It all begins in the pulpit – Part 4 – Fear (of response from the congregation)

It all begins in the pulpit – Part 4 – Fear (of response from the congregation)

“Can I come over and talk with you this evening?” was the question from the member of the Session (Ruling Board in the Presbyterian Church).  My response was: “Sure.” 

It was August or September of 1968 and I was newly ordained serving my first church in rural Indiana.  Even though I had been their pastor for only a few months, I knew the congregation fairly well.  I had been supplying their pulpit from McCormick Seminary during the Fall of 1967 and the Spring of 1968.  These two extended periods of pulpit supply led to being called to serve this church of some 125 people in a town of 500.

One other note of background: The Spring of 1968 was turbulent in Chicago.  Racial tensions were already high and with the death of Dr. Martin Luther King those tensions exploded into massive riots.  Billows of black smoke rose from the Westside of Chicago as buildings and cars went up in flames.  The Chicago Police would remove nametags and badges, means of individual identification, and then sweep down streets arresting anyone on the street.

McCormick Seminary students and faculty, against the orders of the administration, suspended classes in order to minister in the riot-torn city.  Along with one of my professors, I visited the Cook County Jail to bail innocent people out of jail.  We used funds donated by the McCormick Community.  The families of the innocent persons may have had the money, but they waited days to even begin the process of posting bail.  Their problem: they were black.  My professor and I are white and in suit and tie, the jail officials gave us immediate attention.  In reflection, the jailers probably thought we were lawyers.

Having lived through the Chicago Riots in the Spring of 1968, it was no surprise when, during the Democratic National Convention, Mayor Richard J. Dailey’s police once again removed their identification and plowed into demonstrators in Lincoln Park.  A week or two after the Convention Riots, this lectionary preacher felt the scriptures speaking out against the violence as we had seen in Chicago. 

The problem was that one of the leaders in the rural church I was serving had been an alternate delegate to the convention and said the police brutality never took place.  She was there, she said, and on the buses between the hotel and the convention venue, she had seen none of the violence.  As I remember, she claimed the news media reporting the violence had probably staged the event or fabricated the story to discredit the National Democratic Party that was under the firm control of Mayor Dailey.

And so the church Elder sat down in the living room of the manse and said: “I know that the Book of Order (governing rules of the Presbyterian Church) does not allow me to say this, but there are some church leaders who do not want you to reference events such as the Convention Riots in your sermons.”

I thanked the Elder for his visit and agreed with him, that in the Presbyterian Church, the content of the sermon is one of the five areas of worship that are at the sole discretion of the preacher.  I did not cease then, nor have I ever feared the congregation when I believe the Scripture needs to speak through the pulpit on critical issues.  And as a lectionary preacher, I hope and pray that I have avoided the danger of using the pulpit as a personal “soap box.”

The controversy in 1968 was not the last time I received negative input from the congregation about a sermon.  There were some who took issue when I raised doubts about the integrity of television preacher Jim Bakker before he was indicted for mail fraud in 1988.  Another time was when, in speaking against racial and sexual discrimination, I asked: “If we are all created in the image of God, then what must God look like?  I don’t know.  If I could describe God, then that god would be too small.  My God is much greater than that.”

If the preacher honestly believes the Scriptures and the Spirit are speaking, then there should be no fear of congregation, community or government.  The Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University today), preached against King George and the British Parliament in May of 1776.  The Rev. John Rankin, Presbyterian abolitionist preacher in Ripley, Ohio, is said to have carried a pistol into the pulpit because the slavers had placed a bounty of several thousand dollars on his head.  Read the fearless words of Dr. Martin Luther King the night before he was assassinated.

None of us, I hope, seek to be martyrs.  But no preacher should fear when they are truly preaching the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

--Dr. Ron Patton, H.R.