Christianity

Top Dog

/ Brant Copeland / 10 Comments

Screenshot 2017-06-03 09.28.17As I write, I am sitting in a sunny room in my mother-in-law’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland.  (Yes, it’s not often one can put “sunny” and “Scotland” in the same sentence.)  I confess to some reluctance to leaving the house today, for that would mean facing my Scottish relatives and friends who are aghast at the behavior of the President of the United States.

I have considered wearing a bag over my head when I go out, but that probably wouldn’t work.  As soon as I opened my mouth, my accent would betray me. I might as well own up to the fact that “my” President is a profound embarrassment not only to me, but to the world.  His most recent equivalent to an upraised middle finger is his announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accords.

Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks rightly points out the amoral basis upon which my President makes his decisions.

This week, two of Donald Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, wrote the following passage in The Wall Street Journal: “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

My President never learned to sing “Jesus loves the little children – all the children of the world . . .”  He fails to grasp the fundamental concept of “neighbor” that lies at the heart of Christian ethics.

That’s why, even if he were to accept the scientific evidence for climate change, he would still reject the Paris accords on the grounds that other countries might get the better deal – might gain some advantage in the endless struggle to get ahead of their competitors.  Never mind that, historically speaking, the United States is the world’s greatest carbon polluter.  What’s important is today’s deal – today’s opportunity to win.

For that’s what the world is through my president’s eyes – a field of perpetual and brutal competition.  On the personal level, it’s “Donald first.”  On the global level, it’s “America first.”

My President has put a new spin on the concept of “American exceptionalism.”  The term used to suggest that American had a unique mission to make the world a better place – to be a “city set upon a hill,” a beacon of hope to the downtrodden and beleaguered, a nation willing to take moral leadership in the global community.  Under Mr. Trump, America doesn’t even pretend to aspire to such moral high ground.  We’re just one more dog in in a dog-eat-dog world – and a snarling, vicious one at that.

As I lead worship every Lord’s Day I pray aloud for the President of the United States.  I pray that he will be guided by the Holy Spirit and graced with wisdom, forbearance, and insight.  I will continue to make that prayer, for I truly hope that he will repent and open himself to God’s leading.

If he does, the first question he will have to struggle with is, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus has an answer for him, but to receive it, he must have ears to hear.

Free to Differ

/ Brant Copeland / Leave a comment

Screenshot 2017-05-09 08.55.41President Trump has promised to “destroy” the so-called Johnson Amendment, which has become shorthand for a provision in the tax code that applies to all 501(c)(3) organizations. Groups that enjoy that most-favored tax status must refrain from endorsing, opposing or financially supporting political candidates.

The law makes perfect sense to me.  Organizations that benefit from what is in effect a public subsidy should not be allowed to function as partisan organizations.

Proponents of repeal of the Johnson Amendment see it as suppressing “religious liberty.”  I don’t see it that way at all.  The law simply limits groups, including churches, from being both a tax-exempt ministry and a partisan political entity.  Nothing in the law bars me, as a Christian pastor, from speaking freely about matters of faith and public policy.  I can certainly praise or criticize those who hold public office.  What I can’t do under the law is endorse candidates for office – at least not in my capacity as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church.

In many ways, this fracas is much ado about nothing.  Only rarely has the IRS gone after churches for overt partisan political activity.  Despite what fear mongers say, the IRS is not poised to pounce on preachers.

Although I have occasionally been asked to endorse candidates for office, it has always been my policy not to do so.  I suppose that, as a private citizen, I could endorse someone, but, as any pastor will tell you, a pastor is never really “off duty.”  I have never endorsed –nor will I ever endorse – anyone from the pulpit.  On the other hand, my calling to preach the Word sometimes leads me to question or praise office holders and their policies.

My Dad, who was a pastor, declined to put a political sign in the yard of the manse.  When he lived in a home not owned by the church, however, he changed his mind.  I don’t put partisan bumper stickers on my car because I use it for official functions.  I don’t want a grieving family of a differing political persuasion to follow my car in a funeral procession, resentful of my politics.  On the other hand, because I own my own home, you might see the odd political sign in the front yard (or several of them.)

This week’s edition of Time magazine recalls the almost-forgotten role that some clergy played in the abortion debate before the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe versus Wade.  Writer Gillian Frank singles out the courageous acts taken by Charles Landreth, Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, and Florida State University Professor Leo Sandon.  The first paragraph of her article reads:

“Today I want to speak to The Challenge of the Sexual Revolution, or to The Use of the Body in Regard to Abortion,” declared the Reverend Charles Landreth on, June 6, 1971. From the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, Fla., Landreth invited those present to imagine different situations that led to a “problem pregnancy.” Landreth prodded his congregants, asking them to consider what an unwanted pregnancy and lack of access to abortion could mean to an older married woman, a young woman who had been raped or a high-school girl “scared literally to death to tell her staunch Catholic parents and therefore very tempted to run to a quack . . . ”

I recommend the article.  I also give thanks to God for servants like Charlie Landreth and Leo Sandon, who truly understand what “religious liberty” means.

