One of the casualties of my meddling was Mrs. Oliver. She had been treasurer for years. Her monthly reports were always on time. Every penny was accounted for. She questioned every expense. Her husband was a good man, but not a member of the church. In fact, he really didn’t care for the church. Everything she did in the church was in spite of him.
In addition to serving as treasurer, she taught the primary Sabbath School class. Her daughter came with her. Her son used to come, but now that he was a teenager, his father said he didn’t have to, so most of the time he didn’t.
For all her hard work Mrs. Oliver never looked happy. When we talked about issues in church board meetings, she participated in a civilized, courteous way, but there was always a severe intensity on her face. She felt the weight of our responsibility as God’s representatives in the last days of earth’s history. She worried that people–not just the general population, but most of the members of our own congregation—would come up short in the judgment. They thought they were okay, but in the judgment they would be sadly disappointed.
Sometimes she complained about the amount of work she was carrying. She wished more people would volunteer. Too few were carrying the work of the church. If people really believed Jesus was coming soon, they would be more serious about their support of the church. They would be more committed.
Our second spring in the parish, when it was time for our annual nominating committee, I was pleased with the prospect of electing a new treasurer. Brother Anthony had moved to the area and joined our church. He was a Jamaican. He was an accountant. And he was cheerful and pleasant. Working with him would be a lot more pleasant than working with Mrs. Oliver. At least he would have a smile on his face.
When I visited Mrs. Oliver and told her the nominating committee was going to give her a break from the work of treasurer, she didn’t say much, but I could see she was not happy. I was surprised. She always looked so burdened. More than occasionally she talked to me about how many hours the work of treasurer entailed. I knew her husband was not happy with the time and energy she devoted to the church. I thought she would be relieved. Instead, she was hurt.
A few weeks after her term of service as treasurer was completed Mrs. Oliver quit attending church. People called her. I ran into her in the grocery store a couple of times. She seemed lighthearted and pleasant. Finally, after four months I visited her at her house. We talked for a while about her kids and her husband. I told her I missed her work as treasurer. I was glad we had taken some of the load off her shoulders, but I missed her reliability and consistency.
She asked about different individuals at church. Then I asked if there was anything new in her life. Her face lit up. She gotten involved with a group working to protect streams and wetlands in Suffolk County. She liked the people. The project was very important. They were going to hold a demonstration in downtown Huntington the next Saturday. I winced. She should be in church on Sabbath, not marching with some environmental group. But I kept my mouth shut and kept listening.
She was devoting hours every week to the work of the group. They had talked to her about becoming treasurer. So much for my plans to ease her load. She was a busy outside the home as she had ever been. But it appeared to me there was one huge difference. She looked happy.
Finally, I screwed up my courage and asked her. “Mrs. Oliver, it seems to me that you are a lot happier now than when you went to church. You seem more at peace. Is that true.”
She hesitated, smiled, then said. “Yes. Yes, I am. I feel more free, more relaxed. Sure, we’re busy. We're already planning another rally downtown next month. The county has to do more restrain development that impacts our streams and wetlands here in Suffolk County. I’m as busy as I ever was. But it’s different. I am happier.”
“So is it a good thing you’re not at church?”
She thought for a minute. “Yes. I hate to say it to you, but yes, I’m doing better now. I’m more at peace.”
What could I say? I could see it in her face. She was visibly happier and more content than she had ever been in the year and a half I had known her as a member of the church. What was it about church culture that made her tight and frowning? Working in an environmental group she was still involved in prodding people to do their duty. I'm sure she was still keenly aware of the lethargy and lack of commitment that characterized far too many people. I sure she could see work that could be accomplished if only everyone would step and do their duty. So why was she so much happier? I suspected it had something to do with our ideas of the close of probation and the need to attain perfection in preparation for the Second Coming. Whatever the cause, the effect was undeniable.
As a Christian evangelist, it was my job to tell people, “Get in here! Come to Jesus . . . by coming here.” My entire training as a minister, in fact, my entire life as a devout Adventist, had been focused on helping people by persuading them of the truth of our doctrines and bringing them into the fellowship of the church. However, as a physician of the soul, I could not ask Mrs. Oliver to return to a place that made her miserable. I was obliged to encourage her in her new life. She was serving humanity. She was healthier psychologically. By every observable measure she was better off out of church than she had been in church.
“Mrs. Oliver,” I told her, “you know it’s my job to bring people into the church. And I hope sometime you’ll find yourself drawn again to our fellowship. But I can see you’re happy. I wish you blessings in your new work.”
To put it mildly my visit with Mrs. Oliver left me deeply perplexed.
