Sometimes we face hard choices

I'm in the Lions Club, and Lions are best known for sight conservation and helping the blind.  It’s amazing how some blind people develop keen senses to compensate for being unable to see.  Years ago, the Anderson YMCA had what it called a Health Club.  One of the benefits of the Health Club was a certain number of massages each month.  One of the masseurs was a blind man named Bob.  With his keen sense of hearing, Bob could identify regular customers before they said a word.  By listening to your footsteps and breathing pattern, he knew you.  Now, it probably helped narrow the possibilities if you came in at a pretty consistent time day by day.  But it still amazed me to hear him call us by name before we said “Hello.”
All four Gospels tell about Jesus healing blind men.  We have no record of blind women, but there are several incidents with blind men. In John, the Fourth Gospel, we have the most detailed story about a blind man.
We have a full cast of characters, with lots of dialogue, almost like a play.  In addition to the blind man and Jesus, we have the disciples and the religious leaders, who frequently are on the scene.  But we also meet the man’s parents.  And some of his neighbors.  So there’s a great deal of excitement as Jesus heals this blind man.
After the man’s eyes are opened, he will have to look closely at a difficult choice that goes with seeing.  Will he be true to Jesus when it might have been easier to deny the man who healed him? We also will look at some preachers in the seventeen hundreds who stood true to their convictions when their religious freedom was denied.  Then we will ask ourselves what we do when we are confronted with choices that include being true to our Lord.

The Disciples
First we notice the disciples.  They’re with Jesus at the Temple on a Saturday when they see the blind man sitting with his begging bowl.  The disciples show their understanding of how God works.  Or, I should say, their misunderstanding.  One of them asks, “Whose sin caused this man to be born blind, the man himself or his parents?”   We often think the same way.  Sarah is diagnosed with cancer.  What did she do wrong?  Sam lost his job?  Is that punishment?  And so on.  The classic example is Job, who is described in the Bible as "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil."  As Job faces personal disasters, three well-meaning friends insist he is a great sinner, and his suffering and loss are payment from God.
Jesus says, “Fellows, you’re asking the wrong questions.  This has nothing to do with anybody’s sin.  This is an occasion to show God’s work in the man’s life.”  
Dr. Bill Hull said the disciples looked for someone they could blame, but Jesus looked for someone He could change (Hull 298).
Then Jesus identifies His own work as the work of God and says He and His followers 
must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work (v. 4).
Jesus, no doubt, thinks of His own shortness of opportunity to work, recalling the religious leaders who very recently attempted to stone Him to death -- in the Temple, of all places (Hull 298).
Our Lord says all this as He prepares to heal the blind man, bringing sight to his eyes and, perhaps, spiritual sight to the disciples.

The Blind Man
Now, John turns our attention to the blind man.  Jesus declares Himself as the light of the world, in contrast with darkness in the eyes of the blind man.  As He says this, Jesus spits on the ground and makes a clay poultice.  After applying the mixture to the blind eyes, Jesus tells the man, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam."  The author tells us Siloam means Sent.  So Jesus sends the man to Siloam, and we are reminded how Jesus Himself was sent into the world from God (Hull 298).
Jesus might simply have spoken words of healing, as He did at other times, but making the mudpie and putting it on the eyes is a physical sign to the onlookers, and, likewise, He gives the man something to do that people can see.  The crowd may be breathless as the man stumbles toward the pool.  He has sat there begging, day by day, and most likely has felt his way around.  But if he has any fear, he still bulls his way forward at Jesus’s command.  
And the results: he went and washed and came back seeing.
What a wonder-filled moment.  As the man’s eyes open, new potential for life is opening before him.  But his newly opened eyes soon will see a different kind of darkness.

The Neighbors
Word spreads about the man’s newfound eyes.  Neighbors gather around.  Some of them have watched him from the time he was a toddler as he learned to stand on his own feet, despite his blindness.  Some of them led him to the Temple gate where beggars traditionally sit with their bowls. So his parents and neighbors come in a hurry as word of healing goes viral.  Meantime, Jesus goes to other areas of the Temple.
In his blind state, the man probably stooped over most of the time, with his begging bowl set out in front of him. So his neighbors hardly knew what he actually looked like.  But let’s listen in to the neighbors debate whether this really is the man who had never been able to see:
[8] The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, "Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?" 
[9] Some said, "It is he"; 
others said, "No, but he is like him." 
He said, "I am the man." 
[10] They said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" 
[11] He answered, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash'; so I went and washed and received my sight." 
[12] They said to him, "Where is he?" 
He said, "I do not know." 

