Speaking In Tongues

This is going to be difficult to write. I may, indeed, fail at the effort...for which I will ask your forgiveness in advance.

But, here is the thing. I am about to attempt an essay in which I will combine two men...two radically different, indeed, antithetical men. So different that, to use a metaphor from science, one might be matter and the other antimatter. And should these two ever meet...annihilation is all too possible.

To explain:

We went to visit our son and his wife in San Antonio last week. We returned on Tuesday, exhausted from the confusions and discomforts of travel in the modern age. But, once home, we rushed back out again, this time to the Central United Methodist Church and the second meeting of the Poor People's Campaign, “a national call for moral revival,” hosted by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

It was, needless to say, amazing. Reverend Barber was, well, astonishing. I wrote later he may be the single greatest public speaker I’ve heard in decades. And, he was surrounded by a great many other individuals, including Rev. Theoharis and a great many local clergy and of various faith (or no faith) communities in the state.

The church was packed...people filled the place beyond the bursting point, every pew was occupied, every spot of habitable floor was filled, scores of people waited in the parking lot outside, listening to the proceedings on loudspeakers.

We got lucky. We were able to get in to the vestibule and could actually see the proceedings...if not exactly closely. I was even able to take a few photos with my phone, albeit not very good ones. More importantly we were able to hear the speakers. Commentary ranged from the demonstrations and later murders in Charlottesville to the generally depressing moral standards of our benighted times. Barber and others also discussed the Poor People’s Campaign and its general aims and goals—which, the speakers implied, was not so much to be a new resistance group as to assist and co-ordinate the efforts of the many, many already existing resistance groups around the country.

As to that, as to the Campaign, well, I’ll say little about it other than that it seems to me a remarkable effort. I intend to get involved with it in some fashion, and if you have any interest in doing something similar, here’s the website: https://poorpeoplescampaign.org/

But, mostly, at least in this piece, I am going to focus on Barber...partly because he was such an impressive speaker, but also because he is a perfect symbol for our situation. Here is a man who is genuinely charismatic, who genuinely represents what is best about political Christianity, and who (with others) has begun a movement that could really and truly bring moral focus, and vast energies, to the struggle against the Trump Administration and the insidious forces behind it.

Frankly, I found him...and his proposed movement...quite fascinating. And that’s not easy for me to say. I don’t come from a Christian background. My parents were agnostics, rationalism and materialism have always been key components of my personal belief system, and when I finally did get involved in a church some years ago, it was because of those vague and flabby reasons that cause most of us to drift into organized religion at some point in middle age—“We are going for the kids,” etc.

Yet, in Barber, I discovered an individual who could make me...well, not exactly believe, but, shall we say? take the church’s role in progressive politics very seriously, indeed. Even before I heard him speak, I’d begun to wonder if churches and synagogues and mosques and humanist secular assemblies, somehow working together, won’t be the backbone of the anti-Trump movement. (Even the tiny, little resistance group I helped to organize here in town, all twelve or so of us, calls itself “not faith-based, but faith-informed.”) Now, with Barber, and the people I saw around him that night, I have become almost certain of that supposition.

Which is an interesting thing, don’t you think? A curious possibility. That religion in general and Christianity in particular, which in their Right-Wing forms have done so much damage to our nation, and to our democracy, might become as well (forgive the liturgic image) our salvation?

But...

I said that this piece was an attempt to bring two opposites into the same text. I shall attempt that now.

Not long ago, I wrote another little essay about another man, Charles Koch, half the Koch brothers and a dedicated enemy of all we hold dear. According to several sources (I am, myself, using Rebecca Onion’s article in Slate, “What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority”), Koch sees himself as something of a religious figure as well. Not in the sense of a man of God or anything like that. Rather, he sees himself as a champion of “economic liberty,” which, in practice, means he opposes any attempt to impose limits and boundaries on the behavior of the very wealthy, i.e., himself.

I suppose a theologian would argue that Koch is thus guilty of the sin of self-worship. He has defined himself as God, and anyone who opposes the will of God is to be sent straight away to hell.

For the moment, I’m going to take a pass on the theological aspects of Koch’s mentality and look instead at his self-perception. Again, according to several sources, Koch has compared himself to Martin Luther, as a man at the heart of a moral revolution, unleashing powers of unimaginable fury, capable of remaking the world...

Curiously enough, I think Koch may be quite right.

Only, not as Martin Luther. Not in the sense that he defines the principles, for good or bad, which will transform the world...

But rather, as the man...or something in the shape of a man...who so offends the world that all good men and women unite against him...and find, in the process, strength they had never once imagined they possessed. And, then, in their union and with new found powers...they remake the world.

Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you say?

Almost, indeed, Biblical.


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Addendum

At one point during the meeting (and how much like a gospel meeting it was!) the Reverend Barber mentioned that he is of the Pentecostal tradition. I must confess that I didn’t know there was a liberal, progressive Pentecostal tradition. I always thought of Pentecostalism as, well, you know, hand in glove with the reactionary right...denying evolution and insisting that homosexuality is a mortal sin.

How very wrong I was! For, here, in Barber, was a completely different Pentecostalism, one I could admire.

And it just so happened that I the week before I’d finished reading a book which mentioned Pentecostalism—specifically, Philip Jenkins’ *The Next Christendom*. In it, Jenkins writes about the emergence of a southern Christianity, focused in Africa, Asia, and South America, and very different from the Christianities of Europe and Euro-America (which, he suspects, may be dying out).

In the book, Jenkins also makes the fascinating observation that Pentecostalism, which is one of the fastest growing Christian communities in the world, is actually not really a part of the Reformation tradition. It is, in some ways, actually a completely new branch of Christianity, different from Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. Why? Because it completely democratizes the faith. It says that anyone...anyone at all!...can have direct contact with the divine. There are no uniquely blessed apostles superior to the rest of us, no saints who are uniquely touched by God, no Popes or Bishops who are uniquely empowered to speak for the Greater Glory, no ...well, no seal of the prophets.

Whether that democratization is a good thing or a bad is an open question. After all, a good many lives have been lost after some undiagnosed schizophrenic has decided he’d been having regular tête-à-têtes with the All Mighty and then led his followers into battle. (Think the Lord’s Resistance Army and The Taiping Rebellion.)

Still, once again, as a metaphor for our own situation, I wonder if it doesn’t work quite well. The myth of Pentecost is that, of course, the apostles were wrestling with the fact that Jesus was no longer among them. And then, behold! The Holy Spirit descended upon them and they found themselves filled with fire and prophecy, and they went forth to teach all nations.

Well, I don’t know about the Holy Spirt part. But fire and prophecy? And the going forth to save our (secular) nation?

Those, I think, are very much on hand.

***

Until next time...

Onward and upward.