On Religion

Baptists

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No, seriously: Jeff Foxworthy is convinced that God has a sense of humor

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No, seriously: Jeff Foxworthy is convinced that God has a sense of humor

As a rule, Jeff Foxworthy never refuses autograph requests, but the redneck comedy legend hit a wall during a funeral-home visitation for someone in his extended family.

"When you go to a funeral home, a lot of times there's more than one visitation going on," said Foxworthy, reached by telephone. "Across the hall, there was another one … and it was a rowdy bunch. In the break area they had coolers with cans of regular Budweiser. …

"At some point in the evening, somebody over there recognized me and they started coming into our side and wanting to get a picture made. You know, 'Can I get my picture with you?' … And one turned into three and that turned into seven or eight."

Then a woman arrived with a felt-tip marker and made a familiar request: "Can I ask you a favor?' … Can you sign my brother's tie?'"

Seeking an escape door back to his family, Foxworthy said: "'Where's your brother?' And she said, 'He's in here, in the casket.' And that's the only time I have ever denied somebody an autograph. … But asking me to climb up on the casket and autograph the guy's tie?"

The truth in this sobering parable is that humor often surfaces during life's big transitions, even when they involve sacred beliefs and traditions. That's one reason Foxworthy has never written "You Might Be A Redneck Churchgoer If" jokes.

Yes, audiences would yowl with laughter, especially in zip codes defined by faith, family, food and fishing. But for some people, religion jokes would cut too close to the bone, said Foxworthy.

After four decades in comedy, he said that he reminds himself, that "everybody I'm going to look at tonight is going through some kind of a struggle. It might be financial, it might be physical, it may be emotional. … I'm like, 'Just be kind to people.' You know? Have grace. You don't know their story. And I don't think humor makes people's struggles go away. But I do think … if you're able to laugh and set that burden down for a little bit, it almost, like, recharges you to where you can pick it back up and go deal with it."

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Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

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Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

The chaplain's prayer is posted near the chapel of Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas, a space shared by patients, families, visitors, doctors and the whole staff.

"Dear God, who makest thyself known in deeds rather than in mere words, deepen within us respect and appreciation for opportunities to serve. Thou has promised aid and blessing where men deal justly, show mercy, and serve humbly. Give us a faithfulness to our task, a patience in anxiety, added skill in work done. Add to our wills a readiness to follow thy guidance; to our hearts a compassion like unto the Great Physician who ministered in love and without favor."

The prayer was written by the Rev. Weldon Langley, the hospital's chaplain from 1960 to 1985. Langley continued part-time until 1993, completing four decades of chaplaincy work with Baptist institutions on the Texas Gulf Coast. He died in 2013 at the age of 96.

Langley's prayer has retained its strategic location as the hospital complex expanded into new, updated facilities.

"Weldon was a chaplain to the patients and their families, but he was also a pastor – year after year – to the doctors, nurses and everybody else," said the Rev. David Cross, who followed Langley at Baptist Hospital. While Langley focused on the needs of patients, "his insights into what makes life worth living made him a shepherd for everyone. He was a chaplain's chaplain."

Every year, the Global Chaplains Alliance dedicates the first Saturday of February to honoring chaplains. For me, it's impossible to discuss the ministry of chaplains without mentioning my "Uncle Weldon" Langley, who was very close to my father, the Rev. Bert Mattingly, who also had experience as a chaplain. My father died in 1999.

Chaplains work with hospitals, hospices, military units, legislatures, schools, sports teams, corporations, prisons and police and fire departments. Many, but not all, are ordained ministers. For most Americans, the chaplains they know best serve in the nation's 6,000 or more hospitals.

Pastors visit the sick and dying from their own congregations, noted Cross. For hospital chaplains, this is the heart of their work – every day.

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Jimmy Carter – a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

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Jimmy Carter -- a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

The young Jimmy Carter was a political nobody the first time he ran for governor of Georgia.

That long-shot 1966 effort failed, leaving him wrestling with doubts about his future and his faith. But Carter rallied, including years of work with Billy Graham's 1973 Atlanta Crusade. He also joined a small circle of Southern Baptists who travelled to the central Pennsylvania hills to witness to the unchurched.

"We had a wonderful religious experience," Carter told the Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "We had 18 people who accepted Christ that week, and we organized a church … before we left." The experience, he said, left him "the closest to Christ" that he had ever felt in his life.

That turning point, featured in the Baptist Press report marking the death of the 100-year-old former president, was a perfect example of the "born-again" faith that made Carter so mysterious to America's political establishment when he reached the White House in 1976. Carter's blend of Southern piety and stubborn political convictions would end up changing the role of American evangelicals in public life.

Truth is, Carter was part of two endangered groups – populist Southern Democrats and progressive Southern Baptists. In 1976, he fared well with evangelical voters, for a Democrat, but exit polls basically showed a toss-up. In 1980, many evangelicals rejected him and helped create Ronald Reagan's landslide win.

Carter's attempts to state his personal convictions against abortion, while backing legalized abortion, confused and then angered many evangelicals. Meanwhile, Carter's opposition to public funding for abortion helped create a revolt among Democrats, with Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts attempting to unseat him as the nominee.