The Pharisees
Those neighbors are excited.  They want everyone to know.  So they get the healed man to go with them to the Pharisees, the religious authorities who are always on hand at the Temple, supervising everything, including claims of healing.  
Everybody surely will be happy to hear and see the man who is no longer blind.  But the Pharisees are anything but happy.  They are obsessed with keeping things as they think things have always been.  They regularly clash with Jesus because He brings new insights into how things ought to be.  In this case, they say Jesus broke the Sabbath by giving sight to the blind man.  To quote Dr. Bill Hull once again: “No sooner was a born blind beggar enabled to see than the Pharisees .  .  . began to throw theological sand into his newly opened eyes” (Hull 299).  
As they see it, Jesus violated the law in two ways when He healed on the Sabbath: This was not an emergency.  The man had been blind all his life, so Jesus could have waited till the next day to heal him.  Also, Jesus had worked when He made the mudpack to put on the man’s eyes.  So this is a double sin against the holy day (Hull 299).  Jesus isn’t around right now, so the Pharisees quiz the man:
[15] The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. 
And he said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see." 
[16] Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" There was a division among them. 
[17] So they again said to the blind man, "What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?" 
He said, "He is a prophet."
That doesn’t set well with the Pharisees, but now they turn their attention to the man’s parents:

The Parents
John tells us,   [18] The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents .  .  . [19] and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" 
[20] His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;   [21] but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself." 
Then John explains,  [22] His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess [Jesus] to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.  [23] Therefore his parents said, "He is of age, ask him."
His mother and father are filled with fear for themselves.  If they take up for their son, they will be excommunicated (Hull 300).  They will lose their connection with Jewish worship.  Their neighbors will shun them.  The familiar religious system means more than the son they had protected all his life. Rather than lose their religious affiliation, they say their son is an adult.  Let him speak for himself.  
A few decades later,  as Jews were converting in great numbers, the ruling council, the Sanhedrin, set up formal religious court procedures.  They held trials and officially declared the new Jewish Christians to be heretics (Hull 300).

More Interrogation
With the parents safely under their control, the Pharisees again question the former blind man.  This becomes heated as he talks back:
[24] So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner."
[25] He answered, "Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; ONE thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see." 
[26] They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" 
[27] He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do YOU TOO want to become his disciples?" 
[28] They say, "You are HIS disciple, but WE are disciples of Moses. [29] We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." 
[30] The man answered, "Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.  [31] We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.  [32] Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind.  [33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." 
This is the last straw.  They’re through with this sassy fellow.  So they say [34], "You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?" 
And, with that, they cast him out.  He no longer has standing in the faith.

But Jesus hasn’t forgotten the man:
As the man gains the one thing he needed most, he seems to have lost everything else.  He had made his living as a beggar.  Now, that’s gone.  His neighbors will be in trouble with the Pharisees if they offer help.  His parents feel helpless. Pharisees if they offer help.  His parents feel helpless. 
Now he has no work, no home, no religious framework.  So Jesus comes to offer him spiritual sight to go with his physical sight (Hull 301).
[35] Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, "Do you believe in the Son of man?"
[36] He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" 
[37] Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you." 
[38] He said, "Lord, I believe"; and he worshiped him. 
As Jesus reflects on this man’s courageous faith, He says, [39]  "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." 
[40] Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, "Are we also blind?" 
[41] Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, `We see,' your guilt remains. 
As the modern slogan puts it, “No one is as blind as he who refuses to see.”
In Mary P. Hamlin's play, He Came Seeing, based on this incident, the chief Pharisee declares the man an outcast.
The Pharisee asks, “Is a stranger worth giving up all this for?”
“Yes, he is worth it,” the man says.
The Pharisee says, “Very well.  You must choose.”
His father cries out: “Just this once shut your eyes -- for my sake.” 
The heart-broken mother can only gasp, “Son!”
Now, the healed man asks, “Oh, warm and friendly blindness!  Is this the price of seeing?”
The Pharisee answers, “It IS the price.”
In the last words of the play, the former blind man declares, “Then I will pay it.  But oh, God in Heaven, I did not know that seeing cost so great a price” (Hamlin 35).

BAPTISTS WHO WERE PERSECUTED FOR BEING BAPTISTS
Now, move with me, please, from the First Christian Century to Eighteenth Century America when some faithful Christians, faced fines, imprisonment, and even death if they remained faithful Baptists.  In Virginia in those days, it was a crime to be anything other than an Anglican.  

"Following the pattern of England, the Church of England became the established church by a legal enactment, and the church was supported from the colony’s coffers. As the established church, it was designed to be the only church recognized or legally permitted in the colony. This led to enactment of severe penalties to exclude all dissenting religions from practicing and proclaiming their faiths in the colony"  (http://www.sundaylaw.net).

Oh, you could be a Presbyterian or a Baptist if your pastor bought a license from the colonial government to preach and hold services.  You see, freedom of religious wasn’t a right.  It was a privilege you had to pay for with money.  But Baptists refused to pay that license.  So they often paid a higher price by going to jail or facing other persecution.

"They saw their right to preach as a commission from God, and not by permission of man.  Thus was set the stage for the persecution of Baptist preachers and church members during the eighteenth century. As the Baptists increased significantly in numbers, so did the persecution, which reached its height within the decade prior to the Declaration of Independence.  The Baptists were fighting for true freedom" (http://www.sundaylaw.net).

Much earlier, in 1643, the Virginia colony passed a law that the only persons permitted to preach or teach, publicly or privately, were those whose beliefs conformed to the Church of England (http://www.sundaylaw.net).   Baptists were accused of child abuse because they didn’t baptize their children as infants into the official Church.  Also, Baptist marriages were not recognized (Gourley)

"The first actual imprisonment of Baptist ministers for breach of the law took place in June 1768. Several Baptist ministers were seized in Spotsylvania County. They were offered release on the condition that they would agree to preach no more in the county for a year and a day.  This they refused to do, and therefore were sent to prison" (http://www.sundaylaw.net).

