I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.
All about Howard Thurman (1899-1981)
Born in Florida in 1899, Howard Thurman was raised primarily by his grandmother—a former slave. Even as a child, he showed signs of a vibrant spiritual life early, and would read the Bible to her. Thurman tells the story in his most famous work: Jesus and the Disinherited, how his mother would not permit him to read anything by the Apostle Paul (besides 1 Corinthians 13) because of the abusive theology that the white preachers would perpetrate on her and other enslaved people—biblical mandates to be “good slaves.”
Thurman grew as a pastor and academic, and became a man many people call a mystic. He had a significant bond with Quaker leader and pacifist Rufas Jones of Haverford College (the key leader of the organization that became the American Friends Service Committee). That connection moved Thurman to lead a delegation to meet with Mohandas Gandhi.
As a theologian, Thurman was a pioneer in articulating Jesus’ mission of liberation for oppressed people. He taught that “if you ever developed a cultivated will with spiritual discipline the flame of freedom would never perish.” He served as one of the pastors of the first intentionally interracial church in the U.S. — The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. Through his friendship with Martin King, Thurman became a spiritual adviser and mentor to his son, Martin Luther King, Jr. Howard Thurman is usually credited with developing the nonviolence theories and tactics that were central to the Civil Rights Movement. He wrote over twenty books besides speeches and articles before he died on this day in 1981.
Listening to Howard Thurman
Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace. —from Meditations of the Heart
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.
During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.
Listen. Thurman was a good listener to God and others, and to his own genius. You have all those resources today, as well. Listen to them and see if you are encouraged and directed.
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
All about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his twin sister were born in a Prussian city (now in Poland) in 1906. His family moved to Berlin a few years later. Bonhoeffer earned a doctorate in theology at the age of 21 from one if the most prestigious universities in the world at the time – the University of Berlin. He began to work as a pastor and also continued to pursue academic studies which took him to Spain and then to Harlem. Dissatisfied with the lack of rigor at Union Seminary, where he was teaching and doing post graduate work, he became a disciple and Sunday school teacher at Abyssinian Baptist Church, where his love for spirituals developed along with his deep desire for the Church to change the world.
Two years after his return to Germany, the Nazi Party rose to power. Bonhoeffer was overtly critical of the regime and a resister from the beginning. While Hitler and the Nazis infiltrated and found a stronghold in the German Church, Bonhoeffer was building something new in Germany through the Confessing Church (wiki). After only a few months living under Nazi control, Bonhoeffer moved to London to work on international ecumenical work. He was very frustrated with the state of the German church.
Two years later, rather than going to study non-violent civil disobedience under Gandhi, he returned to Germany, responding to the repeated pleas and demands of Swiss theologians and Karl Barth, who’s battle cry, “Revelation, not religion!” would remain a basic element of Bonhoeffer’s theology to the end. Barth was sent back to Switzerland and Bonhoeffer found the Confessing Church to be under fire by the Nazis. He soon lost his credentials to teach because he was a “pacifist and enemy of the state.” He began underground seminaries and further resisted.
Bonhoeffer became more involved in direct resistance and was arrested in 1943. He was part of a group that was responsible both for attempts at liberating Jews and attempting to assassinate Hitler. His pacifism has been widely written about, especially in light of this glaring contradiction. In the last 10 years historians have disputed the assumption that Bonheoffer deserted his pacifism for the practicality of assassination. See Mark Theissen’s book: Bonhoeffer the Assassin?: Challenging The Myth, Recovering His Call To Peacemaking (2013).
Dietrich was executed on this day in 1945, two weeks before US soldiers liberated the camp where he was imprisoned. He is largely considered a martyr for the faith and for peace, and for being a Nazi resister.
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
More
Want to watch a small documentary about his life? Here is a [link] Another from 2003 [link] One premiered in 2024 [link]
Bonhoeffer applied himself to unmasking the lies of his culture and the ideologies that took God’s place. It was not easy, since the church was generally in line with them. In spite of state threat and lack of support from the church, he took risks to teach the truth, even moving back to Germany when he would have been safer elsewhere.
