Bullied in the Bible Belt

By Gene Skipworth

Rev. Skipworth's courage, candor, and compassion jump from the pages of this compilation of his weekly newspaper columns, "Letters to the Editor," rebuttals from area ministers, and responses from readers written in the heart of Tennessee's Bible Belt. This book is a give and take between a progressive follower of Jesus and his often-irate readers/respondents, most of whom are biblical literalists and evangelical white Christians. With Skip, what you see or read is what you get. He not only tackles the hard issues, while wearing vulnerably, but also brilliantly translates and integrates his columns with the informed biblical and theological understanding of many of the most learned minds within progressive Christianity. While making their work understandable for his readers, friends and foes alike, he painstakingly applies their insights to the divisive theological and political issues liberal clergy and laity have tragically failed to address honestly with each other. Skip deserves our gratitude for this informed and courageous gift, and the whole church owes him our thoughtful and willing dialogue. Taken from the Foreword by Bishop Joseph Sprague.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645159537

Book preview

The Six Commandments of Jesus

There are many Christians who believe our country is anti-Christian or becoming a secular state or facing a downfall spiral. One of several reasons they give is liberal preachers. Another reason, not really new to the list, is that the Ten Commandments have been taken out of our schools. When? I don’t remember ever seeing them in twelve years of school in St. Elmo, Illinois, and Carmi, Illinois. I don’t remember teachers reading them to us or having us read them out loud like we did the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t remember seeing them at the school where I taught in Sublette, Illinois.

With all due respect to the Ten Commandments, why are followers of Jesus so intent on the public display of a document from the Hebrew Scriptures? Robin Meyers, professor of theology at Oklahoma City University, writes in his book Why the Christian Right Is Wrong, When asked by the rich young ruler which of the commandments he should follow to inherit eternal life, Jesus gives only six commandments, all related to behavior: you shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 19:18–19).

I would gladly endorse placing the six commandments of Jesus on the courthouse lawn and in the schools. (My liberal preacher friends would not like it.)

Not only did Jesus edit the Ten Commandments, but also he made sure that we understood the need to build relationships, to treat people as we would want to be treated, that we treat others with tolerance, acceptance, respect, and love. How we relate to others is more important than creeds or doctrines or ecclesiastical beliefs. As Meyers says, It is rather amazing to consider that the six commandments of Jesus don’t mention God or faith but are consistent with all his teachings about religion as compassion, not allegiance. It might be important to note that by the time the Gospel of John was written, his list of commandments is down to one—I give you a new commandment, that you love one another (John 13:34).

Why would anyone be against the six commandments of Jesus being on the courthouse lawn or in the school? Why would anyone be against the commandment found in John, Love one another, being placed in the hallway of a school? It would be a good start on teaching about bullying. It would be a good start on teaching sportsmanship. It would be a good start on teaching respect for teachers (especially subs). It would be a good start on treating others with kindness. That is the answer Jesus gave the young man who asked how to inherit eternal life.

E-mail Responses

Jesus never edited the Ten Commandments. He lived them. That is why our country is in the mess it is in, liberal ministers like you.

JT

Right on! Keep up the good work.

P.S. I enjoyed your book.

SM

Who is Robin Meyers? It sounds like neither one of you likes the church and what it stands for.

GH

What about Biblical Scholars?

There really is a tremendous amount of information from many Bible scholars about the Bible. (I never have considered myself a Bible scholar. I do take it seriously and seek to have the Christ-centered message lead my life.) But many churches label scholarly work about the Bible as classified information for laypersons not to see. In most cases, what most people believe about the Bible, or want to believe about the Bible, was taught to them when they were in Sunday school class as children.

What have you read lately? How have you studied the Bible? What resource material do you use? What is wrong with reading the works of biblical scholars? Why would we be afraid to learn the meaning of a text? Why would we be afraid of learning the truth about a biblical text?

Many Christians don’t know that Mark was the first of the four Gospels written. The majority of Christians don’t know that Paul wrote his letters long before the Gospels. The majority of Christians don’t know when the book of Revelation was written. Nor do the majority of Christians know who wrote the book of Revelation. We are not talking about literalism. We are talking about biblical illiteracy.