Very soon, many other Baptist preachers in Virginia were jailed.  As Baptists in England had done, the colonial Baptists began to petition authorities for complete freedom to exercise their religion.  Their first petition in 1770 was rejected by the committee for religion. Other petitions followed. Then in February 1772, the Baptists received the first favorable action from the House. The House agreed to a resolution that gave the Baptists similar levels of toleration to the Quakers, Presbyterians, and other Protestant dissenters (http://www.sundaylaw.net).

Let me mention some of what Baptist preachers endured before they gained a measure of toleration:  One was “pelted with apples and stones,” another was “ducked and nearly drowned by 20 men."  Still another was "jailed for permitting a man to pray."  Several were severely beaten.  One was 
"dragged off stage, kicked, and cuffed about," and another was "shot with a shot-gun" (Gourley).  In spite of all that, my Baptist forebears stood true to their conviction that religious freedom comes from God and not from other people.

WHAT ABOUT THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY?
Our study isn’t over with the courageous man who stood true to Jesus who gave him sight.  
Our study isn’t over with the courageous Baptist ministers who stood true to Jesus in the face of physical abuse, fines, and imprisonment.
I hope you have not had to choose between your family on the one hand and your faith in Jesus on the other.  
I hope you have not suffered the physical abuse similar to those Virginia preachers.
But closer to home -- day by day, we have to decide whether we will be true to Jesus Christ who gave us spiritual sight:
Do we use crude language as a way of going along to get along with our crowd?
Do we tell smutty stories or laugh when other people tell them?
Do we fail to speak up for another person when we hear gossip or innuendo? 
Do we take advantage of someone else for our own personal benefit?
Do we show partiality toward a particular son or daughter or grandchild?
You and I have to make our own list as we look deep within our selves.

Tony Cartledge, a Baptist professor and editor, tells of traveling in the Central American country of Honduras.  There, he saw various livestock going about unattended in search of food.  When the animals found roadside grass, they stopped and ate, again with no one looking after them.  This made Tony Cartledge curious.  Why were these cows and horses roving the countryside?  Where did they belong?  Who was seeing after them anyway?  When he asked a native Honduran about that, here was the reply:  “The animals know to whom they belong” (Cartledge).

From the

Baraca Radio Sunday School Class

First Baptist Church, Anderson, South Carolina

July 14, 2013

SOURCES

Tony W. Cartledge, “How to Make God Happy,” Baptists Today, Macon, Ga.: Baptists Today, July 2013,  p. 20.

Bruce Gourley, “Outline of Baptist Persecution in Colonial America,” http://www.brucegourley.com/baptists/persecutionoutline.htm

Mary P. Hamlin, He Came Seeing.  New York and London: Samuel French Publisher, 1928, 1956.

William E. Hull, “John,” The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9.  Nashville: Broadman Press, 1970.

http://www.sundaylaw.net/books/other/standish/liberty/litb25.htm

Who Is Your Father?

John 8:31-39; Matthew 3:4-10
Baraca Radio Sunday School Class
First Baptist Church, Anderson, South Carolina July 7, 2013
Lawrence Webb

We've sung a lot of patriotic songs on the program this morning, and that's good.
But sometimes people get confused about patriotism and Christian faith. They think they are the same. I saw that a while back on a tour of Poet Carl Sandburg’s house up in Flat Rock, North Carolina. I’ve studied Sandburg’s poetry, and I know a lot about his life. I’ve given lectures on Sandburg. When I go to the Sandburg house, I usually take the guided tour led by volunteers. And, frankly, I could give a better tour than some of these guides. That particularly applied to the guide who equated Christianity and Americanism.

Sandburg was a loyal American, and he had a great heart for our less fortunate fellow citizens. He wrote many poems about down to earth and down and out people. Sandburg was a professing Christian, but he wasn’t much of a churchman. Anyway, somebody on the tour asked whether Sandburg was a Christian. And the guide assured us, yes, Sandburg was a good Christian. Then he proceeded to talk about Sandburg’s loyalty to the country and how he wrote lots of good poems and also wrote a biography on President Abraham Lincoln.

I’m a strong fan of Carl Sandburg, and I wouldn’t say anything to diminish him. But I had to bite my tongue to keep from trying to correct his assumption that being a patriotic American made Sandburg a good Christian. The tour guide was confused. Carl Sandburg could have written a thousand poems in praise of this country. He could have written the life stories of a dozen presidents, but that has nothing to do with whether the man was a Christian.

TRANSITION
In our Bible passages for today, we’re going to see some people who confuse their national heritage with their heritage of faith. Our first Scripture is from the eighth chapter of John, beginning with verse 31:
[31] Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." [33] They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?"

Notice, these are Jesus’s fellow countrymen. They have a proud heritage as descendants of Abraham, the father of their Jewish faith. So, where does Jesus get off, claiming they will be free if they follow Him and understand the truth He teaches?

They claim that, as descendants of Abraham, they have never been in bondage to any one.
But they overlook their history. Their Jewish ancestors often had been subject to more powerful nations around them. Even at the time this confrontation takes place, they are under domination of the Roman Empire. So this is an empty boast, to claim they have never been in bondage to any one.