That kind of courage is demonstrated in the Bible repeatedly by people whose loves are trained on God. What threat do you feel from those you know and from the great “other” of the powers that be when it comes to expressing your faith in word and deed? Pray for courage. Pray that we build a confessing church in a culture of lies.
On April 3, 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., second from right, stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., a day before he was assassinated at approximately the same place. From left: Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, King and Ralph Abernathy.
You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
All about Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Dr. King was a prophet and an apostle. Born into a pastor’s family in Atlanta, GA, He grew into a scholar, preacher, and community organizer. In 1954, when King was 25, he became a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama. The next year, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began and King was mixing it up with many people who became prominent leaders in the American Civil Rights Movement.
Martin Luther King is famous for his speeches and published works. His faith drew tens of thousands into passionate civil engagement through marches, rallies, prayer, worship, and non-violent civil disobedience. He earned global respect of people from all walks of life. His application of tactics for non-violence change were acts of transformation rooted in the way of Jesus.
King caused controversy in the movement because he was drawn to what he believed were two key issues that needed addressing: ending the Vietnam War and economic rights for Black people. Many opposed him because his “branching out” weakened chances of getting more effective laws in place to protect other civil liberties and alienated some sympathetic whites—notably elected officials.
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis when he was 39 years old. His legacy continues to inspire and urge people to work for justice.
Quotes:
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Find out about the ongoing struggle. Start with the ACLU. Read Kimberlee Johnson’s article about the church’s experience after the murder of George Floyd [link].
Ask God how to apply the tactic of nonviolent transformation in this era of polarized politics and overt racist rhetoric. Is there a way you can make the effort it takes to get over the color line and love?
On the Logone River. By YACOUB DOUNGOUS – Own work
Bible
There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. – Hebrews 11:35-40
All about Moussa Gana (1920-1975)
In 1972 The first and only president of Chad, Francois Tombalbaye, changed his name to N’garta. He was following the example of Mobutu Sese Seko of what was now called Zaire in a program called authentcite. In his quest to Africanize Chad, he renamed Fort-Lamy N’Djamena and began to force the civil service to undergo yondo, initiation rites customary among a minority of his own ethnic group, the Sara people.
Moussa Gana was a vocal Christian opponent of Tombalbaye’s policies. On April 1 of 1975, local law enforcement authorities arrested him. Gana told his guards, “For more than forty years since I have been in this land, I have never offended you. My work was to announce the Good News of God so that you would abandon your sinful ways and receive God’s salvation. But you refused to listen and now you want to kill me. ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’” He then put himself in the hole the soldiers had dug for his grave and asked one of his cousins to give him a blanket. The soldiers threw Gana a Bible and buried him alive, declaring that his God had been buried with him. Yondo initiates danced on Gana’s grave to celebrate their victory. Witnesses claimed Gana could be heard for three days groaning under the dirt shoveled on him.
When he was young, Moussa Gana went to Nigeria, where there were many more opportunities than in his homeland in the most southern region of Chad, where French colonials forced the locals to cultivate cotton. In Nigeria, Gana became a Protestant Christian. Between 1930 and 1935 he came back to Chad and settled in in birthplace, Madana.
He is considered to be the first missionary to the area. His mission was completely African and not sponsored by any foreigners. The more successful he was, the more local chiefs and spiritual authorities criticized Gana for introducing a foreign religion that threatened to destroy their own beliefs, The people were already threatened by the aggressive imposition of Islam coming form the north. This demarcation line between Islam and Christianity is still an active source of conflict today.
