Why I'm an atheist, but still respect some preachers
Or: On being a journalist on the weekend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in a town that's only surpassed in racism by certain parts of Georgia and Alabama
Prelude: The church the MLK day Sunday service was held at this year (it rotates between mostly-black and mostly-white churches every year, for the "togetherness" theme) was Mobberly Baptist, named after the street the original church building was on. It's now a "white" church on the extreme north side of town; that area is the new business district, but when the church moved there in the mid-'70s it was the only non-residential building past the mall, a couple miles south. Mobberly Ave., the original location, is on the south side of town -- I go down that road today, I'm the only white boy south of the newspaper office (located in the middle of the old downtown, a block south of the Highway where all the north/south streets hit zero). In other words, white flight like a motherfucker, and yet they still take their turn hosting the MLK service, presumably hoping to atone for the move.
So the service had the pastor of the hosting church (Guido McCracker, looks like a guy who would borrow your car in New Joisey, and shoot somebody in it) saying something that boiled down to "Hey, you niggers wonderful people from all over town, we all love each other here because we're Christians."
Then the high-school MLK essay contest winners; the third- and second-place contestants were black kids who made good points. First place was a white boy who referenced 9/11, at which point I stopped listening -- I know, NEVAR FORGET and all, but it's been eight years, get over it. Next up: the school art contest was dreadful, one of the trifecta being built around a terrible pun (Shoes on a globe, "Soles" as a pun on "souls").
Then the head of the city's race relations committee, talking about how all the young black men are in jail and implying that it's the fault of the White Man, otherwise they'd be productive members of society instead of felons. (Reporter to me, on smoke break: "Has she ever talked to those guys in jail? I'll admit that it's partially society to blame, but jeez, those guys are fucked up.")
After that, a white protestant preacher (I forget his exact denomination) and a Southern Baptist preacher (who appears to have some non-European blood, but he's from Baton Rouge, and that alone makes it a miracle he got to be in charge of an SBC church in this town) read from the New and Old Testaments. I forget the exact chapter and verse, but neither were all that related to the topic at hand.
Then there was some more singing (which I've not been mentioning, but there was music between each paragraph above, the only decent one being a woman with an awesome voice masterfully singing Dr. King's favorite hymn), and then a black Baptist preacher gave the sermon, which, again, was at best tangentially related to the occasion. At this point, two and a half hours in, I (and my reporter, who got nothing from anybody earlier -- usually he can write this event in the first ten minutes with quotes from the intro and go home early -- and really needed ten inches of copy) would've been satisfied with a speech about how Whitey's still keepin' the black man down, but it was standard modern-Christian bullshit about how "if you have problems, JAYSUS will help ya!"
At this point, the reporter an I were worrying that we wouldn't have anything to say about the service. But we'd sat through three hours, and it was still a good 20 minutes to deadline, so we stopped on the way to the door to hear the closing prayer.
The Reverend Lamar F. Jones, pastor of Galilee Baptist in Hallsville (not technically in the city this was being held in and nominally unifying, but close enough to be in listed in the Greater Longview phone book), stepped up to the pulpit for the benediction. That's what it said in the program, anyway.
Brother Lamar's speech, however, damn near made me find religion. First he did the standard "if you're not a Christian, but have found God, come to the altar and accept Jesus into your heart now" bit. No theatrics, no shouting, no singing (I suppose the budget for all that was used up in the sermon). Just speaking in a conversational tone into the mic. Nobody moved. "Well," he said, and chuckled. "I guess we're all saved, then."
(I'll just copy-paste from the news story for the big ending, copyrights be damned, because Glenn Evans is a far better writer than I -- for all the shit I give him about a picture being worth a thousand words, Glenn is a Journalist, with the capital J, in the mold of Hunter S.:)
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Then he issued his secondary plea, first describing the ministers' earlier discussions about race relations in Longview.
"As a matter of fact, we're sick and tired of coming each year and saying, 'We're going to do better,' and never doing better," he said. "We come across to various churches (each MLK Day) and we worship together, and sometimes we don't see each other for another year. But, this year, we're going to do better. We're going to make a change. We're going to do what's right, and part of doing what's right is we're going to make a commitment."
He then invited the remaining 300-plus congregants to gather before the pulpit where he stood. All but a scattered few answered the invitation.
"Tonight, if you're ready to make a commitment, we'll do better this year," he said. " 'I'm willing to get to know somebody that I normally don't take the time to get to know.' It's not about black, it's not about white. It's about us as a community coming together, willing to make a difference."
Members of the congregation before the pulpit joined hands, some hugging while others lifted palms skyward in the cavernous sanctuary.
"Say, 'Tonight I'm going to tear down my prejudice,'" Jones said. "It's our home. We live here, work here, worship here. What matters tonight is, we are Christians, and by the love we have for one another, the world will know when we walk out these doors that we're going to make a difference. Dr. King had a dream. You need to have a dream. I dream of Longview being a better place. I dream of Longview not having north side, south side - just Longview."
______________
In conclusion, I raise my glass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who helped to end segregation if not racism; to the Reverend Lamar Jones, whom I respect for his sincerity of belief even though I am not a believer; and to Glenn Evans, who is a Journalist like Lamar is a Baptist, and takes notes in his own personal form of shorthand far faster than I can even listen (and then asks me for help deciphering his own handwriting).