Abraham left a countless number of descendants who would form the nation of Israel. However, that nation was the result of the efforts of later generations, not of Abraham himself. If we look carefully at the biblical record, this father of the faithful was a nomadic wanderer. The writer of the book of Hebrews (10:8-10) describes it this way:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

Abraham’s great, great, great, great grandchildren formed the nation, but it was many generations beyond his time when that national structure came into being as Hebrews states it:

For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
That tells us, Abraham’s vision enabled him to look beyond a territory set off within certain geographic boundaries. So he was a free spirit. These people arguing with Jesus have it right to that extent. But they are confused about what constitutes true freedom.

Jesus goes on to explain that they need to be free from sin:
[34] Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. [35] The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. [36] So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

He offers a freedom they don’t understand. Jesus says, in effect, “You claim freedom because you are descendants of Abraham, but if you stand in your own strength as sinners, you are no better than slaves.” On the other hand, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

This is at a time when the religious leaders are looking for justification to have Jesus arrested and put to death by Roman officials. And the argument between Jesus and His listeners becomes more heated as to who is a child of whom:  [37] I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.

Then Jesus claims God as His Father and casts a reflection as to who their father is: [38] I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.

His listeners repeat their claim (v. 39): "Abraham is our father." Jesus then disputes that: "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did, [40] but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God . . .  Further challenging their claim to be Abraham’s children, Jesus says, this is not what Abraham did. You do what your father did.   Then we have some heavy back-and-forth about fatherhood:

Jesus Himself wades in with some uncomplimentary words about their parentage:
"If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did, [40] but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did. [41] You do what your father did." 

They said to him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God." [42] Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. [43] Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. [44] You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. [45] But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. [46] Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? [47] He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

After this from Jesus, we read in verse 48: The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"  So, in the heat of the argument, they say Jesus was born out of wedlock. Then He says they are children of the devil, and then they heap a double insult: Jesus is a Samaritan, and He has a demon. You remember, the Jews of that era considered Samaritans half-breeds and heretics. And, not only do they say He is a half-breed heretic. They also say He is the one who comes from the devil.

This disagreement continues to escalate, to the point that they try to stone Him, but He slips out of the Temple. We’ll come back to that stoning episode -- in the Temple, of all places. But let’s look a bit more at this argument about Abraham. This boast about Ancestor Abraham is not new. We see this same attitude in Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus is strongly influenced by the preaching of John the Baptist. You remember, when Jesus is ready to begin His ministry, He goes to the Jordan River where John is preaching and baptizing. Luke tells us the two men were cousins, so they must have been aware of each other across the years. John is calling people to repent of their sins and be baptized as a sign of repentance. Although Jesus has committed no sin, He asks John to baptize Him, probably because He wants to identify with the call to repentance and faith. John refuses at first, saying Jesus ought to baptize him instead.

In Matthew (3:5-10), John strikes out at the Pharisees and Saducees who come for baptism:
[5] Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, [6] and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [7] But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sad'ducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? [8] Bear fruit that befits repentance . . .

John apparently senses these men are there more out of curiosity than for conversion, more to find out what he is up to than to find a new life of faith and repentance.  Religious people of the day often invoke the name of their Ancestor Abraham, and John tells them not to rely on Father Abraham for their salvation:
[9] and do not presume to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

Does that sound familiar? Jesus must have heard this same boast from these men time and again, dating back even to when He was baptized by John. So on this later encounter we’ve seen in this lesson, Jesus issues the same challenge to those who boast their ancestry.

But John often is much more confrontational than Jesus. There at the waters of the Jordan, John is
blunt. He declares their boast of being Abraham’s children is worth no more than a pile of rocks: You think you’re so great to trace your family tree back to Abraham. Well, let me tell you: "God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. So, where does that leave you?”

Let’s imagine John is talking about boasts of family trees with what he says next: [10] Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. God is a woodcutter who’s going to whack away at your family tree. Forget Father Abraham. You need to get right with our Father God, the Father of Abraham.

REALLY WORKED UP
Now, let’s go back to this name-calling incident recorded in the eighth chapter of John. Jesus and the religious leaders have been exchanging insults about parentage. Then the Gospel narrator ends the story this way: "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple." Let that soak in for a moment: "they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple."

In our terminology, we can say, these men are so worked up over this argument, they try to kill Jesus in church, the very structure dedicated to the worship of God.  Now, the Temple of that day is a huge complex, and they aren’t in the space where the priests are offering up the sacrifices. But they are in the sacred precincts, and they took up stones to throw at him. Earlier in this same chapter, the religious leaders bring an adulterous woman to Jesus, apparently ready to stone her to death. That also takes place in the Temple.

So, what on earth and in heaven’s name are these religious leaders doing with a pile of rocks in the Temple or, as we would say, in church, ready to kill people?

One clue is a warning chiseled into a limestone block from the Temple which archaeologists discovered in 1871. Any and all non-Jews were forbidden to go beyond the large outer court. This space was called the Court of the Gentiles, the term Jewish people use to refer to non-Jews. Temple authorities posted several warnings on the stone wall separating this Gentile area from the inner sanctums. Here is the warning on the limestone block:

“No Gentile May Enter Beyond the Dividing Wall into the Court Around the Holy Place. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his subsequent death” (Fowler Bible Collection).