Calling for Blood

/ Brant Copeland / 5 Comments

Screenshot 2017-04-24 10.08.30

In this season of Eastertide, the newspaper headlines cause me to remember that my Lord and Savior, the risen Christ, was the victim of capital punishment.  Jesus’ death came at the hands of the State and with the apparent approval of a great many.  Even though he had grave doubts about Jesus’ actual guilt, the Roman Governor Pilate gave assent to his execution.  Jesus’ death was cruel by any standard, but by the standard of the Roman Empire in the first century, it was not unusual.

The blood lust of “the crowd” is a major feature of the Passion story.  Governor Pilate offers to release Jesus, but the crowd insists, “Crucify him!”  On this all the Gospels agree.  Horrible as crucifixion was, it seems to have had the approval of the people Pilate listened to.  By the end of the day on Good Friday, it appeared that the people’s lust for blood had the final say.

I hear echoes of the Gospels in the way the State of Arkansas has attempted to set up a conveyor belt of death.  The Governor in that fair state attempted to kill eight prisoners in eleven days.  Apparently, he needed to fill  all eight coffins before the State’s supply of midazolam had reached its expiration date.  Governor Pilate had a similar propensity to execute people in batches.  That’s why there were three crosses on the hill called Golgotha.

I am thankful that the courts threw a monkey wrench into Governor Asa Hutchinson’s killing machine, but I take no solace in knowing that a majority of Arkansians probably support his effort.  True, a few are aghast, but crowds have not stormed the capitol demanding a return to something approaching sanity.

One wonders where the Christians are.

Nor do I find consolation in the fact that the same thing hasn’t happened (yet) in Florida.  Recently, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced that she would not seek the death penalty in any case.  This is, of course, her prerogative under state law, and she has good reasons for her decision.  She’s dead right when she says that the death penalty serves neither the interests of the community or the cause of justice.  Would that Governor Pilate – or Governor Hutchison — had such insight and courage.

As for Florida’s Governor Scott, he has taken 23 capital murder cases away from Ms. Ayala, and turned them over to a prosecutor who does not share Ms. Ayla’s aversion to execution.  This is no surprise, coming from a Governor who has signed more death warrants than any of his predecessors since the death penalty came back into use in 1977.

In a recent online meditation, Richard Rohr writes about the death of Jesus, and how his death “takes away the sin of the world.”

Jesus takes away the sin of the world by dramatically exposing the real sin—ignorant hatred and violence, not the usual preoccupation with purity codes—and by refusing the usual pattern of vengeance, which keeps us inside of an insidious quid pro quo logic. In fact, he “returns their curses with blessings” (Luke 6:28), teaching us that we can “follow him” and not continue the spiral of violence. He unlocks our entrapment from within. (https://cac.org/)

It’s clear to me that we are indeed trapped in a pattern of vengeance.  As Easter people, we know in our hearts that there is a better way.

Lord, Forgive Us Our . . .

/ Brant Copeland / 2 Comments

There are some pitfalls in this brave new world of social media.  One of them is the fact that when I make a blooper, it is exposed not only to the flock (who are used to my many shortcomings) but also to the entire World Wide Web.

For the past few weeks I have been posting this column as a blog post.  As typos go, the ones in last week’s column were real howlers.   Instead of “Pig in a Poke,” I typed “Pig in a Polk.”  As if that were not bad enough,  I left out the “l” in “public” when referring to “public policy.”   This is more than a little embarrassing.  I don’t really want to get into that particular conversation online.  I get enough unsolicited e-mail already.

I figured out how to fix the blog post, but the newsletter went out uncorrected.  I offer thanks to the many of you, both in the congregation and out there in the ether, who caught the typos and let me know about them.  Humble thanks, of course.  In the circumstances, I could hardly offer any other kind.

This puts me in mind of a young pastor in my grandparents’ church in Coahoma, Texas.  Not long after arriving in that community of cotton farmers, he offered a pastoral prayer imploring the Lord to bless the “hoers in the field.”  He hadn’t quite cottoned onto the local lingo.  Every parishioner who shook his hand after worship whispered, “It’s hoe hands, Charlie, not hoers.”

On another occasion Charlie prayed, “Lord, forgive us our falling shorts.”  Not quite the same thing as the Book of Common Worship’s “shortcomings and offences.”  I’m sure the Lord knew what Charlie was talking about, but the image evoked by his rough equivalent is likely to have left the congregation rather distracted.

Baggy pants are a fashion statement these days, but falling shorts are another matter.  (Come to think of it, the former might well contribute to the latter.)

