“And then President Maddox raced to a microphone, called a point of personal privilege and said, ‘That flier announces the launch of a $50 million capital improvement campaign.’ Jimmy, that speaker didn’t know the difference between an endowment and a capital improvement campaign.” “Do you remember the convention in Kingsport - when the TBC voted to defund the college - and a speaker held up a flier and said Carson-Newman didn’t need TBC’s money anyway because the college’s own flier said they had a $50 million endowment?”
He looked stunned that I would admit such a thing. “He looked stunned that I would admit such a thing.” I said, “I can’t speak for the college, but I can tell you why I don’t trust the convention.” They know all they have to do is call you, and you’ll say the kind of inflammatory comment that sells papers.” In the course of the conversation, he said, “I don’t understand why Carson-Newman doesn’t trust the Tennessee Baptist Convention.” I said: “Jimmy, the local media exploit you. Two years before, I had gone to his office to upbraid him for making remarks about my Baptist-college alma mater, Carson-Newman University, on an issue of which he had little to no connection.
HIGHLAND BAPTIST CHURCH PROFESSIONAL
Thus, Jimmy was enigmatic, as was our personal and professional relationship. The next summer, sitting by the pool, he recited to me the entire history of Baptists giving the United States the gift of the doctrine of separation of church and state - a notion many contemporary conservatives see as liberal in the pejorative sense they use that word. And I stepped up to them and said, ‘Listen to me. He nodded and with utter sincerity, compassion and firmness said: “I overheard those guys mouthing about you, Brad. I told him about the hostility I had felt aimed at me from some of his members. I read his lips when he said, “There he is,” and the two men beside him joined in glaring at me in disdain.Ī few days later, I ran into Jimmy at the local McDonald’s where he would sit for hours sipping coffee and prepping sermons. When I walked in, I saw one of Jimmy’s male parishioners glaring at me across the room. That year, the Thanksgiving dinner was at Jimmy’s church. The phone calls to my house were overtly threatening to my career.” The phone calls to my house were overtly threatening to my career. In 2001, a few weeks after 9-11, I wound up on the cover of the local paper when I took a very unpopular stance opposing posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings unless all my neighbors were allowed to post their creeds. Against the stream of contemporary Baptist conservatives, Jimmy stayed rooted in Baptists’ heritage of separation of church and state. He was a big-hearted, kind soul who would argue the paint off a wall but, unlike me, would genuinely listen to anyone in the room.
HIGHLAND BAPTIST CHURCH HOW TO
He could drive even an orthodox rabbi to drink bacon grease when it came to following the letter of the law.Īs I got to know him, my irritation transformed to seeing him as, like me and most folks, yearning for connection but often fumbling around with how to do it. Both moderates and conservatives could be caught rolling their eyes behind his back for the countless times he called some nitpicking point of order at regional, state and national business meetings. Conservatives exploited him for his willingness to stir the pot even if they found him to be a gadfly. Moderates reviled Jimmy for his apparent closed-minded conservatism. Our churches, along with a Methodist church on our street, alternated hosting an annual meal on the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving. We were members at the same swimming pool where I took my children and he took his grandchildren. Just down the street from my church was another Baptist church led by the late Jimmy Stroud, an ultra-conservative firebrand with whom I had a wonderfully bizarre friendship. I served eight years as associate pastor at a church in Knoxville, Tenn., where Baptist churches outnumbered Starbucks and Dollar Generals by about 10 to one. I have been reminded of my relationship with a now-deceased Southern Baptist pastor. “We are still haunted and burdened by the baggage of St. The Southern Baptist Convention is dealing with simultaneous controversies over sexual abuse by pastors and over churches having women as pastors. Of late, all this struggle with sexuality and its overlap with the role of women has risen anew. Augustine, who turned his own sexual guilt into an entire theological system rooted in shame about sex in general and his own particular lust for the female form. We are still haunted and burdened by the baggage of St. Over the years, this male-pattern bald-faced blaming has been thoroughly ingrained in us.
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