What we had, then, was a religion tied so closely to its national system that no one outside that nationality had a place in that system of belief. “This is our religion. If you do not share our religion and are not from our nation, you are not welcome. So stay out or suffer the consequences.”

That was bad. That was then, and this is now. So, aren’t we glad that outlook, that threat, no longer exists. But, not so fast. There are nations today which only tolerate religions other than the official religion. And there are nations today which forbid religions other than the official religion.
For one example, the nation of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is eighty-nine percent Buddhist. The other eleven percent include Christians, Muslims, Spiritualists, and Hindus. These smaller groups are tolerated, while Buddhism receives government funding (Kipgen).

Saudia Arabia is officially a Muslim nation, and non-Muslim religious practice is officially forbidden.
The United States State Department from time to time cites what it calls “countries of particular concern” regarding restriction of religious freedom. Several countries which usually make that list include North Korea, Iran, and China. Sudan and Uzbekistan have also been cited as countries in which religious freedom is extremely limited (Markoe).

Our United States Constitution calls for free expression of religion, but some professing Christians insist that we are a Christian nation. Numerically, a sizable majority of Americans profess belief in Jesus. And some say we were established as a Christian nation and that Christianity should be given preference as the majority religion. But a careful look at our Constitution will show that the Founding Fathers were careful not to mention Jesus Christ or even mention God.  The First Amendment forbids the government to show preference for any one religion and at the same time prevents any effort to prohibit the free exercise of religion.

When the first Muslim was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2007, this upset some people. He was further criticized when he took his oath of office on the Islamic holy book, the Qur’an instead of the Jewish and Christian Bible (Lawton). But if he was duly elected by his constituents, he had as much right to be in Congress as a Baptist or a Presbyterian. And, as an elected Muslim, he would have been untrue to his faith if he had used a Christian Bible for his swearing-in.

Most recently, in January, when the new Congress was sworn in, there were two religious “firsts” represented by two women from Hawaii. A new member of the House of Representatives is a Hindu, and she was sworn in with the Bhagavad Gita, which is a sacred text for Hindus. The Senate had the other religious first when a Buddhist was sworn in. Another first came when a House member from Arizona listed her religion as “none.” Although the first Muslim’s swearing-in caused quite a stir six years ago, few people seemed to notice these exotic new faiths and lack of faith this time (Lawton).

The calmer spirit regarding this growing diversity could lead us to hope they support Article Six of the Constitution which forbids any kind of religious test for people who seek public office. To underscore the need to keep government and religion separate, the Founders put in the following provision:
“. . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

APPLICATION AND CONCLUSION
Still, some American Christians get quite exercised when they realize their numbers are shrinking and other religious faiths are growing in this country. But we can be grateful that they don’t take their hostility as far as those men in the Temple who tried to stone Jesus or the guards at the entrance to the Holy of Holies who stood ready to kill non-Jews who tried to enter. These situations developed when these zealous men as they blended religion fervor and national pride.

This Baraca Radio Sunday School Class originates in a classroom at Anderson’s First Baptist Church, and those of us who bring you the program week by week are Baptists. And Baptists, of all people, need to be aware of the need to protect religious freedom for everyone.

When the Baptist denomination came into existence a little over four hundred years ago, one of the two things which set them apart from other churches was their concern for religious freedom. Those early Baptists in England and Holland suffered because they refused to be part of the official religion in England or Holland. Some Baptists paid fines for being Baptists. Other Baptists went to prison for being Baptists. Still other Baptists died for being Baptists.

In the early years of the American colonies, a man named Roger Williams left the Massachusetts Bay Colony under threat of his life because he refused to be part of the Episcopal Church, which was the official church in Massachusetts. Roger Williams had left England for the same reason: He insisted on freedom of conscience in matters of faith. After a terrible winter in which he was sheltered by an Indian tribe, Williams established Rhode Island. There he started the first Baptist church on this continent. He didn’t stay a Baptist very long, but he stayed long enough to make sure people of all faiths and people of no faith were welcome in Rhode Island.

Listen to what Roger Williams wrote:
. . . it is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus)
a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries (Williams).

In this season when we celebrate the founding of our nation, I am proud of my Baptist ancestors who paved the way for freedom of religion and separation of church and state in what would become the United States of America.

BENEDICTION
If you want the true freedom which comes from Jesus Christ, claim these promises:
God’s love that will never let you go.
God’s grace that is greater than all your sin.
God’s peace that passes all understanding.
These are yours through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WHO IS YOUR FATHER?---SOURCES

William E. Hull, "John," The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1970.

“Jerusalem Temple Warning Inscription, 1st century BC, Reproduction,” Fowler Bible Collection, http://www.fowlerbiblecollection.com/jerusalem-temple-warning-inscription.html.

Nehginpao Kipgen, “Religious Tolerance Key to Myanmar’s Democracy,” Huff Post World, Posted June 21, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nehginpao-kipgen/religious-tolerance-key_b_3479383.html.

Kim Lawton, “Religion and the New Congress,” Video Interview, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/01/04/january-4-2013-religion-and-the-new-congress/14464/, January 4, 2013.