Floyd Hale, United Methodist pastor, in his book Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bible But Didn’t Know Who to Ask says, If we did not have biblical scholars to point out, and explain convincingly, that the story of Jonah was a parable written by some unnamed teacher about 350 BC, to counteract the strong anti-foreigner feelings of his people, we might take it literally to have been the product of an eighth-century-BC prophet, who spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale (‘large fish’ is the correct quote), and was later ‘angry unto death’ because he was the most successful missionary-evangelist who ever lived.

There are many points that biblical scholars make that we should study and learn from. It would do so much to enhance our faith stance and growth as Christians that if in our Bible study groups, we would make reference to scholars like Spong, Inbody, Borg, Trueblood, Crossan, Wright, Ehrman, Pagels, and McLaren, to name just a few. And why not bring to the Bible study one of the volumes of the Interpreter’s Bible Commentary or some other reputable commentary like Knox, Dodd, or Barclay?

We must be educated about the Bible and sincerely study it. We must not let the literalists ruin or scare us away from the reading and study of the Bible. We don’t want the Bible to be hidden from us as some would want. There is much there to discover, to inspire us, and to help us grow as persons into our best selves. We must treat the Bible realistically so we can get the whole message.

A Rebuttal

The Bible is inspired of God. Some ministers teach the Bible that it is not the Word of God. False teachers abound, and the Bible describes both their destructive work and their fateful destiny. God insists that his book—the Bible—be handled rightly. In this present day, the age of miracles is no more, but the majestic message of the Word of God continues unabated. All who handle rightly the Word of God will have no need to be ashamed. On the other hand, the person that handles improperly God’s Word will have reason to be ashamed. Consider the sadness attached to mishandling God’s Word and teaching that falsehood to others. The Bible is filled with warnings relative to the seriousness of teaching in the name of God what is false.

E-mail Responses

You apparently claim to be one of those modern Bible scholars in the know. We see you as one who enjoys looking for myths, discrepancies, fabrications, and doubts about prophecy, angels, miracles, and the virgin birth. You desire to straighten us out as to what you say we don’t know about the Bible. If an atheist would content himself with casting doubt on the Bible, we might understand that, but a minister of the gospel?

A Sunday school class.

The only thing we are scared of is what you are doing to people’s faith.

TG

The burden is upon your shoulders to find a way to communicate your beliefs without being cut off from the get-go. Your words do not subscribe to the fundamentals. Even those few in our area who have been educated at a fine school of theology will take issue with you.

VJ

We have had men of God writing wonderful articles in the Herald-Citizen. The recent article by you certainly has put a new perspective on what is food for the soul. Your writing is not. This is the first time I have read anything that is contrary to the Word of God. You certainly are not a man of God. Your views are akin to the voice of a false prophet. I have heard about Spong and would not include him as a biblical scholar and certainly not a man of God. I agree with the person who told you, I wish you would find another place to live. We don’t need people like you to bully us here in the Bible Belt.

Founders’ Faith? It Depends

Depending on the source, the faith of our Founding Fathers is varied as born-again Christians, agnostics, Unitarians, atheists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Anglicans, or Deists. At a luncheon at one of the elementary schools in Crossville, a man sat at the table with five of us. He said that he had just come from a meeting at his church where they learned that the Founding Fathers were all born-again Christians. A history teacher was at our table and said, I don’t know the source of information at your church’s meeting, but the Founding Fathers were far from being born-again Christians.

Dr. Alf J. Mapp, eminent scholar emeritus at Old Dominion University, says in his book the Faiths of Our Fathers, There was no monolithic national faith acknowledged by all Founding Fathers. Their religious attitudes were as varied as their political opinions.

The problem we face in trying to come to the truth of the faiths of our Founding Fathers is that we want to identify them as persons of our faith. For instance, Tim LaHaye concluded, in his book the Faith of Our Founding Fathers, that were George Washington living today, he would freely identify with the Bible-believing branch of evangelical Christianity that is having such a positive influence on our nation. On the other hand, Franklin Steiner, in the Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, concluded one by one that virtually all of the great ones were freethinkers. Washington was portrayed as one of the most liberal of the freethinkers. Richard Brookhiser, in his Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, wrote, No aspect of his life has been more distorted than his religion. Brookhiser asserts that Washington was influenced by two coherent systems of thought, Christianity and Freemasonry.