Typographical errors, as bad as they are, are not quite so embarrassing as liturgical ones.  In by first parish I began the Easter morning liturgy by shouting “Christ is born . . . I mean . . . risen!”  It was not my proudest ministerial moment.

Humility is desirable in my line of work, but if you’re me, it’s unavoidable.

Pig in a Poke

/ Brant Copeland / 3 Comments

When I arrived to serve First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee in 1985, Florida was coming down with a bad case of lottery fever.  Both conservative Christian groups and the liberal-leaning Florida Council of Churches opposed the establishment of a state-run lottery, even though proponents insisted that funds derived by separating fools from their money would be used to “enhance education.”

I joined Southern Baptists and Unitarians to say that the state should not encourage the something-for-nothing mentality that undergirds “gaming.”  (You can’t say “gambling” anymore.  That word has been stricken from the lexicon.)  We opposed the lottery on moral grounds.

We lost, of course.  The voters of Florida, in their infinite wisdom (or utter gullibility) took the bait.  And guess what!  The pea wasn’t under the shell after all.  Over time, the tax dollars that should have gone to education went elsewhere.  And the Governor is praised for proposing a budget increase for education that barely makes up for last year’s cut.

Meanwhile the ads for the Lottery grow increasingly surreal.  Throwing your money away on lottery tickets is not an exercise in cupidity after all.  It’s a way of “contributing” to education.

Eat your heart out, George Orwell.

The slide down the slippery slope has brought us to Gretna, a town in that is 85 per cent black and has an unemployment rate of 25 percent.  In a few days the residents of Gadsden County will get to vote on whether to allow slot machines to be added to the barrel racing and card games that are already underway at Creek Entertainment Gretna.

There’s not much doubt which way the vote will go.  The allure of jobs and new tax revenues is powerful.   My colleague, The Rev. Mr. Charles Scriven, a man of impeccable integrity, has launched an effort to defeat the slots.  Alas, the momentum is against him.

We can’t put the genie back in the bottle.  “Gaming” is probably here to stay.  The best we can do is to try to contain it as best we can.  Still, I can’t relinquish the dream of a system that uses equitably-derived tax dollars to further the public good.

“Gaming” is a social evil, no matter how many voters approve it.  It’s bad for families, bad for individuals, and bad public policy.  Dress it up anyway you want, it’s still a pig in a poke.

Courage Today

/ Brant Copeland / 1 Comment

My son Adam gave me the new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas for my birthday.  At 542 pages, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy made  for good reading at the beach following Christmas.

As Metaxas guided me through those chilling years of Hitler’s rise and the ever-increasing persecution of Jews, I kept asking myself, “If I had been a Christian in Germany at that time, what would I have done?”

Would I, like Bonhoeffer and that small band of pastors in the Confessing Church, signed The Theological Declaration of Barmen, rejecting “Nazi Theology,” or would I, like the vast majority of “good” Christians, gone along with what was termed “German Christianity?”  Metaxas points out that many,  many Germans opposed the Third Reich, but felt it their patriotic duty  to serve in the military and not to resist the government openly.

Last Sunday Glenda Rabby gave a wonderful talk to the Inquirers’ Class at First Presbyterian Church, Tallahassee, about the role of churches and church leaders during the Tallahassee Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement.  I was too young at the time to make adult decisions, but I remember the pressure my father faced as a pastor in Texas.

When Dad stood for Civil Rights, even in a modest way, he was vilified by some church members as a Communist dupe and a disloyal American.  Members of the John Birch Society came to our church and took notes during his sermons to make their case against him.  My parents received anonymous phone calls at the manse accusing them of being “nigger lovers.”

If I had been the pastor of a church in the South in those days, would I have had the courage to speak out?  To march with Dr. King?  To insist that racial segregation was contrary to the gospel?  To drive black voters to the polls?

In hindsight, the issues facing Christians in the 50’s and 60’s seem crystal clear.  At the time, however, things seemed more complicated.  The same is true today.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho has become a voice crying in the wilderness regarding the recent restrictions on voter registration and early voting passed by the Florida Legislature  He told  a crowd on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,

We are facing a time that few of us thought would be possible.  History tells us we have been here before.  (The legislators) have another plan they want to implement, to make sure the people who voted in 2008 are not the same people who voted in 2012. (Quoted in the Tallahassee Democrat, January 17, 2012)

The argument that the new restrictions are merely a hedge against fraud by voters is an obvious sham.  It requires a willing suspension of disbelief to see the new law as anything but a means of suppressing votes by those who traditionally vote Democratic.  The effect of the law is to limit the votes of blacks and other minorities.  The law is not overtly racist, but then again, neither were the old poll tax laws.  These days you don’t have to be Bull Connor to keep non-whites from voting.

Preach on, Brother Ion!  You are a profile in courage.