At that time, the village believed the nearby Pende (which they named Lao or “dangerous”) River was inhabited by a spirit and anyone who fished or bathed in it would die. Moussa Gana and his fellow believers decided to organize a fishing ceremony in the Lao. The whole village considered this act to be a provocation. But the organizers believed the Bible taught that humans were given authority over Creation (Genesis 1v.28). When the day came, very early in the morning, the church gathered on the river’s edge and sang a war song like the children of Israel during the conquest of the city of Jericho: Ji ted ro Lao ge ri Jesu Kristi (we conquer Lao in the name of Jesus Christ). As they went back and forth several times along the riverbank, many hippos came out of the water and fled.
Moussa then ordered the Christians to start fishing and they did so for three days. During this time, the village waited in vain for Lao to cast a curse on the Christians. On the fourth day, the whole village also started fishing. This great event led many people to follow Jesus. Many other villages in the Madana region became Christians. It was the beginning of decades of fruitful church building.
The Tombalbaye changed his political party to become the National Movement for Cultural and Social Revolution (MNRCS). Everything was to return to its African roots. Western culture was to be renounced and traditional dances and practices were to be revived, the yondo was central to this. The goal was to transform the mentality of Chadians so they could take responsibility for their destiny and achieve harmonious development. It was a furtherance of Tombalbaye’s brutal reign.
At a conference held in Doyaba (in his homeland, Sarh), President Tombalbaye accused Christians of being the lackeys of white missionaries: “Every Christian is required to go to initiation, because an uninitiated man is imperfect. However, I will see the opponents, if they will be capable of carrying the cross of Jesus Christ.” In December of 1973 an order suspended all activities of the Mid-Mission Church in Chad. All Christians were to be initiated, by force, if necessary. Those who refused to submit were mistreated or buried alive. Moussa Gana was one of the latter.
Ten days later, a coup d’état broke out and President N’garta Tombalbaye was killed.
More
Mennonites learning from present-day Christians in Chad [link]
It is surprising that the story of Moussa Gana survives. There is very little history documented of the people just south of the Sahel, in some of the poorest regions of the world. Standing up to authoritarian regimes continues to strain the everyday lives of Christians all over the world. Moussa is an inspiration for us.
This map above, from the Lausanne Committee, demonstrates the demarcation line Moussa Gana was already experiencing in the 1930’s. The desert has been moving south. Power hungry movements have moved into the chaos and seized power from weak , impoverished governments. Southern Chad, home of Moussa, found its precious water sources despoiled by Western mining interests. Pray for the church, there; they are under constant pressure to hide out and are generally disorganized.
The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world.
Everyone will praise him!
His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring,
with plants springing up everywhere.
All about Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
Until he was 62 years old, Óscar Romero y Galdámez served as priest, bishop, and finally Archbishop of San Salvador in the Central American nation of El Salvador. On Monday, March 24, 1980, Romero was shot through the heart while lifting the chalice as part of the communion meal. The day before, in a sermon broadcast by radio, Romero called on Salvadoran soldiers to disobey orders that would contradict a life in Christ―namely carrying out the government’s repression and denial of basic human rights.
His appointment to Archbishop was seen as a “safe” move by conservative elements of the church and the government, while the progressive priests were disappointed. The latter were involved in criticizing the systemic sin ruining their country and were open with their teaching and activism surrounding class conflict, sometimes implicating the Catholic Church as part of the oppressor class. Their worldview, and later Romero’s, became widely known as Liberation Theology.
After a friend of Romero’s was assassinated for his “subversive” activities in 1977, Romero was astonished at the lack of help in the investigation he received from the authorities. He felt a call to follow his late friend, Rutilio Grande, in his work and potentially into death. His letter to President Jimmy Carter petitions “His Excellency” as a Christian and as someone who cares about human rights to cut off military aid to the Salvadoran government because it would violently carry out the interests of the military oligarchy not the people. After Romero’s death the U.S. government increased military aid, having previously restricted it to humanitarian.
Romero wrote: “We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”―from The Violence of Love (read it online at Romero Trust)
More
Nice video from the Martyr’s Prayer Project [link]
The Salvadoran Church was instrumental in ending the country’s civil war. They risked their lives for the gospel and stood in solidarity with the poor, often at the cost of family ties and livelihoods. The United States was intimately involved in the repressive policies and work of the death squads. Everybody, in El Salvador and the United States, had a difficult time seeing the evil, even with people dying around them. Consider what evil you accept as normal.