Two of the most noted of our Founding Fathers were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Many noted historians, biographers, teachers, and authors tell us that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. (During the eighteenth century, Deists rejected Western Christianity largely because it had become so conspicuously cruel and intolerant.) It is also true, according to Dr. Robert Dawidoff, professor of history at the Claremont Graduate School, that Jefferson’s religious affiliation and views remains something of a puzzle to historians, but one thing that can be said with certainty is that he was not, in any sense of the phrase, a fundamentalist Christian. It is true that Jefferson held Jesus’s teachings in the highest respect. He went so far as to take his New Testament and cut out the sayings of Jesus for his own reading and study but carefully excluded all references to miracles. He did not accept as truth everything in the gospels. Today, we have the Jeffersonian Bible, which is a compilation of the sayings of Jesus that Jefferson put together.

George Washington attended the Anglican Church but was not a communicant. Washington has been called a warm Deist, meaning that while he believed the universe was governed by laws, he also believed that its Maker, far from remaining aloof from his creation, sometimes intervened directly in its affairs. The influence of Bible wording and biblical ideas are evident in some of his more notable writings. In his 1783 circular preparing to resign as commander of the Continental Army, he wrote words that reflected the words from Micah 6:8, that his countrymen would do justice and love mercy.

Another statement we make that is like the one describing the faith of our Founding Fathers is the notion that we were established as a Christian nation. They established America to be a democracy, not a theocracy. They regarded the demand for religious uniformity as detrimental to individual liberty and believed that no religion could help claiming to be the one true way. As Professor Dawidoff writes, They realized that to elevate one particular sect would denigrate all others and begin a cycle of resentment and oppression that must culminate in a war of religion.

We want our particular brand of religion to be the one that describes the faith of the Founding Fathers. We need to let history speak to us and not color history with our own bias. There is nothing wrong with our country being a democracy. That was the intent of our Founding Fathers.

E-mail Response

Dear Rev. Skipworth,

Just wanted to let you know how much I have enjoyed your column and have looked for it each and every week. But I have not seen it in the Herald-Citizen lately. Are you still contributing? I have agreed with you so many times, even though I am not a Christian. I have actually cut your column out and stuck it on the refrigerator. My husband and I moved here from New Orleans eight years ago, and one of the things that we have never become used to is the narrow-mindedness and judgmental nature of some of the Christians in our area. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, if one more person told me that the storm was due to the sins and paganism of New Orleans (none of these people had ever been there, mind you!), I was going to scream. We lived there for almost thirty years, and nothing could be further from the truth. I hope that you will continue to write for the H-C; if not, you will be truly missed.

BS

Is God to Blame?

There is a reason for it, a professional golfer said after he missed a putt to lose a playoff in a recent golf tournament. Whenever people say, There is a reason, it implies that God is the reason. The golfer implied that God was in charge and responsible for his loss and the bad putt. The truth is he made a bad putt. In another interview in last week’s NBA playoffs, a player said, after his team lost, There is a reason. Yes, there is a reason, and it doesn’t have to do with God. The other team scored more points.

My best friend in high school, and later on my roommate in college, was a jet fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. He was killed in 1968. I was asked by his wife to assist in his funeral with their family pastor. In his funeral sermon, the pastor said that Lester’s death was God’s will. The reaction from my friend’s family was surprised shock and dismay that the minister would blame God for Les’s death. God has been blamed for countless deaths that were caused by human error, neglect, accidents, and criminal acts. Another way of saying it is, His number was up, as if God has everyone’s death prearranged.

What of the thousands who died in 9/11? We don’t blame the terrorists. When a drunk driver kills a child, we don’t blame the drunk driver. No one is responsible if it is God’s will, if everyone has a number. Whenever a tragedy strikes, many of us need to believe that there was a reason for it. When we are faced with incomprehensible loss, indescribable emotional pain, and the gross confusion as to why of a tragedy, there is a need to think maybe it’s all part of God’s plan. I admit that trying to explain a catastrophe using that image is comforting. But that is stuffing God into a small box. That is completely contrary to the God that Jesus came to reveal to us. He shared with us the message of a loving God, compassionate and caring for all his children.