As a final note of irony, and perhaps as a divine rebuke of my facile substitution of a faithful, meticulous, if somewhat grumpy, worker with someone more congenial, more cheerful--within six months of Mrs. Oliver's departure, I was the one hurting. Brother Anthony remained cheerful and pleasant. He never questioned a receipt I gave him, never challenged an expenditure proposed in board meetings. But the monthly treasurer’s report came irregularly. Sometimes a week late, then two and three weeks late. Then more than a month late. I began to worry about the accuracy of the reports. I asked the conference to audit our books. But their auditor was too busy. No matter how late the reports, no matter how many times I asked Brother Anthony when we could count on the next report, he remained happy and cheerful. Maybe happiness was overrated?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chapter 42 Huntington Conundrum
After a month or two I knew the names of most of the people. I thought I had a feel for the congregations. I decided to focus most of my attention for the next year on Huntington. Based on what the conference president had said, I figured I would get the most results there. I put an advertisement in the local paper for Bible studies. From that ad Karin and I developed a Bible study with four women all in their middle forties. Three of them were wives of airline pilots. We spent months studying basic Bible teachings about prayer and spiritual life and the doctrines of the Adventist church. Only one of them had any trouble accepting the Adventist belief about hell: there is no such thing as eternal torment for the damned. But she finally came around. They agreed with the Adventist interpretation of Bible prophecies about the end of time. They agreed with the Adventist understanding of the Sabbath commandment.
By this time we had been studying together for nine months. It was time to invite them to church, but I hesitated.
The people at Huntington Church were unfailingly respectful to me. In their eyes I was God’s anointed. Several of the folks were positively warm. It was a pleasure to see them, to talk with them. But there was an ill-definable tension in the church. I could feel it when I walked in the door, a palpable alienation or hostility. I didn't understand it. Board meetings were civil. People did their jobs. The church was functioning. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.
There were some obvious problems. At the weekly potluck meals, there was not enough food for everyone. Within a few months of our arrival, the church ladies decided serve the food instead of allowing people to serve themselves. They struggled to stretch the available food to feed all the hungry mouths. For awhile Karin tried making multiple dishes of food trying to fill gap between supply and demand. Her mother wisely put a stop to that. “It is not your job to feed the church,” she said.
I was appalled by the tension I could feel at meal time, but the church seemed used to it. They just managed.
I was puzzled by some of the ethnic realities. While the majority of the church was West Indian, none of the church offices was held by West Indians.
The Chinese family had their own lives independent of the church. They attended church faithfully. They supported the church generously with their money. But they were not part of the main network of relationships. Karin and I enjoyed a natural affinity with them as outsiders.
Actually, there were two main networks–the West Indians and the Acosta Family. Mr. Robinson seemed to be the most influential person in the West Indian network. He had six kids and most of the other kids in the church were connected to the family through friendships. In church two of the most influential people were Mr. and Mrs. Tobias. They were the oldest Jamaicans. Crusty and confident. They seemed to embody the authoritarian, frowning Adventism I remembered from boarding high school. It didn’t seem to me that people liked them. But the West Indians would not buck them when it came time to make decisions in church board meetings. They were “authorities.”
The senior Acosta had been the second elder in Huntington for a long time. When Mr. Dennis died, it was assumed he would move into the head elder slot. However, he seemed to me to play a very minor role in the church. He was not regarded as a leader or counselor. He was a nice guy who had been honored with the title elder, but he had no clout and hardly any influence that I could tell. So I suggested electing a West Indian as head elder.
There was vigorous opposition from the West Indians. They did not want to attend a Black church. If the head elder was a West Indian, then White people would be less likely to attend the church. So they wanted a White person as head elder to help keep the church from becoming all Black.
The most prominent African American in the church, Charlie Nelson, wanted a Black church. It would be far more effective reaching out to other African Americans he believed. The West Indians did not appreciate his emphasis on Black culture. And the Acosta clan was deeply offended that I would question putting Papa in as the next head elder.
As a young firebrand I was oblivious to the violence I was inflicting on the congregation by my insistence on driving them into the future I believed was their destiny. The primary effect of my driving was to heighten tensions that had been carefully restrained.
The church had delicately balanced their image of themselves as a community church in a suburban society that was overwhelmingly White with the reality of their increasingly West Indian membership. My pushing for formal West Indian leadership in the congregation forced people to think more pointedly about ethnic identity. And as they did so, they did not find a new, sweeter harmony. They were driven apart.
The Acosta family now felt unappreciated. Charlie was more bothered by the failure of the church to effectively minister to “his people after the flesh.” The West Indians became more aware of their own divisions, Jamaicans versus Barbadians versus Trinidadians. The Whites were made more aware of their shrinking, minority status. Huntington Church was not the happy church described by the conference president. After a year of my zealous meddling, it was worse.