May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. — Matthew 6:10 NRSVUE
All about Gordon Cosby (1918-2013)
On this day in 2013 Gordon Cosby died at the age of 95, just a few years after retiring.
In 1944 Cosby helped invade Utah Beach on D-Day, where he witnessed enormous loss and served those injured and dying. From then on he was convinced of the futility of war and convicted to help the church equip people to make the transition into what is after death.
He planted the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. in 1946. By 1953 the group had become more official and had also purchased land in Maryland to build Dayspring, a retreat lodge for silence and rest. Over the years, nine faith communities and several notable non-profits formed with Gordon and his wife Mary serving as catalysts. The idea was to keep the congregation small so people could go deep and be necessary.
As an activist, Cosby participated in numerous non-violent direct actions as well as creating space for people to organize for justice. In 1960, his church began the first Christian coffeehouse, The Potter’s House, as a place to get the church further into needed social spaces in the world rather than being cloistered. Cosby led people to BE the church for over sixty years, beginning successful and lasting ministries for foster kids, the homeless, people with HIV/AIDS, housing creation, and job training, The Church of the Savior has been a pioneer in numerous inward practices and disciplines such as retreating and linking between urban and rural areas, as well as on the forefront of outward practices such as racial reconciliation and local justice work.
Jim Wallis of Sojourners recounts (link below)
Gordon Cosby never needed or wanted to be out front or become a famous public figure. He could have spoken across the country, and was often invited to do so. But he instead decided that his own vocation was to stay with a relatively small group of people trying to “be the church” in Washington, D.C.: the Church of the Savior, which has produced more missions and ministries, especially with the poor, than any church I know of anywhere in the country — even the huge mega-churches who capture all the fame. He never…went on television, talked to presidents, planted more churches, built national movements, or traveled around the world. He just inspired everybody else to do all those things and much more. And the world came to him.
Cosby has been credited as a mentor or inspiration by countless ministries, leaders, activists, pastors, and churches over the decades, including churches we have served. In a sermon in 1989, Cosby said,
Faith is trusting the flow and reveling in the view and being carried beyond all existing boundaries. Faith is being excited about the final destination, even when the destination is mystery. When Jesus says, ‘Believe in God, believe also in me,’ he is saying, Get into the stream with us. It is a stream of pure grace and mercy. Go into its depths and find us there.
Jim Wallis on Cosby [link] and his interview with Mary [link]
Frontline article on the Church of the Savior [link]
Elizabeth O’Connor was a staff member of Church of the Savior for 40 years. Her classic book Journey Inward, Journey Outward articulates Cosby’s vision. Here is a seminarian’s bio.
Here is a detailed history of the church and Cosby’s development. [link]
What do we do with this?
Gordon Cosby wrote several books. His Handbook for Mission Groupswas influential in how our former church decided to form our compassion teams. You might want to check it out.
What do you think of Cosby’s conviction to stay local? He poured himself into his territory in Washington D.C. and into the people of his church. He resisted the fame game. How do you see yourself? Do you long to be more honored than you are? Do you respect people who are more honored more for being famous than for what they do?
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. —2 Corinthians 10:5
All about Fred Rogers (1928-2003)
Fred Rogers, television pioneer and gentle subversive for Jesus, was born in 1928 in Latrobe, PA. He went to a local high school and studied piano at Dartmouth and at Rollins College in Florida, graduating in 1951. While taking a break from college to visit his parents, he saw their newest favorite gadget: the television. He had mixed feelings about the programming, but he was inspired to use the powerful medium for something wonderful.