Lauren Markoe for Religion News Service, “Does religious freedom report need more ‘teeth’?” Report from the Capital. Washington, D. C.: Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, June 2013.
Roger Williams, “A Plea for Religious Liberty,” http://www.constitution.org/bcp/religlib.htm.

I Was the Token Male in the Women's World

"Brother Webb, working with all those women must have affected your mind.  Something obviously did."
Those words ended a harsh, lengthy letter I received when I was editorial department director for the national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), an independent auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention.   Well, at least, the writer called me brother!
This was in the 1970s during what proved to be the unsuccessful effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U. S. Constitution.  Some Southern Baptists -- men as well as women -- were making a parallel effort to heighten awareness of the need for equal standing for all Christians in the churches.
That letter writer was a retired military chaplain who took exception to an article titled “A Woman’s Place,” which I wrote for Royal Service, at that time, the flagship publication for WMU.    
I wrote that a woman’s place need not be restricted to the home.  Moreover, a woman’s place in the church need not be restricted to subservient roles.  I cited the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:5-6, who imposed no restriction on women praying or preaching in church, so long as they observed the accepted dress code of the day and kept their heads covered.  
The chaplain preferred chapter 14, verse 34, in the same biblical book in which Paul told women to be silent in church.   That verse is open to varied interpretations, but it is difficult simply to ignore the earlier chapter 11.
My article was adapted from Bible studies I led during WMU weeks at Glorieta and Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Centers.  I highlighted godly women in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament in ministry, business, and the home.   
Word about these spoken presentations excited the editor of a Baptist state paper.  He contacted my supervisors at the national WMU offices in Birmingham, Alabama, to verify that a WMU employee had actually said those troubling words.  I stood by what I had said from the pulpit and in print, and the executive leadership stood with me.  
I had an ongoing job assignment to write for the various WMU magazines.  Contempo, the magazine for Baptist Young Women (BYW), was edited by a young woman, recently graduated from Baylor University.  She was eager to address the issue of the place of women in home and church.
A bachelor named Bill Gothard was filling public auditoriums across the South with a week-long lecture series, elucidating his vision of the God-ordained chain of command in the home:  Children are answerable to their mother.  The wife-mother answers to her husband, and the husband answers to God for the whole lot.  
Large numbers of Southern Baptist women and men attended Gothard’s lectures, absorbing these instructions.  This was almost twenty-five years before the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention passed an amendment to the document known as The Baptist Faith and Message Statement, declaring: “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."
Another amendment to that document, in 2000, stated, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”  That statement, which is not binding on local congregations or families in those congregations, goes on to say this:

"The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation."

When the Contempo editor asked me to do an article on family relationships.  I wrote that Pansy and I both were mature Christian adults when we married, and the question of who should be the human head of the house was never asked nor answered.  We both had heads, and we both intended to use them.

This caused a tempest in the WMU teacup.  One distressed BYW member, in the Gothard mode, wrote that, after reading my article, unless or until her BYW director gave her specific permission, she could no longer read Contempo.