God did not create cancer to cause my father’s death. God did not create the polio virus that killed and crippled hundreds of thousands. God did not cause the driver to run the red light and kill the parents of three children. We need never look at God and say, Why did you do this terrible thing?

We don’t believe that. God loves us. God would not send disease or accidents or murderous persons to bring harm or death to us. God bears our suffering. God comes to redeem the worst losses we might ever endure. God is not the doer of evil, but the God who redeems evil. As James Howell, noted preacher and author, states in his book the Will of God, God comes down and takes our suffering upon himself. God does not leave us alone.

E-mail Responses

You have gone too far. Jesus said, Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Remember that those who would wreak havoc with your faith have worn their collars so tight they have cut off circulation to the now-unusable organ upstream from there. Get the message?

BN

You fly by the seat of your pants.

MN

You think you know so much. When you presume your knowledge exceeds that of Jesus, the apostles, and the scriptures you are pomposity personified.

TR

Rev. Skipworth,

We just met, by way of the Herald-Citizen newspaper yesterday. Loved your essay and enjoyed reading about your experiences with bike gangs. I note that you are a retired UMC pastor. I love the Methodist Church, but I have often been saddened by the activities of the church, including some here in the area where I have lived for the past four years. It is good to have programs, but there seems to be far too little attention being paid to the souls of those we call members. We have given up on finding fellowship in a church. It was bad enough when they were only concerned with their doctrines, but nowadays, it seems, they major in the minor activities of secular life and lead far too many away from the true meaning of the scriptures. And I enjoyed your thoughts on this. I write to you merely to thank you for these articles and to get to know you better as a brother in the faith. Hopefully, we will all be reading more of your articles in the future.

Warmest regards,

SM

Science and Faith Don’t Have to Clash

Do you believe Earth and the universe were created in six days?

Yes, said the biblical literalist.

Do you believe Earth and the universe are five thousand to six thousand years old?

Yes.

What do you say to the young student who comes home and tells you that they studied one-hundred-million-year-old dinosaurs that day in class? Do you tell him that is a lie?

Yes.

On Sunday, February 28, 2010, a local newspaper had an article about scientists who found a one-hundred-million-year-old Abydosaurus dinosaur in eastern Utah. What is the possibility that someone brought the article to a Sunday school class at a church where the Sunday school teacher teaches the literal interpretation of the Bible? What would the discussion be like in that class? Not only do Christians take the Bible literally when it comes to the creation stories (there are two creation stories in Genesis), but also they consider the Bible as a science book. How can Christians deny the scientific truth that exits today? What is there to be afraid of? Why do they see a conflict between science and the Bible?

Some Christians attack science as dangerous and untrustworthy and point to a literal interpretation of sacred texts as the only reliable means of discerning scientific truth. Representing this group of Christians, the late Henry Morris speaks, Evolution’s lies permeate and dominates modern thought in every field. That being the case, it follows inevitably that evolutionary thought is basically responsible for the lethally ominous political developments, and the chaotic moral and social disintegrations that have been accelerating everywhere. When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

The opposite view to Morris and those he represents is certainly not to deny that God is the Creator. To affirm that God is the Creator of heaven and earth is central to biblical faith all the way from Genesis, Proverbs, Job, the Psalms, through the New Testament. Science and religion are not poles apart. A belief in God is compatible with modern science. We affirm that God is the sole source of all things and is the one through whom all things come to be.

Some questions related to a literal translation of the creation story in Genesis include the following:

Was there an eyewitness to the creation? Who wrote it? When was it written?

Does the literal translation mean that everything in the universe, world, and Earth was created in six days?

Does this mean also that the creation took place five thousand to six thousand years ago?

How does one explain the earth’s history as defined by science as being billions of years old?

Is the description of Adam’s creation from the dust of the earth and the subsequent creation of Eve from one of Adam’s ribs (as so powerfully described in Genesis 2) a symbolic parable of the entrance of the human soul into a previously soulless animal kingdom, or is this intended as literal history?

How does one explain such a literal view of humankind’s beginning? Dust? A rib? What about the biblical texts that seem to suggest there were other humans present at the same time of Adam and Eve as mentioned in Genesis 4:17–17?