Rogers married Sara Byrd in 1952; they had two sons. He got one of his first jobs working at a local Pittsburgh community television station, WQED. He became one of the pioneers in the field as part of a team who improvised the Children’s Corner—also serving as puppeteer.While developing meaningful content for kids, Rogers also finished his Masters of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. After he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church USA in 1963, the church charged him to create quality children’s programming.
He moved to Toronto in 1963 to play Mister Rogers in a show for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Here he further developed several characters and songs that would become famous. That 15-minute program was called Misterogers. In 1966, he acquired the rights to various elements of the show and moved back to Pittsburgh to work with WQED. He began Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, for which he wrote most of the scripts, the music, played several of the characters. In 1968, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) began broadcasting Mister Rogers Neighborhood all across the country. Rogers hosted the program until 2000.
During its run of daily episodes, Rogers hardly embellished his offscreen personality (besides the puppets, of course) because he thought authenticity was a gift to kids. He did not endorse any products and only served as a spokesperson for a few non-profits dealing with education. He visited children in the Pittsburgh hospitals regularly and volunteered inside a state prison. When PBS’ funding was under fire by a Senate Committee in 1969, Rogers gave a key testimony that saved the network.
The show was very simple and did not include fast-paced action or over-stimulating animations, which Rogers called “bombardment.” Wearing the famous zip-up cardigans knitted by his mother, Mister Rogers talked directly to his audience imaginatively and engagingly. He “took them” on field trips to see how crayons were made and explored themes of being afraid, going to school, how good it feels to be able to control your temper, teaching kids that they have worth and to love themselves and others. He brought in various guests including several recurring characters. In each episode a trolley would come into his living room and take the audience to the land of make believe. His opening and closing songs, as well as the changing of jackets to sweaters and shoes to sneakers helped us all feel like he actually was our neighbor.
Rogers won 4 Emmys—plus a Daytime Emmy lifetime achievement award. The acceptance speech for the lifetime achievement (given mostly to talk show hosts & soap opera stars) became famous, as he used 10 seconds of silence for the crowd and the viewers to think about the people who loved them into being who they are [link]. Rogers was given numerous other honors over the years including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (@ 21:22) and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame (great speech).
Rogers was known and admired for his calm and quirky personality and a devoted faith. He was known to swim every day, ate a vegetarian diet, and was red-green colorblind. Shortly after the last shows aired in 2001, Fred Rogers was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The operations were not successful, and he died at home surrounded by his wife and family on this day in 2003, just before he turned 75.
Fred Rogers gently infiltrated the most powerful means of communication of his time and used it to relentlessly advance his example of love and his background message: the teachings of Jesus. He even took the thoughts of the Senate and the Emmy Awards presentation “captive.” The scripture for today calls us to be so clever and so bold. How do you see your role in your environment? Chances there are arguments and opinions raised against the revelation of God in Jesus. What is your strategy for getting the love and truth of Jesus into the mix? Pray about that.
Favorite verse: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. — John 3:16
On his grave marker: Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6
All about Billy Graham (1918-2018)
Billy Graham preached the gospel of Christ in person to more than 80 million people and to countless millions more through television and film. Nearly 3 million responded to the invitation he offered at the end of his sermons. He became the pastor to presidents. From the 1950s, he was a fixture on the lists of the ten most admired people in America or the world.
Graham was born near Charlotte, North Carolina. He first attended Bob Jones College, but he found both the climate and Dr. Bob’s strict rule intolerable. He then followed a friend to Florida Bible Institute, where he began preaching and changed his denominational affiliation from Associate Reformed Presbyterian to Southern Baptist. To round out his intensive but academically narrow education, he moved north to Wheaton College, where he met and married Ruth Bell, who was born in China to a medical missionary. There he took his first and only position as a local pastor.
In 1945 Graham became the field representative of an evangelistic mission known as Youth for Christ International. In this role, he toured the United States and much of Europe, teaching local church leaders how to organize youth rallies.