Prelude: The church the MLK day Sunday service was held at this year (it rotates between mostly-black and mostly-white churches every year, for the "togetherness" theme) was Mobberly Baptist, named after the street the original church building was on. It's now a "white" church on the extreme north side of town; that area is the new business district, but when the church moved there in the mid-'70s it was the only non-residential building past the mall, a couple miles south. Mobberly Ave., the original location, is on the south side of town -- I go down that road today, I'm the only white boy south of the newspaper office (located in the middle of the old downtown, a block south of the Highway where all the north/south streets hit zero). In other words, white flight like a motherfucker, and yet they still take their turn hosting the MLK service, presumably hoping to atone for the move.
So the service had the pastor of the hosting church (Guido McCracker, looks like a guy who would borrow your car in New Joisey, and shoot somebody in it) saying something that boiled down to "Hey, you niggers wonderful people from all over town, we all love each other here because we're Christians."
Then the high-school MLK essay contest winners; the third- and second-place contestants were black kids who made good points. First place was a white boy who referenced 9/11, at which point I stopped listening -- I know, NEVAR FORGET and all, but it's been eight years, get over it. Next up: the school art contest was dreadful, one of the trifecta being built around a terrible pun (Shoes on a globe, "Soles" as a pun on "souls").
Then the head of the city's race relations committee, talking about how all the young black men are in jail and implying that it's the fault of the White Man, otherwise they'd be productive members of society instead of felons. (Reporter to me, on smoke break: "Has she ever talked to those guys in jail? I'll admit that it's partially society to blame, but jeez, those guys are fucked up.")
After that, a white protestant preacher (I forget his exact denomination) and a Southern Baptist preacher (who appears to have some non-European blood, but he's from Baton Rouge, and that alone makes it a miracle he got to be in charge of an SBC church in this town) read from the New and Old Testaments. I forget the exact chapter and verse, but neither were all that related to the topic at hand.
Then there was some more singing (which I've not been mentioning, but there was music between each paragraph above, the only decent one being a woman with an awesome voice masterfully singing Dr. King's favorite hymn), and then a black Baptist preacher gave the sermon, which, again, was at best tangentially related to the occasion. At this point, two and a half hours in, I (and my reporter, who got nothing from anybody earlier -- usually he can write this event in the first ten minutes with quotes from the intro and go home early -- and really needed ten inches of copy) would've been satisfied with a speech about how Whitey's still keepin' the black man down, but it was standard modern-Christian bullshit about how "if you have problems, JAYSUS will help ya!"
At this point, the reporter an I were worrying that we wouldn't have anything to say about the service. But we'd sat through three hours, and it was still a good 20 minutes to deadline, so we stopped on the way to the door to hear the closing prayer.
The Reverend Lamar F. Jones, pastor of Galilee Baptist in Hallsville (not technically in the city this was being held in and nominally unifying, but close enough to be in listed in the Greater Longview phone book), stepped up to the pulpit for the benediction. That's what it said in the program, anyway.
Brother Lamar's speech, however, damn near made me find religion. First he did the standard "if you're not a Christian, but have found God, come to the altar and accept Jesus into your heart now" bit. No theatrics, no shouting, no singing (I suppose the budget for all that was used up in the sermon). Just speaking in a conversational tone into the mic. Nobody moved. "Well," he said, and chuckled. "I guess we're all saved, then."
(I'll just copy-paste from the news story for the big ending, copyrights be damned, because Glenn Evans is a far better writer than I -- for all the shit I give him about a picture being worth a thousand words, Glenn is a Journalist, with the capital J, in the mold of Hunter S.:)
______________
Then he issued his secondary plea, first describing the ministers' earlier discussions about race relations in Longview.
"As a matter of fact, we're sick and tired of coming each year and saying, 'We're going to do better,' and never doing better," he said. "We come across to various churches (each MLK Day) and we worship together, and sometimes we don't see each other for another year. But, this year, we're going to do better. We're going to make a change. We're going to do what's right, and part of doing what's right is we're going to make a commitment."
He then invited the remaining 300-plus congregants to gather before the pulpit where he stood. All but a scattered few answered the invitation.
"Tonight, if you're ready to make a commitment, we'll do better this year," he said. " 'I'm willing to get to know somebody that I normally don't take the time to get to know.' It's not about black, it's not about white. It's about us as a community coming together, willing to make a difference."
Members of the congregation before the pulpit joined hands, some hugging while others lifted palms skyward in the cavernous sanctuary.
"Say, 'Tonight I'm going to tear down my prejudice,'" Jones said. "It's our home. We live here, work here, worship here. What matters tonight is, we are Christians, and by the love we have for one another, the world will know when we walk out these doors that we're going to make a difference. Dr. King had a dream. You need to have a dream. I dream of Longview being a better place. I dream of Longview not having north side, south side - just Longview."
______________
In conclusion, I raise my glass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who helped to end segregation if not racism; to the Reverend Lamar Jones, whom I respect for his sincerity of belief even though I am not a believer; and to Glenn Evans, who is a Journalist like Lamar is a Baptist, and takes notes in his own personal form of shorthand far faster than I can even listen (and then asks me for help deciphering his own handwriting).