Bernie Cochran

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

July 9, 2006

Text:  Leviticus 20: 10-13;  John 8: 1-11

 

Since Jesus Was a Liberal, Just Follow Jesus

 

The year was 1981.  It’s a bit difficult to say: “It seems only yesterday” -- perhaps “day before yesterday.”  Bill Finlator was on vacation ( and let me say parenthetically, as the marvelous celebration of Bill’s life on Friday and three fine Pullenite letters to the Raleigh News & Observer made clear, Bill’s prophetic spirit lives on at Pullen) and I chose as my substitute sermon title:

                        “Confessions of an Unrepentant Liberal.”

The reasons for the topic were several:

·   The fundamentalist takeover of the SBC had just been launched in 1979.

·   Liberal professors in seminaries and some Baptist colleges were under pressure to keep silent or resign.

·   My research on the emergence of liberalism in American Protestantism led me to the conclusion that the statement in 1881 in today’s worship guide is the first self-conscious declaration of the beginning of the liberal movement.  Harry Emerson Fosdick, founding minister of the Riverside Church in New York, the most influential Protestant minister of the first half of the 20th century, Baptist liberal who preached the dedicatory sermon for this sanctuary, and whose hymn opened our service, stated:

“It was not a question of old theology or new theology but of new theology or no theology,” many of the old platitudes of traditional orthodoxy no longer tenable.

·   Therefore, 1981 marked the 100th anniversary of liberalism -- by chance, this summer the 125th.  Scout’s honor -- no more liberal sermon titles only content -- until the 150th.

 

Modesty aside, I thought the sermon was inspired and inspiring.  However, a North Carolina family visiting Pullen was so traumatized that they reported the incident to their minister who, in great distress, wrote a letter to Dr. Cecil Ray, the Executive Secretary of the NCBSC, who called President Weems at Meredith and sent copies of the minister’s letter and his response.  Two brief excerpts:

            The minister wrote: “Dr. Cochran expressed some personal beliefs which greatly deviate from historical Christianity . . . that he did not believe in the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2; he also stated that he did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures in their entirety, and that he also did not believe in the virgin birth of Christ.  May I request that you personally talk with Dr. Cochran regarding his beliefs?”   

 

Dr. Ray shared the good brother’s concern and assured him that “like you, I expect teachers in our Baptist colleges to be sound in their doctrine.”

I was contacted by none of the above and only learned of the matter years later when I discovered copies of the correspondence in my personnel file.

You knew Danish cartoonists were dangerous -- and in danger -- but meek and mild

Baptist professors of religion?  Actually, ideas are potentially dangerous and, if inviting students to understand and possibly embrace intelligent faith is dangerous, then I’m guilty as charged.  But the point is not about Meredith’s commendable commitment to academic freedom or dangerous professors but whether following Jesus and taking the Sermon on the Mount seriously is all that reprehensible and alarming.

Jesus has been accused of many things, including being a Baptist.  After all, he “won’t” be baptized by John the Methodist -- right?  But is it a bit extreme to call Jesus a liberal?

Jesus’ liberality is revealed in his not adopting an essentially conservative position of upholding the dominant religious tradition  --  no questions asked  --  but is on record as challenging concepts and practices which distorted the true meaning of faith. “You have heard it said but I say unto you” is a recurring theme in the gospels.

Moreover, Jesus championed the marginalized, the despised, the poor -- rather than the rich and powerful -- and followed the great 8th century prophets -- Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, liberals all, and in trouble with their religious establishment.  Jesus speaks of the potentially corrupting influence of money and power often; he speaks of homosexuality never. Go figure.

Jesus’ teachings follow the spirit rather than the letter of the law.  Yes, the law said no work on the Sabbath.  But is healing or satisfying hunger a violation?  The story in John which Beth read is the familiar one of the woman discovered in the very act of adultery.  The Mosaic law specified death for both the man and the woman in such cases.  Ever wonder why inerrantists demand that every passage be literally followed -- but not this one -- and countless others?  If she were “caught in the act,” one tends to assume a male presence.  But the passage reads:

            “Teacher, what do you say about her?

Do you suppose -- even then -- that the law was not always enforced even-handedly?  This story is not found in the oldest and best manuscripts and is possibly not original in John.  It is on this basis that we dismiss the snake-handling and poison-drinking additions found at the end of Mark’s gospel.  Why not discount this passage?  If the incident did not happen exactly as recorded, it should have because it reflects the early Church’s understanding of the nature of Jesus’ liberal but not dismissive interpretation of the law.  The Torah was important; persons infinitely more so.  Nor is Jesus cavalier regarding her past.  Go and change your life is the clear directive.

A liberal understanding of Jesus’ teaching and spirit has surfaced in subsequent centuries and events:

·   The opposition to the execution of alleged witches in Salem;

·   The abolitionists’ struggle against slavery;

·   The battle for racial justice and civil rights;

·   Opposition to laws making inter-racial marriage a criminal offence;

·   The ongoing struggle for women’s equality.

In each instance liberals have been on the right side of the issue, slowly changing minds and institutions; conservatives have fought to keep things as they are.  The official Southern Baptist policy, as one example, is to continue to keep women “veiled” and subordinate, all in the name of following the “plain” teaching of Scripture.  My original draft of the sermon contained this sentence:

“The single most compelling argument against intelligent design in the universe is the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Entirely true, but it’s ugly, so I took it out.

