“God’s Man in Texas”

Dear Family, I saw another play Saturday afternoon at the Old Globe Theater. I’m so glad you do this regularly. Plays stimulate me too. Another classmate and her daughter took me. Carol arranged it before vacationing in Colorado with Jim and John and their families. (Carol will be home Tuesday Evening. This has been good for both of us.) The play was masterfully presented, but I felt like Socrates who when Greek Plays made ridicule of him and the philosophers of his day, he would stand up and smile and laugh proving that he could take it. After reading the reviews I decided to wear my white silk Preacher’s summer suit which is very much like the one worn by Bob Symonds, who plays the Senior Pastor. The Set is a pastor’s richly furnished study with beautiful altar rails leading up to the Pulpit on the right side of the Theater in the Square. I had strange feelings as the play opened with “Alas and did my Savior bleed and die..for me." A strange sense of wonderment and sacriligous feelings posessed me as the play progressed. For 60 years I have proclaimed the centrality of the Cross. All the hymns of my life and generation have deep meaning to me which they used. “There is a place of Quiet Rest Near to the Heart of God,” “Amazing Grace,” "Just As I Am,” “Breathe on me Breath of God,”were all played. This moved me emotionally I think because I was in a Theater. The theology in many hymns has never been acceptable to me in my preaching and teaching. However, to create a ridiculing, laughable spirit with words of deep feeling and dialogue, showing the worst of the Church, made me sad.

This portrayal of manipulating people, many wonderful God-loving christians, yes, even the Southern Baptists, was not an acceptable portrayal to me; it was caricature. My realizing that this was just theater disturbed me. My mind was on the defensive. Now,I could only identify partially with the 81 year old pastor who had built a monstrous Television Empire Church. He feels that he “owns”it. I never had those feelings in any of the 5 Churches Carol and I served. He is getting ready to retire; at least his wife, who runs the Church, thinks so and is reachng out for a successor she’s going to choose. The play centers in finding a suitable young man to become Co-pastor and later become the Senior Pastor. Bragging about the offerings and numbers of “souls Saved” is not acceptable behavior in my faith. May God forgive me when I have been guilty of that sin. It is not worthy of the humble Christ I serve.

This was a soul-searching 2 hour experience in my life. Pride and Selfishness are nakedly exposed. Southern Baptists and the Conservative Right in all it’s dogmatic unchristian enthusiasm is castigated by word and inference. The philosopher Montaigne once said, “The conviction of wisdom is the plague of mankind.” I believe he was right whether it be Christianity, Buddhism or Mohammedanism. Merchandizing religion in any Faith, not in the spirit of Jesus who went about “doing good’ and showing love, is abhorent to me.

Justice,Mercy,Forgiveness and Love are true religion’s basics.

Since College days I’ve been a Roger Williams Baptist, strong on Soul-Freedom and Conscience. I’ve always been a Seeker, fearful of those who absolutize and claim dominant authority.

In 1958 The Chief of Chaplains in Washington,DC, phoned and asked me to speak at an Estes Park Chaplains Retreat on “The Techniques for Testing a Successful Ministry.” I anguished over the assignment. I pointed out to the chaplains in my presentations that the only ‘success’ centered in areas of my own life where I had grown more Christ-like and become in my personhood an extension of His Life, doing His work. Secondly, the faces of men and women, boys and girls, appeared before me; those who had allowed the Christ in me to touch them, revealed by their words and in notes and confessions they had shared with me in their Faith-Journey.

This play deals with a very serious theme. All people, I believe have something of God within them. Deep inside there is a yearning for more intimate relationship with the Creator. There’s a soul that wants intimacy.

We are made in the image of God; a spark of the Divine upon all of us. Maybe it’s a religious “Gene” or hunger for relating to the God of all life .

The Church is composed of those who purposely choose Jesus' life and pattern in their Faith-Journey. I am eternally thankful. Jesus put a face on God for me. I follow Him and rejoice in all my brothers and sisters who do the same.

Now I’ve never understood the Texans I’ve met. There is something I think I see that bothers me. “Bragodocia”, superiority. I met a girl this morning on my ocean walk whose Tee shirt said "Don’t mess with Texans.”

This Play pokes fun at the Senior Bush’s who worship in this Mega-Church and are part of the inner circle. A lot is made of the idea that “there are winners and there are losers.” Winning at Ping Pong and eating Brocoli provide serious dialogue. Young pastor Jeremiah Mears(Robert Pescovitz), after preaching at a worship service where the Senior Bush’s are present, speaks about Brocoli favorably. He is saved in the next sermon by calling it spinach. The President is indicated as having a mild conversion and is ready to try brocoli again. Of course “The Who’s Who” of Houston and the billionaire oil families are all in this church. Billy Graham and the “Great preachers of the South" are held up for the world to see. Now I love Billy Graham as a brother in Christ. With a Businessman Layman, we chaired and expedited his first Crusade in Denver. It was good for our City. I think of a business man whose life changed in that Crusade. His business practices changed. His marriage was saved. He became later the Chairman of the second Crusade. Today he exemplifies a Christ-like man in the City of Denver. His life counts in immeasureable ways. Billy Graham gives God the Glory and so do I. Our Theologies are different. The Bible we see differently. The authority of mind, conscience, soul-liberty are equally important to me. Billy always shouts, “The Bible Says...”.

The redeeming actor in the play, Hugo,the young television expediter, is played by Andy Taylor who wrestles with his repeated conversions from drugs, promiscuity, alcoholism and the flagrant death sins of the Hipppy generation. He’s a down-to-earth guy, activistic,yet he knows Christ saves and continues to save him. The word “Responsibility" which I was always “preaching at you,” is lifted up as he discovers that the world is moral. One is accountable. There is cause and effect in operation. Jesus Christ does change a person. The Senior Pastor fails in his insensitivity to the young man and the co-pastor. In humility and exemplary courage the younger pastor and the T.V. technician begin to serve and proclaim Christ’s Power to help and change people in a Sunday Swap-Market.

The sound effects are enthralling. The Music I love and believe in, caught me off-guard yet sensitized me to beware of phoniness and hypocrisy.

This I now objectively see. God was in the play trying to help me and all who watched with me. I could feel, even in the Phariseeism, and sinful selfish pride of the pastors, that God was present and involved.

The Play closed with the ringing hymn of Triumph ‘The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ Our Lord.’ God hears. God forgives. Praise be to God. Yes. I wish you could see or read the Play.

Thank you for scrolling and sharing my feelings this Sunday,

Grandad 8/13/2000