In my years as “the Token Male at WMU,” there were attempts at dialogue among SBC agencies and WMU regarding the place of the Christian woman.  In a mostly male gathering in Nashville, someone asked about gender sensitivity in language.  What about addressing Sunday morning worshipers collectively as “brethren”?  Many of the men in the meeting insisted “brethren” and “brothers” were gender-inclusive: women shouldn’t feel left out when those terms are used.   
A woman, probably Carolyn Weatherford (now Crumpler), our CEO at WMU, turned that around: “How would you men feel in a congregation if a speaker greeted everyone as ‘sisters’?”  Most of the men thought that was different. “Sisters” just isn’t inclusive like “brethren.”  So a quarter century before the 1998 amendment to the faith statement, Southern Baptist women already were expected to submit graciously to male-oriented language.
Several times since the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC began in 1979, the men at the helm have tried to convert WMU from an auxiliary to an agency, which would place WMU under SBC control.  Each time, WMU has graciously submitted word that they have no intention of submitting graciously to SBC’s male servant leadership.
The SBC was organized in 1845, primarily for sending missionaries to foreign countries and to areas in this country deemed under-evangelized.  But, ironically, when women began the effort to form a national organization to enhance mission work, they met resistance from pastors.   Catherine Allen, who was one of my colleagues on the national staff, in her centennial book, A Century to Celebrate: History of Woman’s Missionary Union, documented the ambivalence of pastors in the 1880s, the decade leading up to WMU’s founding in 1888.
When women began having missions-themed sessions parallel to SBC meetings, men attended in large number, but they refused to recognize women as “messengers,” the preferred SBC term for delegates.
At the women’s gathering in Baltimore in 1884, when a woman spoke ardently on behalf of missions, some of the men shouted against her, accusing her of “preaching.”  When they asked whether she was “ordained,” she said, “No.  I was foreordained,” and went on with her message.  
In Montgomery, Alabama, in 1886, several men failed to get the Convention to invite the women to attend as visitors.  That year and again in 1887 in Louisville, the women retaliated, excluding men from their meeting.
When WMU was officially launched in 1888 in Richmond, some men continued their opposition.  Even so, Pastor F. M. Ellis made this statement:    "There is in our churches a great power, which has not yet been utilized but has remained dormant, the power and influence of woman.  The lines of destiny seem to point to her as the great power by which the gospel is to be sent to the ends of the earth.”
In the 1880s, because men refused to associate with the women, the women formed their own organization to support missionaries the men had appointed.  Now, the men want to bring that women’s organization into the SBC.
Baptist historian H. Leon McBeth wrote that men “have had an almost irrational fear of women even standing in the pulpit, whether they were preaching or not. .  .   .  It is almost as if we fear that if you approach too closely, you will somehow contaminate or desecrate the holy places and holy things of our faith.
One concrete example from McBeth:  After WMU officially formed, they prepared a written report to the Convention each year.  But the first forty years, they had to submit the report (graciously?) to a man who would read it to the gathering.  In 1929, when the national WMU president gave her own report for the first time, McBeth said, “several men walked out rather than witness such desecration.”
To avoid further contamination of the holy precincts, for several years for the Convention adjourned from the church sanctuary and reassembled in Sunday school facilities to hear the WMU report.
When I joined the national staff in 1974 (approximately the eighty-fifth year of WMU’s founding), I was not the only man on the payroll.  One of the artists for our publications was a young African-American man, working alongside “all those women” in the art department (I wonder whether that affected his mind).  The other male employees were either janitors or in the shipping department, packaging publications for shipment to churches across the country.
Decades earlier, when WMU was in charge of missions education for boys, J. Ivyloy Bishop led the Royal Ambassador organization for the SBC.  He was the first man in a position of professional leadership at WMU.  Though I never met Mr. Bishop, I suspect he faced the same question: “How can you stand it, working with all those women?”
I did not feel less a man by “submitting graciously” to the women in my line of supervision.  My division director Bobbie Sorrill, our CEO Carolyn Weatherford, and I were all mature Christian adults who could relate to each other as Christian professionals.  Today, we are Facebook Friends.
Women’s issues from the 1970s are still with us, in the nation and in the SBC.  Many church groups move forward, acknowledging that God calls women as pastors and bishops and blessing them in these positions.  Meanwhile, the SBC has stepped boldly into the nineteenth century when a woman’s place was in the home.  In church, she can work with children and pray for the missionaries.

More recently, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, launched a “women only” homemaking curriculum, consisting of classes in nutrition, meal preparation, and textile design.  There’s nothing wrong with courses in home economics at a Baptist school, but it seems odd in a theological seminary’s curriculum.  Though it may seem strange to exclude men, I guess if the instructors are women, men should not be expected graciously to submit, either in church or in a seminary classroom.  A news release from the seminary quoted Titus 2:5, indicating this curriculum is intended to make the students  “good homemakers, and submissive to their husbands.” President Paige Patterson was quoted as saying the curriculum is “for the sake of the church and the ministry and for the sake of our society. If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.”

While the SBC looks backward and constricts the role of women, new seminaries and divinity schools which relate to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) are recruiting and nurturing women.  These women are free to pursue theological studies leading toward pastoral service.  CBF is a small but more progressive group which broke away from the SBC after fundamentalists gained rigid control of the entire SBC structure.

When I was on the national WMU staff, we were aware of a very limited number of women pastors in SBC churches.  As the saying goes, you could probably count them on one hand.  Over  the past decades, the number of women in CBF-related pastorates has increased, though not in the SBC.  

Though growth has not been not phenomenal, more churches are recognizing the legitimacy of the sense of pastoral calling in the lives of women.  Still, the war continues, as demonstrated in the Georgia Baptist Convention’s action against First Baptist, Decatur, because a woman, Julie Pennington-Russell, is their pastor.  Not only will the state convention refuse to seat Decatur folks as messengers, they no longer accept contributions from the church.  

The path will not be easy as more churches stay open to the possibility that God is calling women as their pastors, but my prayer is that they will not limit their options by eliminating women from consideration.

When WMU hired me, this was a reverse spin on putting a woman in a “man’s job.”  But they didn’t just draw my name out of a bonnet.  Along with congregational work, I had wide experience as a journalism professor and writer for Baptist publications, including WMU.  So some of the editors knew me as one of their writers, and they thought I would be able to “work with all those women.”

And, yes, I freely confess: Working with all those women did affect my mind, causing me to see our sovereign God work in the lives of both women and men who graciously submit to His leadership. 

Looking Back to Other Independence Days

Today, Independence Day 2013, I re-read something I wrote for Independence Day 2002.  That, in turn, looked back to what I wrote on Independence Day 1971:

I recently rediscovered notes I had scribbled in church on a bulletin dated "Independence Day, 1971."

"Going to church on Independence Day proved to be a strange experience. In the service which included patriotic songs and the pledge of allegiance to the nation's flag, I had mixed emotions. My boyhood training of national pride and idealism welled up. But those emotions kept getting tangled with darker feelings. I kept thinking of those whose freedom is abridged in our land -- the blacks who as a people have not known liberty and justice -- and of those in high places who seem to be trying to suppress such basic freedoms as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We all too readily sing 'My Country, 'tis of Thee' and say the Pledge as if these express realities rather than ideals toward which to strive. In a comfortable, all-white, middle class congregation, we can convince ourselves that these things are so and that God is guiding and blessing America on a predestined course as holy nation---one nation under God."