Over time, Christian progressives would stress that Carter, as a Baptist, consistently stressed that he would clearly state his own beliefs, while rejecting political actions that he thought would use government power to promote specific religious doctrines.

"The United States' most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state," noted Amanda Tyler, leader of the progressive Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

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Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina: Leaning into faith after the flood

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Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina: Leaning into faith after the flood

Christmas is a good news, bad news situation in Pensacola, a tiny community in the Cane River Valley high in the mountains of North Carolina.

The good news is that Hurricane Helene flooding – which washed away almost everything at the town's crossroads – was followed by waves of volunteers and relief shipments from churches, nonprofits and businesses large and small. Most of the Laurel Branch Baptist Church survived, in part because a bus-sized RV was swept into the front of the sanctuary, which diverted some of the raging floodwaters.

The bad news? While conditions are improving, many face Christmas in badly damaged houses, loaned mobile homes or worse. It's hard to put a Christmas tree inside a tent. And what happens if early snows and winds cripple the patched-up power lines?

"We've got people giving us Christmas on top of Christmas on top of Christmas. That's not the issue. We appreciate the generosity, but we have problems that are bigger than presents under a tree," said the Rev. Bradley Boone, pastor of Concord Baptist Church in nearby Burnsville. That's the county seat of rugged Yancey County, the location of Mount Mitchell – the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River.

Pensacola is just one of many battered small towns along the matrix of rivers and creeks cut into the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Recent AccuWeather estimates for Helene damages have approached $250 billion. North Carolina lost at least 100 state bridges and more than 5,000 privately owned bridges.

The Boone roots run deep in the Cane River Valley, since he's in the seventh generation of a family tree topped by the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone and his brothers. Pastor Boone is a veteran leader in the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, which was the hub for rescue work during and after Helene, as well as the ongoing relief efforts.

Boone's own home was damaged by one of the 2,000 landslides in the North Carolina mountains. The road to his house looked like it had been bombed.

Pensacola is part of my own story, since I have three decades of ties there with family, friends and neighbors.

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Will religious leaders dare to address the smartphone crisis? Part I

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Will religious leaders dare to address the smartphone crisis? Part I

The scene unfolds whenever the Rev. Russell Moore asks people in the pews to read a passage of scripture as he begins a sermon.

At that point, "most people pull up their phones and go to their Bible app rather than their physical Bible," said Moore, editor of Christianity Today and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Once those digital screens light up, one thing leads to another, he said. People keep saying: "I have an hour where I come in and worship … and I'm distracted by – I'll get pings on my phone. I'm getting distracted by all of that."

Maybe churches should consider a strategic change in their worship plans, said Moore, in a podcast conversation with Jonathan Haidt, author of the bestseller "The Anxious Generation" and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University.

There has been a trend in some evangelical churches, noted Moore, to offer "scent-free services" in their schedules. By doing this, church leaders are saying: "We have some people with allergies, so we're going to have a service – you don't have to go to this service – but if you do, you're going to say, 'I'm not coming in wearing cologne or perfume or whatever.'"

Moving to the challenges of the digital age, Moore asked: "Do you think it could work to say: 'We're going to have specific worship services that are phone free. We're not mandating that everybody come in without phones – but for this service.' Would that do anything?"

Haidt interjected: "That's a great idea, because there are a couple of things going on here that are interesting, psychologically. One is that many of us have desires for how we want to be in the long run … but then when faced with temptation, we cave."

The key is whether clergy are willing to discuss screens-culture problems and then dare people to consider acting – together.

"I'll bet, if the pastor talks about this with the congregation and says, … 'Do you feel that your phone – your digital stuff – is distracting you in ways that you're not comfortable with?' Almost all hands are going to go up," said Haidt, a self-avowed Jewish atheist. The next question: "How many of you would like to really be present when worshipping, versus distracted?" Once again, he predicted, the "hands are going to go up."

The problems found in religious communities mirror those found in schools, where researchers are seeing patterns of anxiety, depression and digital addictions among the young. Millions of people feel trapped.

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Which candidate did Hell endorse? That isn't the real question facing believers right now

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Which candidate did Hell endorse? That isn't the real question facing believers right now

Forget the opinions of newspaper czars, the question many voters needed to know in this feverish White House race was simple: Who did Hell endorse?

Writing in the style "The Screwtape Letters" by Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, in which a veteran tempter lectures lesser demons, Dominick Baruffi didn't answer that question. But his satirical lecture by the Infernal National Convention chairman "Gurtfoot" stressed that this year's options were truly hellish.

"Almost everything said in front of a camera is said for the purposes of being seen while saying it, and any policy has become entirely secondary to their celebrity," wrote Baruffi, a Westminster Theological Seminary graduate who works as a counselor for troubled children.

His demon "Gurtfoot" added: "What are the humans to do but either spend their time quarreling over choosing 'the lesser of two evils' or permit themselves to drift into apathy and ignorance? Of course, both are perfectly acceptable outcomes in our eyes. … If we can continue to produce candidates such as these two halfwits in the years to come our victory is all but assured."