The most pressing liberal-conservative issue confronting the Church today is clearly the emotionally-charged controversy concerning homosexual rights.  No, this isn’t the only issue facing the Church but neither was slavery or civil rights.  With hindsight one might conclude that it would have been easy to oppose the slave trade.  But not if your father and grandfather owned slaves and you were a member of a slave-owning congregation in the South and heard your Baptist minister defending it from Scripture.  We would all like to think we would have been on the right side of previous controversies.  Our only choice is to attempt to be on the right side of today’s ethical decisions.

On this and other issues liberals are often a bit schizophrenic  --  at times feeling afraid of being labeled liberal (“moderate” seems so much safer) and at times feeling a bit superior, not unlike the bumper sticker you may have seen:

            “I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.”

Liberals believe in the creation account in Genesis 1 & 2 -- that it is theology and not science.  So it’s O. K. to acknowledge that we do not possess a scientifically accurate account in the Bible of astronomy, gynecology, or creation.  And no, God didn’t inspire the Biblical mis-understanding that the sun goes round the earth.

Liberals are allowed but not required to follow the apostle Paul on the virgin birth of Jesus.  Paul went on more missionary journeys, converted more Jews and Gentiles, and wrote more of the New Testament than anyone.  What did he say regarding the virgin birth?  Not a word -- which means that he never heard of it or, just possibly, that he never considered it to be “sound doctrine,” certainly not fundamental doctrine.  If the Pullen congregation follows Jesus, follows Paul, and follows the Spirit, this is a Bible-believing, shaped-note-singing, foot-washing, peace-and-justice-championing, serving-the-hurting, mission-minded congregation.

            Could I hear somebody in the congregation say, AMEN?

And no, Ann Coulter, not all liberals are godless, any more than all conservatives are godly.

Liberal Baptists wonder -- since Episcopalians have consecrated an openly gay bishop and have just appointed a woman bishop head of the American church -- just why we Baptists were so eager to separate from them in the 17th century.  We’ve both changed, albeit glacially.

Liberals believe in family values.  They just acknowledge that there are different types of families -- some heterosexual with several children or none, some homosexual with perhaps two mothers or two fathers.  The chances of growing up sane in either type family are probably equally slim.

Liberals believe that supporting moral values surely includes the justice issue of raising the minimum wage while opposing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans -- thereby shifting the tax burden to the less able.  The gap between obscene wealth and extreme poverty is the largest ever, is ever-widening, and is immensely troubling.

Liberals oppose suicide bombers killing innocent victims -- as well as Americans killing innocent victims in order to spread American values.  It is entirely possible that terrorism might better be defeated by the multiplied billions of military expenses being creatively used instead to combat poverty and hopelessness in third world countries.

Liberals believe the question why we are permitted weapons of mass destruction while Iran and North Korea are not is legitimate.  The answer that our bombs are Christian bombs does not seem to do justice to the question.

Liberals believe that we are sinners all -- sometimes carrying the unnecessary burden of guilt for authority-defined, alleged sins; sometimes in need of repentance for the real ones.

Straight liberals have nothing but admiration for the incredible courage it takes for a gay individual to work on self-understanding and self-acceptance -- risking family rejection, unemployment, and ridicule -- to live openly and authentically.  The hope and prayer is that such courage will not be required of future generations.  The acceptance of the American Psychiatric Association’s determination that homosexuality is a “difference and not a disease” will help.

I learned a great deal from some of my lesbian students, from drop-outs to student government presidents.  Since I began with excerpts from two letters, I close with responses from two students who described their experiences overcoming pain with sheer inner strength.  The first described her father as non-religious until he discovered her teen-age sexual orientation.  He sat down on the bed and declared:

“You’re my daughter and I love you but you’re going to hell.” She wrote that somehow she knew, deep down, that he was wrong.  Later a Bible was left on the breakfast table, open to the high-lighted Levitical passages regarding same-sex conduct.  None of the passages forbidding the eating of shrimp, requiring the death penalty for adulterers, or forbidding re-marriage after divorce were high-lighted.

The other letter was from the daughter of a respected Baptist minister.  When she -- an honors student -- flunked every course one semester, including mine, I wrote her a supporting note.  I received her letter much later describing her sexual orientation and her struggle with the impossibility of saying yes and no at the same time until the wheels came off.  She got back on track and now has an advanced degree in counseling and is helping a variety of hurting clients.  

 

My reply to her letter stated, in part:

 

“I’m pleased that you have found a supportive Christian community at the Metropolitan Church.  My belief is that one day we will not need churches just for gays any more than for left-handed or blue-eyed-gene persons and that increasingly we can be identified as Christian, gay, Democrat or Republican, Meredith angel, marathoner, or whatever  --  without any of those terms being regarded as pejorative. . . .  I feel good about who you are and what you value and where you are heading.  Much love. . . .

 

This was in 1983 and nine years later “one day” arrived for Pullen and for a growing number of liberal congregations.  Since Jesus was a liberal and since the classic definition of a liberal is

“not narrow in mind, not bound by authoritarianism,” possessing a “concern for individual or minority rights and freedoms. compare progressive,” a giving, forgiving person, you are invited to begin or continue -- more intentionally --just following Jesus.