As I look back, I am struck by how little things have changed. If all are equal in this land of the free, some are still more equal than others. Today many African-American children attend schools that are separate and unequal. In the past nine months [since 9/11] Arab and Muslim Americans have received governmental and non-governmental scrutiny at odds with Constitutional guarantees and the lessons of American history.

Another troubling aspect of that 1971 church service is still with us. In many churches on the Sunday closest to Independence Day, it is difficult to tell what, exactly, is being worshipped. Patriotic songs replace Christian hymns, and the Pledge of Allegiance is recited almost as if it is a creed or confession of faith.

As a Baptist, I am fiercely loyal to both my nation and my church. I am equally dedicated to keeping a respectful distance between them. When my Baptist ancestors in some English colonies refused to pay taxes to support state religion, they were jailed and, in some cases, killed. The principles for which they struggled -- free exercise and disestablishment -- are now codified in the First Amendment of the Constitution, and have long been a hallmark of Baptist groups.

James Miller, pastor of First Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island -- which is also America's first Baptist church, founded by religious liberty advocate Roger Williams after his flight from the Massachusetts Bay Colony -- recently described his church's distinctive July Fourth celebration to EthicsDaily.com. Pastor Miller said, "Rather than tapping into those old land of liberty-type of songs that are often sung in some churches, I prefer to highlight those old hymns such as 'Be Thou My Vision' and 'God of Grace and God of Glory' that remind us we are citizens of two worlds but that it is God we worship." Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs [now the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty] in Washington, D. C., a watchdog group for church-state separation, told EthicsDaily.com that whatever a church does in celebrating Independence Day, "... we must be sure that we don't overshadow the cross."

For the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin last week ruled the words "under God" in the Pledge to be unconstitutional, then almost immediately put his ruling on hold. A firestorm of opposition to the original ruling broke out on talk shows and in the halls of Congress, pointing to our inability to separate church and state in our thinking and emotions. Both houses of Congress voted in support of God in the Pledge, and House members gathered on the Capitol steps to say the Pledge and sing "God Bless America." Many Americans defended the phrase "under God" as a precious symbol. But God is much more than a symbol.

Though both tap deep streams of commitment and emotion, faith and patriotism are not identical. Just as being a loyal American has nothing to do with devotion or lack of devotion to God, being a loyal, welcome member of a church, synagogue, or mosque should have nothing to do with one's politics or patriotic fervor. As we celebrate the birth of the United States of America, we must work harder to disentangle religion and nationalism. For now, just as in 1971, the emotions associated with God and country get tangled in the hearts of all.

I See a Nation

I see a nation in my mind

Where everyone can freedom find,

Where thoughts may freely be opined,

Where folks I meet are color-blind, 

And no one has to be defined

By stereotypes that are unkind.

And children won’t be left behind

Because their family’s not refined.

Down such a path our lives could wind

Until our spirits are aligned

To share a union newly mined.

I see that nation in my mind.

 Lawrence Webb

 July 4, 2004

"Sweet Land of Liberty, Of Thee I Sing"

I learned a parody of “My Country, Tis of Thee” from my fellow grade schoolers during World War Two.  It started this way:

“My country’s up a tree,
My home is Germany.
My name is Fritz.”

A teenager in our little rural school suggested a name for a patriotic club the high school kids were organizing: “Anti-Slant-Eye,” a slap at Japan, another nation the United States was battling.  Their teacher-advisor led them to find another name.

By definition, there’s always an enemy nation in a war.  So the best way to show loyalty to your own country is to put another country down.  Or so it seems.
The sad irony is that, after a decade or two, the country we learned to hate in one war becomes an ally in the next.
George Orwell, Robert Southey, and Mark Twain come to mind as writers who have addressed the futility of war:

Orwell's novel, 1984,  pictures how Big Brother manipulates loyalties among the people in Oceania.  At the proverbial drop of a hat, Winston Smith and his fellow citizens turn against Eurasia and support Eastasia.  Later, they turn against Eastasia and support Eurasia.


In Southey’s 1798 poem, “The Battle of Blenheim,” Wilhelmine and Peterkin listen as their grandfather Kaspar extols the great victory in that battle.  France and Bavaria lost to the allied forces of England, Austria, and the United Provinces in 1704. After the children find skulls in their garden, they ask for an explanation:

  "It was the English," Kaspar cried,

     "Who put the French to rout;

  But what they fought each other for,

     I could not well make out;

  But everybody said," quoth he,

     "That 'twas a famous victory.”

Learning of the war in which “many thousand bodies here/Lay rotting in the sun," Wilhelmine calls it “a very wicked thing.” But Kaspar corrects her.  Then the poem ends with this exchange between the lad and his grandfather:

"But what good came of it at last?"

     Quoth little Peterkin.

  "Why that I cannot tell," said he,

     "But 'twas a famous victory."

Twain’s “The War Prayer” pictures an anonymous war:  

"The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering .  .  ."

On Sunday morning, in a full church, the preacher offered a prayer ---

"that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --"

A stranger went to the pulpit, motioned the minister to step aside, and prayed the underside of what had just been prayed:

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

Happy Fourth of July.