But the main goal of the "Screwtape Endorses a Candidate" essay was not to slam the Republican and Democratic candidates. Instead, Baruffi focused on an issue discussed by insiders – whether the acid of recent elections has warped how Christians view politics.

With President Donald Trump returning to the White House, progressive religious leaders will feel an immediate stab of disappointment. But believers on the left and right will soon have to face the fact that compromises are painful in a bitterly divided nation.

Thus, Baruffi's proud tempter noted: "The modern man now sees politics as repugnant, wholly undesirable and certainly unable to be discussed reasonably with others. …This is a great victory for our kind. The less the humans are made to think of the IDEA of politics, the more isolated and fractured they become, thus making them more vulnerable to our advances."

If millions of believers choose to flee politics, that will be tragic.

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What will happen if millions of religious believers sit out the 2024 election?

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What will happen if millions of religious believers sit out the 2024 election?

It was the rare Trump quote that caused groans as it rocketed through conservative media.

But this soundbite came from an upcoming memoir from former First Lady Melania Trump: "Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes. … I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

Former President Donald Trump had already softened his party's strong stance against abortion, leading satirists at The Babylon Bee to note: "Pro-Lifers Excited To Choose Between Moderate Amount Of Baby Murder And High Amount of Baby Murder."

To put that in ballot-box terms, a new study by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University claimed that 32 million church-going Christians are poised to sit out this election, many because they are disillusioned or believe the results will be rigged.

If the number of conservative believers going to polls plummets, that would clash with trends in the last four White House races, according to political scientist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University, author of "20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America."

"Half of the Christians are not going to vote. That's normal. That's old news. … We can expect those numbers to remain stable," said Burge, reached by telephone.

But there's another trend researchers expect to see again, he added. Yes, 80% of white evangelicals "voted for John McCain in 2008 and 80% have been voting for Donald Trump. We can expect that to happen again. It's what they do."

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That 2024 reality: Protestant pastors facing pressures linked to partisan politics?

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That 2024 reality: Protestant pastors facing pressures linked to partisan politics?

Eight years ago, Lifeway Research asked Protestant pastors who they planned to support in the presidential election and only 3% declined to answer.

That number didn't change much in 2020, when 4% declined. But things changed recently, when almost a quarter of the pastors refused to voice their choice in the 2024 White House race.

Among those who tipped their hand, 50% said they would vote for former President Donald Trump and 24% backed Vice President Kamala Harris. The intriguing question was why – in a tense, tight election – so many clergy insisted that they were undecided or needed to remain silent for some other reason.

"Whether these pastors are mum because their vote might differ from the majority view in their congregations or because they are genuinely undecided was not clear," noted Mark Wingfield, of Baptist News Global. "Nationally, as few as 3% of all voters are considered truly undecided this election year, a much lower share than in previous years."

In the document explaining the survey, Lifeway executive director Scott McConnell noted that how pastors define "their own political party preference" is consistently the best way to predict their voting-booth decisions.

Half of the Protestants in the survey identified as Republicans, while 18% were Democrats and 25% said they were political independents. Clergy leading conservative flocks – evangelical, Baptist, nondenominational or Pentecostal – were most likely to be Republicans. Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and clergy in other progressive mainline churches were most likely to be Democrats. Also, Black pastors were among those most likely to back Harris (71%) and the least likely to support Trump (5%).

Thus, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 82% of white evangelicals – clergy and laity – planned to vote for Trump, while 86% of Black Protestants supported Harris. White mainline Protestants were more evenly divided, with 58% ready to back Trump.

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Southern Baptists wade into the troubled waters of religious liberty – once again

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Southern Baptists wade into the troubled waters of religious liberty -- once again

In the midst of heated debates about female pastors and the morality of in vitro fertilization, the national Southern Baptist Convention recently passed a religious liberty resolution that – in terms of Baptist history – was rather ordinary.

But these are not ordinary times in American life.

"Messengers" from autonomous SBC congregations resolved: "That we encourage and support robust Christian engagement in the public square, including individual Christians who pursue elected or appointed office in order to influence government by living out their Christian worldview while advocating Christian morals with respect for the consciences of all people."

The "resolved" clauses then became much more specific.

"That we oppose any effort to establish a state religion of any nation, including the United States of America; that we refute the idea that God has commanded any state to establish any religion or any denomination; and we reject any government coercion or enforcement of religious belief, including blasphemy laws. …

"That we oppose any effort to use the people and the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention to establish Christianity as the state religion of the United States of America."

During debates on convention-floor debates, that blunt line in Resolution 2 – opposing efforts to establish a Christian "state religion" – was challenged by the Rev. Justin Ramey of Crider Baptist Church in Eddyville, Kentucky.

"What does that mean?", he asked. "Should we remove 'In God We Trust' from our currency? Does it mean we should remove 'under God' from our pledge? I'm grateful that our government at one time at least acknowledged Christianity as our foundation and encouraged it."

The final Resolution 2 text failed to include two important words in today's fiery debates about religion in American life, according to Mark Wingfield of the progressive Baptist News Global website.