As I think of church, one of the first pictures
that comes to my mind is this beautiful senior adult woman in my church known as ‘Granny
Franklin’ who would ungrasp me from my grandmothers dress and hold me until I
stopped crying each and every Sunday with persistence and with love until I
realized that I had a place in the three year old Sunday School room. As a
child, and even up until my middle school years, I was very well sheltered from
business meetings of the church where people argued. I was sheltered from the
pain that the Southern Baptist Convention showered onto many congregations.
Growing up with Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church right out of
my back door I never knew how many people the Southern Baptist Convention hurt.
I didn’t realize until my junior year of high school what the Southern Baptist
controversy was which made it a harsh reality to face when the God of love,
mercy, and inclusion called me to be a pastor. I grew up in a church ten
minutes from Liberty University but I luckily had pastors and a congregation
that loved everyone for who they were and accepted me and my call to ministry
and others in their callings as well.
Being sheltered from the Southern Baptist
conflict hurt as I began to openly share with pastors and others in my
community that I was called by God to proclaim the Gospel as a pastor of a
church. It wasn’t until I was hurt by many people that I finally realized the
impact that the Southern Baptist Convention had on Lynchburg Virginia and many
other places. It wasn’t until I shared my calling a number of times to
important people in my life and their response was something to the effect of,
“you would be a great youth minister,” or “have you ever thought about being a
children’s minister” or even, “I think that you would be awesome starting a
woman’s ministry around here, you would be great ministering to women in our
community” that I finally removed the shade that had been blinding me and
finally wanted to know more. I wanted to know why I couldn’t be a pastor. I
wanted to know what made women and men different to serve God. I had more
questions that I had answers and I had more anger than I had joy. I was mad at
God and I was angry at my church for affirming me in something that to so many
people seemed morally wrong. I was angry at my loving and caring church family
for allowing me space to grow and to use my gifts when I realized in the real
world or at least the real world of Lynchburg that my gifts were not valid.
Thankfully though I
was able to come to a beautiful place called Carson-Newman where the pieces
began to fall together. I saw the beauty in so many places such as seeing Dr.
Christine Jones serve God by being a minister not only at church by teaching
but also by being a professor and proclaiming God’s words that are written in
the Old Testament. The lights finally began to fully shine as I sat in chapel
in complete awe of Rev. Julie Pennington Russell preaching at a chapel service,
which was the first time I had ever heard or seen a woman preach a sermon. It
was through Dr. Chad Hartsock wrecking my Christmas story, in New Testament
Class, that I had always believed, and then through Dr. Ross Brummett putting
the pieces back together and allowing me space to think and to feel the love of
God through Spiritual Growth and Development that I was able to fully
understand that Baptist’s have conflicts but that God calls boys and girls,
women and men, and grandmas and grandpas the same. I was able to fully
understand that God is not an angry dictator that can’t use women and men
equally and that sometimes we may not understand God and what is asked of us.
Learning about the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention
provides answers to questions and opens many doors for people to serve God no
matter who they are because we serve an inclusive God that is full of love.
Learning about the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention
allows individuals and congregations the ability to take a step back to really
realize what we believe about Christianity and God.
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