio preachers and those on the 3 TV stations you could just receive in those hills. My Grandaddy had the same problem reception just below you near Greenville!
I was a little boy. You were an aged man, but you said it so well, I could never say it better!
THANKS, Carl, I love you and can't wait to meet you on "higher ground."
Now Gene don't be so hard on your self by ripping all who have made remarks and said and did things you don't like or don't agree with. One them thar preachers that you didn't mention, the one who turned somersaults and smashed chairs over a pulpit, etc., won a friend of mine to Christ, a good woman whose son would be a preacher, a descendant of one of the preachers who went to jail in Va so you & me could be free to preach like we believe. As to William Jennings Bryan - he was a lot smarter than some think! The man with the education at the trial was Bryan. Darrow was self-taught, never attended college that I could tell. But Byan had 3 earned degrees, a B.A., an M.A., and a J.D. During the trial a question was put regarding the tooth of (supposedly) Nebraska man, he replied, "For all I know it could be a pig's tooth." It was (as they later discovered) an early peccary tooth, a form of the pig. As to Bakker, Billy Graham visited him in prison and hugged him, and it broke his heart. As much as Bakker caused me a few problems (not directly but when he was under indictment, I got some remarks slung my way for having a church named Heritage), I still can't stand against a broken hearted man. Sinclair Lewis wasn't too nice in using Elmer Gantry as a symbol of Billy Sunday who was doing the best he cold with what he had. A friend of mine had Sunday preach for him one Sunday morning during the great New York crusade of 1917. And the mother of another friend was converted under Sunday in a revival in Illinois. That day he just shook the chair. That orphan and former baseball star did a bit more than you and me for the glory of God. Let's be thankful for what God is pleased to let us do, and not be so harsh on all who don't quite measure meet our standards. Jerry was one who didn't quite measure up to my standard, but I was one of the first graduates of his School of Lifelong Learning with an M.A. in Counseling. And the education I got there was top notch. Having attend 10 other colleges and universities above the secondary level (all the way from a baptist college to a state university to an ivy league university), I think I know what I am talking about. Besides teaching in three different colleges. In a test for graduates in counseling here in NC in order to be employed in the public schools, the required score then (1988-89) was 490 and I made a 560. That said Jerry was at least trying to do the best he could, and, in the case of his university, it is as good as they say and a whole lot better than many. Although I think it is really the teachers that make the school, there are good teachers in most schools. After all, this is America. O by the way a friend of mine stopped and visited with Carl Sandburg one day. That fellow bears the family name of one our cities near Raleigh (Garner), and he attended SWBTS where he studied uner Dr. Jeff Ray and W.T. Conner. Ray was the last student who actuaally lived with Dr. B.H. Carroll. Garner once pastored one of the churches of Sandy Creek Assn. that was organized in TN. He and I have had some real happy discussions about Sandy Creek and the Great Awakenings. And I thank you for your kind support in praying fo a Third Great Awakening, and I pray the Lord Jesus give you a be sweet to some of us sorry preachers that get on your nerves. They get on mine, too. But getting ready for eternity calls for humility of heart, seeing my own short comings. If God should mark mine iniquities, I would have no hope whatsoever. Would any one? We are getting ready for Heaven to come down to earth (Isa.45:8). Since the heart of Heaven came down 2000 yrs ago, it will be no bragging thing for Heaven's presence to fall down upon the earth and upon us, the denizens of this fallen ruin. God grant you a merry Christmas with your children and grandchildren, and may the sears man in the tractor trailer roll up to your house big time this year and the next and all to come.
ReplyDeleteJim--
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate your position that even the showmen have been used of God to win some, what about the other side: How many people of intelligence have been so put off by the charletons that they chose not to participate in religion?
If we look back to Simon the Magician of NT days, we find a good magic show as strong competition for the newly expanding witness to Christ's ressurection. Of course, God is in charge and, should he choose, could even use the Devil to win converts!
Never forget the temptation of Jesus by Satan. The heart of it was for Jesus to have an easy way to popularity by just doing what Satan wanted. What was Jesus' response???
I admit I don't like pretenders of any kind. None of us is perfect, but today the mega-churches are competing for authentic believers who want to be helped and help others rather than be entertained.
Would you call the Ed Youngs / Rick Warrens / Joel Osteens / etc. somewhat in the league of those Sandburg did not appreciate???
Gene, Your feeling fiesty today. Can't say I feel like an argument. This cold ain't completely gone yet, and I am taking notes on Ps.105:16-22 (preparing a message that speaks to our situation, I guess). As to Sunday, he surely had his griefs. Just follow the paths of his children; it was sad, and yet I think he was a good man. As to the others you mentioned (except Falwell and Bryan), I not in a great way of defending them. What I try to do is identify the theological ideas they represent and give info. as to why I think they are wrong. Personality issues are better left to the world to hash about. After all, we can look at some of the true believers in the Bible, and they leave a lot to be desired at times. But, being as God claimed they were his children, I feel disinclined to criticize those who I really know are his children. The Bible does advocate a simple rebuke for conduct that is wrong, but it points out that even the angel does not bring railing accusation. Let those folks who would dare to out do an angel answer for what they say - not we who really believe. Take Jerry, for example, he did many things I disagreed with across the years, but he also did a lot of good. I'm not his judge: I will state when and where I disagree with him, but I am in no mood to flail away at him. Most moderates are not given to that kind of thing, and I don't think you would be, if things were better for you. I do pray for God to help you financially, etc., but my prayers, I fear, carry little weight where it counts. They seem to count even less in my own case However, I intend to continue seeking His face and favor until the Lord calls me out of this world of sorrows and griefs.God bless you.
ReplyDeleteJim--
ReplyDeleteWe all walk on feet of clay, but no one said I wasn't entitled to my opinion while giving you the right to yours.
For those who don't know us both, we were on opposite sides of some issues in the Biblical Recorder, and began to privately email one another. In the process I have grown to love Jim and confide in him and he in me.
In my opinion, this is the beauty of Baptist Freedom. On some things we may never agree, but we are Brothers in Christ--and we are both suffering tremendously in this economic Recession??? / Depression!!!