In the 1960's, a Yale Divinity School graduate and Southerner named Will Campbell befriended a student named Jonathan Daniels. Campbell and Daniels were each involved in the civil rights crusade. Campbell's theology was undergoing some testing in those days. Much of the opposition to his civil rights work came from "good Christians." Campbell found allies more easily among agnostics, socialists, and a few devout Northerners.Man, there is so much I could say (especially in light of the Amish killings a couple weeks ago), but... maybe it's best if I don't say anything.
"In ten words or less, what's the Christian message?" one agonstic had challenged him. The interlocutor was P.D. East, a renegade newspaper editor who viewed Christians as the enemy.
Campbell replied, "We're all bastards but God loves us anyway."
The definition stung P.D. East, who, unbeknown to Campbell, was indeed illegitimate and had been called "bastard" all his life. He put that definition to a ruthless test on the darkest day of Campbell's life, a day when an Alabama deputy sheriff named Thomas Coleman gunned down Campbell's twenty-six-year-old friend Jonathan Daniels.
That night Campbell spoke with P.D. East and got "the most enlightening theological lesson I ever had in my life." P.D. East pressed Campbell on whether his definition of faith could stand the test.
"Was Jonathan a bastard?" P.D. asked first. Campbell replied that though he was one of the most gentle guys he'd ever known, it's true that everyone is a sinner. In those terms, yes, he was a "bastard."
"All right. Is Thomas Coleman a bastard?" That question, Campbell found much easier to answer. You bet the murderer was a bastard.
Then P.D. pulled his chair close, placed his bony hand on Campbell's knee, and looked directly into his eyes. "Which one of these two bastards do you think God loves the most?" The question hit home, like an arrow to the heart.
(Campbell said): Suddenly everything became clear. Everything. It was a revelation... I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter... I was laughing at myself, at twenty years of a ministry which had become, without my realizing it, a ministry of liberal sophistication...
I agreed that the notion that a man could go to a store... fire a shotgun blast at one of the customers, tearing his lungs and heart and bowels from his body... and that God would set him free is almost more than I could stand. But unless that is precisely the case then there is no Gospel, there is no Good News. Unless that is the truth we have only bad news, we are back with law alone.
What Will Campbell learned that night was a new insight into grace. The free offer of grace extends not just to the undeserving but to those who in fact deserve the OPPOSITE.
This message penetrated so deep inside Will Campbell that he resigned his position with the National Council of Churches and became what he wryly calls, "an apostle to the rednecks." He bought a farm in Tennessee, and today is as likely to spend his time among Klansmen and racists as among racial minorities and white liberals. A lot of people, he decided, were volunteering to help minorities; he knew of no one ministering to the Thomas Colemans of the world.
Well, maybe just a couple things:
1. It's much easier to dispense grace to people we think "deserve" it; or even to people we may feel sorry for. It's another thing entirely with people we DON'T think deserve it. Which begs the question, "Who does deserve grace?" No one, right. And who should we extend it to? Hmm... Yeah, everyone.
2. Someone in class brought up that "bastard" is such a harsh word. It sounds so much worse than "sinner." We all thought, you know, maybe we need to start referring to one another as bastards instead of merely sinners. Has "sinner" lost its sting? You bastard!
Peace, friends. Revolution(ate).
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