Billy Graham’s first evangelistic crusade was held in the Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan from September 13–21, 1947. 6,000 people attended. He gained further exposure and stature through nationally publicized crusades in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, and other major cities from 1949 to 1952, and through his Hour of Decision radio program, begun in 1950. He amazed people with successful meetings in London (1954) and New York (1957). He founded a magazine, Christianity Today (1956) and launched nationwide TV broadcasts (1957).
As Graham’s prestige and influence grew, so did his critics. Fundamentalists felt his cooperation with churches affiliated with the National and World Council of Churches (the “ecumenical movement”) signaled a compromise with the corrupting forces of modernism. Bob Jones accused him of peddling a “discount type of religion.”
The Madison Square Garden Crusade in 1957 marked another significant development in Graham’s ministry. At a time when sit-ins and boycotts were stirring racial tensions in the South, Graham invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead the Garden congregation in prayer. Graham never felt comfortable with King’s confrontational tactics; but he consistently declared that “Christian racist” is an oxymoron.
During presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, to whom he had close and frequent access, Graham often drew fire from critics who felt he ought to be bolder in supporting the civil rights movement and opposing the war in Vietnam. The normally complimentary Charlotte Observer noted in 1971 that even some of Graham’s fellow Southern Baptists felt he was “too close to the powerful and too fond of the things of the world, [and] have likened him to the prophets of old who told the kings of Israel what they wanted to hear.” After the Watergate scandal, Graham drew back a bit and began to warn against the temptations and pitfalls that lie in wait for religious leaders who enter the political arena (Rod agrees). When the movement known as the Religious Right surfaced in the late 1970s, he declined to participate in it, warning fellow Christian leaders to “be wary of exercising political influence” lest they lose their spiritual impact [NPR story].
As Graham came to sense the breadth of his influence he was determined to shape the direction of contemporary Christianity. That determination manifested itself in several major international conferences sponsored or largely underwritten by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). In particular, the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin and the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, helped evangelicals to see themselves as a worldwide Christian force.
Few, if any, developments in Billy Graham’s ministry have been more surprising or controversial than his success in penetrating the Iron Curtain. Beginning in 1978, virtually every Soviet-controlled country progressively gave him privileges that no other churchman, including the most prominent and politically docile native religious leaders, had ever received.
Graham’s proudest achievements may be two BGEA-sponsored conferences in Amsterdam in 1983 and 1986. As a sign of Billy Graham’s change-embracing spirit, approximately 500 attendees at the 1986 meeting were women, and Pentecostals outnumbered non-Pentecostals.
Quotes
When God gets ready to shake America, he may not take the Ph.D. and the D.D. God may choose a country boy … and I pray that he would!
I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the gospel of Christ, if there are no strings attached to my message. … The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love. Christians are not limited to any church. The only question is: are you committed to Christ?
After onset of Parkinson’s Disease: “My mind tells me I ought to get out there and go, but I just can’t do it. But I’ll preach until there is no breath left in my body. I was called by God, and until God tells me to retire, I cannot. Whatever strength I have, whatever time God lets me have, is going to be dedicated to doing the work of an evangelist, as long as I live.”
God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.
God has given us two hands – one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.
I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don’t think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.
Every human being is under construction from conception to death.
Who was Billy Graham? The first televangelist? The inventor of the modern Evangelicals? The unwitting founder of the Religious Right? A tool of immoral presidents? A huge detriment to the work of local churches? Or was he simply an evangelist and prophet using the tools of his age? He is surely a fascinating man worth pondering.
Graham boiled down the message of the gospel and served it hot all over the world. Millions responded and thousands of preachers followed his example. Do you know someone who became a Christian by attending a crusade or watching him on TV? We do. Looking at his huge reputation might diminish his integrity, looking at his singular impact might elevate it. That might be the same with most of us.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish. — John 1:14 (The Message)
All about Richard Twiss (1954-2013)
Richard, Tayoate Ob Najin (He Stands With His People), was born on the Rosebud Reservation (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) in South Dakota in 1954. His father was a member of the Oglala Sioux from Pine Ridge Reservation, also in South Dakota. After his parents separated when he was seven years old, Richard moved to Denver, CO with his mother during a period of Indian urbanization (see the Federal Indian Relocation Act). They eventually moved to Oregon where Richard finished high school. They made visits back to the Rez, staying in touch with relatives.
