An Unholy Union

I’m really excited to be part of this event. I’m beginning to know Pastor Davie Tucker, and I mostly know of Pastor Ingrid Macintyre through mutual friends, but Preston Shipp is a mentor-friend whose process and obsessions mirror mine more than a little. Talking to the three of them about where we are and what’s to be done about the white supremacist terror threat sometimes incubated, activated, and even baptized within our common culture will be a profound gift and, it seems to me, a righteous opportunity.

I’m especially honored to be associated with an event presented by American Baptist College. There is, of course, the institution’s role in what ABA alum, Congressman John Lewis, referred to as the Nonviolent Movement of America (which continues), but it’s library also contains the books and papers of my mentor, Harmon Wray, to whom I dedicated The Sacredness of Questioning Everything.

Funny Harmon story. After being rejected by Vanderbilt’s graduate program three times, I finally got in after, I assume, endearing myself to enough of the right people. My final charm offensive included a recommendation letter from Harmon (who, I believe, was the primary force in getting Vanderbilt Divinity students and faculty into incarcerated communities). He was happy for me, but, like his mentor Will Campbell, he was relentlessly wary of ever even accidentally crediting an institution (principality or power) with a modicum of righteousness. He had this to say: “You’ll be good for their brand.”

I’ve borrowed that eloquence in a wide variety of arrangements ever since.

Please tune in on April 1st.