What’s wrong with Christianity is what's wrong with politics: both are corrupted by money. A
minister has to please the congregation in order to keep that collection plate
full. Jesus didn’t give a rat’s ass what anybody thought—he spoke from his
heart. He was, of course, crucified for his trouble but that’s not the point.
Or is it?
Here’s an example of Christ-like fearlessness in the early Sixties, from Taylor
Branch’s great history of the civil rights movement:
In Baltimore, after nearly a decade of persistent
negotiations, the city’s white and Negro Baptist preachers came together to
discuss the role of the church in a time of racial tension. The meeting itself
was a historic event, a gathering of uneasy strangers, and for the occasion the
preachers of each race selected a representative to speak about their common
religious heritage. The Negro preachers chose Vernon Johns, hoping that he
would dazzle the white preachers with his learning. Indirectly, Johns was an
employee of some of the white Baltimore preachers. His Maryland Baptist Center,
which offered adult education to Negro preachers, was a kind of missionary
program sponsored jointly by the white Southern Baptists and the National
Baptist Convention.
On the appointed day, some 150 preachers met for lunch at the Seventh Baptist Church. There were no disputes over seating arrangements, the blessing of the food, the singing of “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” or the meal itself. But as the chosen white preacher developed his sermon on the theme of Christian salvation, of being “washed in the blood of the Lamb,” Vernon Johns began to twitch noticeably in his seat. When the white man finished, Johns stood up abruptly. He did not wait to be introduced, nor did he begin with the effusive salutations that had been established as the order of the day. “The thing that disappoints me about the Southern white church is that it spends all of its time dealing with Jesus after the cross, instead of dealing with Jesus before the cross,” he growled, and a number of the Negro preachers already were sinking inwardly toward oblivion.
Johns turned to the white preacher who had just sat down. “You didn’t do a thing but preach about the death of Jesus,” he said. “If that were the heart of Christianity, all God had to do was to drop him down on Friday, and let them kill him, and then yank him up again on Easter Sunday. That’s all you hear. You don’t hear so much about his three years of teaching that man’s religion is revealed in the love of his fellow man. He who says he loves God and hates his fellow man is a liar, and the truth is not in him. That is what offended the leaders of Jesus’ own established church as well as the colonial authorities from Rome. That’s why they put him up there.”
To a stunned audience, many of whom seemed to be leaning backward, Johns sputtered through quick explanations of Dives and Lazarus, and a story about how God rebuked Abraham for driving a stranger from his tent. “There is a world of disparity between the idealism of Jesus and the practices of men,” he said. “But Jesus is not crazy. We are crazy. The church has not formally denounced the Sermon on the Mount. It has merely let it slide. I want to deal with Jesus before the cross. I don’t give a damn what happened to him after the cross.”
With that, Johns sat down again, having consumed no more time than normally allotted to opening jokes and bromides. Faces were red. Appetites were lost. The tentative brotherhood of Negro and white Baptist preachers in Baltimore was stifled as a collective movement, and Johns soon was asked to resign his position at the Maryland Center. He drifted off again to the sermon and lecture circuit. In his own gruff, impolitic way, the old man had spoken up for the same idea of worldly religion that [M.L.] King supported at the Philadelphia convention, with similarly disastrous results.
Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch, 339-340