Twiss moved back to Rosebud to attend his first year of college at Sinte Gleska (Spotted Tail) University where he became involved with the radical politics of the American Indian Movement (AIM). He participated in the famous takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in 1971. He wandered and experimented with many substances. One night in 1974 on the island of Maui, Jesus responded to Richard’s desperate prayer. There began a transformation that was coming into its fullness at the end of his life as a Lakota follower of the Jesus Way.
Two years after meeting Jesus, he married Katherine (Scottish and Norwegian decent) while living in an intentional community in Alaska. Together, they had four sons. Richard served as pastor of a mostly white church (their family being the notable exception) in Washington State for over a decade. While there, Richard felt a nudging of the Holy Spirit. Across the US and Canada and around the world, Indigenous People were sloughing off the colonial residue that lifted up dominant cultural norms above other God-endowed cultures such as their own. This residue is typified by the U.S. policy of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” that resulted in the abuses of the residential schools.
“to work for the well-being of our Native people by advancing cultural formation, indigenous education, spiritual awareness and social justice connected to the teachings and life of Jesus, through an indigenous worldview framework.”
Richard taught and spoke in many contexts, local to the Portland area, around the U.S. and the world. Richard not only taught about the wonders of creation but also the negative impact of Christian mission in the U.S. — all with his disarming sense of humor. He received a doctorate from Asbury Theological Seminary in 2011 (Intercultural Studies) and authored two books One Church, Many Tribes: following Jesus the Way God Made You and Rescuing Theology from the Cowboys: An Emerging Indigenous Expression of the Jesus Way in North America as well as many articles. His contributions to contextualizing the gospel have been a source of healing and inspiration for Indians and non-natives.
Dr. Twiss did not live without critics of his work from within native communities and from Christians. Toward the end of his life, he often talked about the next generation carrying on the work. He had a knack for expressing love and including people. His capacity to forgive astonished many but did not dissuade him from working for justice or inspiring people to fall deeper in love with Jesus and walk in His Way.
In 2013, while in Washington, DC to participate in the National Prayer Breakfast, Richard suffered a massive heart attack when he was just 58 years old. He died three days later on February 9th, surrounded by his wife and their four sons.
Richard Twiss often received credit for the work and wisdom of his community because of his notoriety and charisma. He thought that was funny. He did not promote himself nearly as much as he did the movement. His goal was to build the community. He gathered people, encouraged them to love and give of themselves to fulfill a vision of reconciliation, to move toward what his close friend Randy Woodley describes as “the community of creation.” He always tried to speak from a place of community, and did not strive to be a celebrity as much as demonstrate the Lakota value of being Ikce Wicasa, a common human person.
More
Video of Richard’s keynote speech at CCDA 2011 [link]
Wiconi International’s Youtube page, several short pieces [link]
Red Letter Christians’ tribute page to Richard [link]
What do we do with this?
Richard Twiss did not have an intact family or an easy youth, yet Jesus called him, healed him, and made him an influential proponent of radical Christianity. Consider how Jesus is calling you.
This ancestor in faith may have introduced you to many aspects of American culture that were unfamiliar to you. Spend some time learning and allow your heart to become large enough to include brother and sisters unlike you.
“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart”
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. — Romans 10:8-17
All about John R. Mott (1865-1955)
John Mott stood before the fabled 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference and said,
“It is a startling and solemnizing fact that even as late as the twentieth century, the Great Command of Jesus Christ to carry the Gospel to all mankind is still so largely unfulfilled. … The church is confronted today, as in no preceding generation, with a literally worldwide opportunity to make Christ known.”
His evangelistic passion made Mott his generation’s most popular evangelist to university students and the promoter of the emerging ecumenical movement.
