Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Charleston and Billings

Charleston and Billings

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 3:35 pm by Fred Clark

Charleston and Billings 2012-06-24T15:35:51-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The day of the big vote came and, as an intern, I was assigned the task of checking off delegates' names after they had voted.

This was a Baptist gathering — the biennial convention of the convention — so the vote was largely symbolic. Baptists don't have a formal hierarchy. We don't really even have "denominations" per se. But Baptist churches are loosely organized in conventions where we work out the ways we cooperate on collective efforts like the commissioning of missionaries or the electing of officers for our pension boards or getting bulk discounts on hymnals and flannelgraphs.

We also vote on "statements of concern." These are public statements, but they're not binding on congregations or on the individuals who are members of those congregations. Their only real force is to say that on this day, in this place, X number of Baptists gathered and said Y with one voice.

But to say that something is symbolic is not to say that it is meaningless. Nonbinding, symbolic resolutions can mean a great deal — particularly if what they're resolving is to condemn who you are as a person.

This particular biennial gathering was abuzz over one especially controversial "statement of concern" on homosexuality. It called on Baptists to reject "the homosexual lifestyle, homosexual marriage, ordination of homosexual clergy or establishment of 'gay churches' or 'gay caucuses.'"

It also served, like most religious fights around this matter, as a proxy war over how and why we read the Bible. Proponents were pushing this statement, hard, as yet one more way to assert that the Bible is infallible — by which they meant, necessarily, that their interpretive scheme and the interpretations it produced were infallible.

I didn't agree with the way they were insisting the Bible must be read. Nor did I like their apparent willingness to treat gay people as nothing more than proxy pawns and cannon fodder for their culture war. The proponents said they were standing up for truth and righteousness, but they just seemed mean.

That meanness revealed itself further among the various speakers who rose in support of this resolution. Their short speeches tended to expand on the implicit fears and mythologies hinted at in the euphemistic statement itself. Those code phrases like "homosexual lifestyle" were unmasked further in all their ugliness.

The debate had the air of a witch hunt. I wanted to be elsewhere. I wanted to say something, but it wasn't my place or my role there to speak and I wouldn't have known what to say anyway.

So the day of the big vote I made an armband with a pink triangle on it and tied it to my sleeve. No one asked me what it meant, and I'm not sure how I would have answered if they had. I went about my intern business, making copies and distributing folders as the final debate on the resolution proceeded and no one said anything to me about it all day.

Well, almost no one. Coming back from lunch, I held open the door to the Charleston, W.Va., convention center for a group of delegates walking behind me. One woman smiled and started to say thank you, then suddenly puckered up into a scowl and just sort of grunted before pointedly walking to the other set of doors. By that point I'd forgotten I was even wearing the armband and it took me a moment to figure out what I'd done to offend her.

The conclusion of the debate was depressing and the vote itself even more so. I dutifully sat at a table off to the side, crossing off names as the delegates cast their votes and then, as soon as it was over, I ducked away to a back room where some of the other staff were awaiting the final tally.

"So what's the deal with the armband?" one of the execs asked me.

I tried to tell him. I talked about the occupation of Denmark during World War II, and how the king helped to protect the Jews of that country by donning the yellow star himself and urging all his people to do so too. (I didn't realize then that this story was just a legend — one which, as Snopes describes it, is "not true in its specifics" but "true enough in spirit.")

"So you wore that to show people that you think you're the king of Denmark?"

"No, I just … I thought I should …" I gave up and took it off and sat there, silently, until word came that they were posting the results of the vote on the big whiteboard in the hall.

A large crowd was gathered in a semicircular mob as the woman in charge of tracking such things wrote the final tally on the board: 1,124 yes; 539 no; 46 abstentions.

It wasn't even close. The anti-gay resolution had passed by a more than 2-to-1 margin. Meanness won. Maybe it was just symbolic, but it didn't symbolize anything good or anything I could feel proud to be a part of.

I just stood there, staring at the board as the crowd began to disperse — two thirds of them celebrating their latest culture-war victory, the other third looking sad.

"You took it off."

I realized someone was talking to me and turned to the old man. "The armband you were wearing," he said. He looked very tired. "You took it off."

I nodded.

"I just wanted to say thank you. That meant a lot."

"Oh …" And before I could think of anything to add to that he smiled a sad smile and walked off.

Symbolic, but not meaningless. But not adequate, either. Whatever it was I was trying to do didn't work mainly because, unlike the righteous Danes of that legend, I was trying to do it alone.

A few years after that Baptist gathering in Charleston, we got to see how this is done properly.

Billings, Mont., got hit with a wave of hate crimes — racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalism and bomb-threats directed at a local synagogue. This was during Hanukkah, and windows were broken in houses displaying the menorah.

So volunteers painted over graffiti. They printed up thousands of paper menorahs and almost everybody put them up in their windows.

And then they did this beautiful, beautiful thing:

The closer you look at that picture, the cooler it gets. Symbolic and not just meaningful, but power-ful.

This ad hoc response eventually formed into a movement of sorts called Not In Our Town.

The original Billings group is still active, and there's a national organization too, which I've linked to in the sidebar via the picture of the minaret and crescent moon, because this time it's not menorahs. (I originally posted that photo-link under the name of the group, "Not In Our Town," but then I worried that it looked like the opposite of what I was trying to convey there.)

I added that link because, just now in America, the lessons and example of Not In Our Town seem particularly important.

Previous Post

August 24, 2010

5. Bridges

Next Post

August 27, 2010 Fortune cookies

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Peter was staying where when he saw the vision of the great sheet with all the animals?

Select your answer to see how you score.

With Cornelius With Simon the Tanner Joppa Bethabara