How do we compromise (or explain) the two accounts of Genesis 1 and 2?

A way of dealing with the Genesis creation story is to consider that the writer of this account is not asking how the world was created, but who did the creating? The answer is God! The message of the creation story also deals with the true to life issue of spoiling paradise by blaming someone else. The man blamed the woman; she blamed a talking snake. Another message from the creation story is that we error when we seek to be religious as a counterfeit for obeying God. This is the message of Jesus, to do the will of God.

Theodosius Dobzhansky, a prominent scientist who subscribed to the Russian Orthodox faith and to theistic evolution, said, Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC. It is a process that began ten billion years ago and is still underway. Does the evolution doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology.

E-mail Responses

Many in our area would question your Christianity. If you desire a larger audience, you may want to practice Wesley’s General Rules: First, do no harm; do good wherever possible; and attend to the ordinances. Find some common ground, assuming some exists, and lead from there. Of course, John Shelby Spong has come to the conclusion that for him, there is no common ground!

GH

Since arriving in town and reading your columns in the local paper, I’ve been meaning to write you a note. I want to thank you for articulating healthy, non-fundamentalist, mainline faith. It’s refreshing!

MT

The Responsibilities of a Christian

You will get different answers to the question, What are the responsibilities of the Christian? You could ask the question to ten different Christians from ten different denominations and get ten different answers. Some would say, Go out two by two and witness to the Lord Jesus, or, Go make disciples of all nations. A lady stopped me in the aisle at Walmart and asked me, Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Obviously, this was her way of answering the question. I asked her if she would join me for a cup of coffee at the McDonald’s in the corner of the store to talk about it, but she refused. That could have been an interesting conversation.

Some would say that the responsibilities of a Christian are to believe certain doctrines, creeds, or statements of faith. Some would say, as one preacher said, One of the responsibilities of the Christian is you must believe in the miracles of Jesus. Others say, One of the responsibilities of the Christian is to believe in the virgin birth. And the list goes on.

When I was in high school, our minister preached on the sixth chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah responds to God’s question, Who will I send?

Isaiah said, Here I am, send me. The guys I was sitting with thought that the point of the sermon from Rev. Bitzer was, If you are really going to be Christ’s followers, your responsibility is to go where you are sent. We thought that if we were going to follow Jesus, it meant we were all headed for Africa to be missionaries. We all went our separate ways; one became a farmer, some engineers, some electricians and plumbers, and I went to college to be a teacher. None of us went to Africa.

Sometimes, we are intimidated by the question, What are the responsibilities of being a Christian? It is too bad that we get mixed signals, confusing thoughts, and unsure notions of what God expects of us to be called his children. When we are confronted with the question, we sometimes will respond, Seminary is not for me. I am not ready for Bible college. I can’t be another Mother Teresa. I can’t help the down-and-out in the inner city. Or, Go door to door? Are you kidding?

But no greater expression of what the responsibility of a Christian is can be given beyond the word from Jesus, The first commandment is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:30–31).

A Rebuttal

Some otherwise intelligent folks have the spiritual acumen of chickens sporting eyeglasses. Sincere students of the Word find it appalling when some who have matriculated through a seminary remain totally lacking in their understanding of law versus grace in the Scriptures. Unfortunately, such folks are not content unless they are leading others astray. If the spiritual chicken with glasses is out to destroy your faith, steer clear of him. Their true colors will be revealed in judgment.

When the Church Becomes a Bully

Our culture has become inundated with violence, hate, intolerance, and prejudice. There are many consequences because of it. One of the biggest is found in schools with the issue of bullying. Our schools provide workshops for faculty and staff on how to deal with the serious problem of bullying. Assemblies at schools draw the attention of students to the fact that bullying is a major problem.

Of deep concern to many of us is how the effect of violence, hate, intolerance, and prejudice has seeped into the halls of the church. As our culture has become so accustomed to hate and prejudice, the church too has become familiarized by it all. When violence, hate, intolerance, and prejudice raise their ugly heads in the church, it is manifest in us as we seek to lash out, judge, point fingers, set up the walls of them versus us, and condemn.

We have all kinds of targets for attitudes of hate and prejudice; we have become anti-this and anti-that to many groups of people. If they are different from us, they are open game.