Mott was born in New York but raised by parents who settled in Iowa. They nurtured his faith and duty. While he was in college at Cornell University, C. T. Studd, the famous cricket-player-turned-evangelist struck him with these words: “Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” That same year, at the 1886 Northfield Student Conference led by Dwight L. Moody, Mott stepped up and became one of the 100 men who volunteered for foreign missions.
Mott’s destiny, however, lay not in foreign missions but in evangelizing college students and inspiring others to foreign mission work. He became college secretary of the YMCA in 1888, when the organization was consciously evangelical and aggressively evangelistic. That same year, he helped organize the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), which he led for thirty years. By the time he spoke at SVM’s 1951 convention, over 20,000 volunteers had gone to mission fields through its efforts.
Mott’s energies could not be bound by one or even two such organizations, no matter their scope. In 1895 he helped found the World Student Christian Association and traveled some 2 million miles to further the federation’s dream: to “unite in spirit as never before the students of the world,” and so hasten the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer, “that all may be one.” On every continent he visited, he established immediate rapport with students and church leaders, who flocked to hear him speak. His reputation for irenic yet impassioned appeal for dedication to the kingdom of God grew; heads of state sympathetic to his mission honored him upon arrival and consulted him in private.
In 1893 he helped found the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, and in 1910, he helped pull together and chair the massive Edinburgh Missionary Conference—its 1,200 delegates represented 160 mission boards or societies.
All these movements, and a few more with which Mott was involved, eventually blossomed at the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. Mott was not only officially named honorary president at the inaugural session, he has come to be remembered as the “father of the ecumenical movement.”
By the time Mott was 32, he was called “Protestantism’s leading statesman,” at 58, the “father of the young people of the world,” and at age 81, in 1946, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In an era when liberals and fundamentalists debated fiercely, Mott took a middle view: “Evangelism without social work is deficient; social work without evangelism is impotent.” Still, evangelism was his first love. The title of his bestselling 1900 book is The Evangelization of the World in This Generation, and in his last public appearance, he said, “While life lasts, I am an evangelist.”
More
Mott used as an object lesson for the men’s group — “you must rest”:
A participant’s description of John Mott’s chairmanship at the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference:
When he himself addresses an assembly, [he] knits and kindles the craggy tender face; the voice vibrates with fierce emphases and stresses. … The single words seem literally to fall from his lips (the trite expression is for once justified), finished off with a deliberation that never slurs one final consonant, but on the contrary gives that consonant the duty of driving its word home. And as for the sentences also—the conclusion of each, instead of dropping in tone, increases to a sort of defiant sforzando, which, when his earnestness is at its height, can be terrific.
History from the Nobel Committee:
Friendship among Christians Brings Peace
The Peace Prize for 1946 was awarded to the head of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), the American John Raleigh Mott, who according to the Nobel Committee had contributed to the creation of a peace-promoting religious brotherhood across national boundaries.
Mott grew up in a settler family in Iowa, strongly influenced by Puritan ideals, and took a bachelor’s degree in history at Cornell University. As a student Mott received a religious call to spread the Gospel, after which he devoted most of his life to the YMCA, to missionary activities, and ecumenical work.
As general-secretary of the International Committee of the YMCA and president of YMCA’s World Committee, Mott sought to advance understanding and reconciliation. He organized youth exchanges, set up study groups, and arranged international youth camps. Mott was at the same time a leading figure in the field of international Christian student and missionary cooperation, and took part during both World Wars in relief work for prisoners of war. He criticised the oppression of colonial peoples and was a pioneer in the struggle against racial discrimination.
John R. Mott crossed all sorts of lines to forge alliances. He carried a gospel of reconciliation all over the world and became famous for his good will and trustworthy character. He is a good example of the best of Evangelicalism and the “muscular” Christianity of the early 20th century. Mott was a tireless proponent of a vision that “all would be one” in Christ. What do you see as a vision worth devoting your future to?