I finally invited my Bible study ladies to church. They visited a few times, then did not come back. When I called they were happy to talk, but they were not interested in becoming part of this congregation.
By this time we had been studying together for nine months. It was time to invite them to church, but I hesitated.
The people at Huntington Church were unfailingly respectful to me. In their eyes I was God’s anointed. Several of the folks were positively warm. It was a pleasure to see them, to talk with them. But there was an ill-definable tension in the church. I could feel it when I walked in the door, a palpable alienation or hostility. I didn't understand it. Board meetings were civil. People did their jobs. The church was functioning. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.
There were some obvious problems. At the weekly potluck meals, there was not enough food for everyone. Within a few months of our arrival, the church ladies decided serve the food instead of allowing people to serve themselves. They struggled to stretch the available food to feed all the hungry mouths. For awhile Karin tried making multiple dishes of food trying to fill gap between supply and demand. Her mother wisely put a stop to that. “It is not your job to feed the church,” she said.
I was appalled by the tension I could feel at meal time, but the church seemed used to it. They just managed.
I was puzzled by some of the ethnic realities. While the majority of the church was West Indian, none of the church offices was held by West Indians.
The Chinese family had their own lives independent of the church. They attended church faithfully. They supported the church generously with their money. But they were not part of the main network of relationships. Karin and I enjoyed a natural affinity with them as outsiders.
Actually, there were two main networks–the West Indians and the Acosta Family. Mr. Robinson seemed to be the most influential person in the West Indian network. He had six kids and most of the other kids in the church were connected to the family through friendships. In church two of the most influential people were Mr. and Mrs. Tobias. They were the oldest Jamaicans. Crusty and confident. They seemed to embody the authoritarian, frowning Adventism I remembered from boarding high school. It didn’t seem to me that people liked them. But the West Indians would not buck them when it came time to make decisions in church board meetings. They were “authorities.”
The senior Acosta had been the second elder in Huntington for a long time. When Mr. Dennis died, it was assumed he would move into the head elder slot. However, he seemed to me to play a very minor role in the church. He was not regarded as a leader or counselor. He was a nice guy who had been honored with the title elder, but he had no clout and hardly any influence that I could tell. So I suggested electing a West Indian as head elder.
There was vigorous opposition from the West Indians. They did not want to attend a Black church. If the head elder was a West Indian, then White people would be less likely to attend the church. So they wanted a White person as head elder to help keep the church from becoming all Black.
The most prominent African American in the church, Charlie Nelson, wanted a Black church. It would be far more effective reaching out to other African Americans he believed. The West Indians did not appreciate his emphasis on Black culture. And the Acosta clan was deeply offended that I would question putting Papa in as the next head elder.
As a young firebrand I was oblivious to the violence I was inflicting on the congregation by my insistence on driving them into the future I believed was their destiny. The primary effect of my driving was to heighten tensions that had been carefully restrained.
The church had delicately balanced their image of themselves as a community church in a suburban society that was overwhelmingly White with the reality of their increasingly West Indian membership. My pushing for formal West Indian leadership in the congregation forced people to think more pointedly about ethnic identity. And as they did so, they did not find a new, sweeter harmony. They were driven apart.
The Acosta family now felt unappreciated. Charlie was more bothered by the failure of the church to effectively minister to “his people after the flesh.” The West Indians became more aware of their own divisions, Jamaicans versus Barbadians versus Trinidadians. The Whites were made more aware of their shrinking, minority status. Huntington Church was not the happy church described by the conference president. After a year of my zealous meddling, it was worse.
I finally invited my Bible study ladies to church. They visited a few times, then did not come back. When I called they were happy to talk, but they were not interested in becoming part of this congregation.
Chapter 41 The New Parish
We moved into the parsonage. The interior was in not much better shape than the exterior we had seen on our first trip to Huntington, tired orange shag carpet throughout, walls in need of paint, the bathroom needing repairs. Karin immediately began planning improvements.
The day after we moved into the house, I drove down to Babylon to check out the church building. Mabel Smalling lived in a large, old house next door. It was owned by the church. The ground floor and basement served as a clothing distribution center. The second and third floors had two apartments. Mabel lived in the top apartment.
She showed me around. The concrete on the front steps, a steep, full flight of a dozen steps, was crumbling. Inside, the sanctuary featured Massive, dark beams above white walls. The windows along the side were unremarkable stained glass. At the front of the room, the platform was in a kind of alcove with a low ceiling. The carpet was threadbare and needed replacement.
Standing in the center aisle, she told me about the terrible pastor who had preceded me.
“Why, one Sabbath when I got to church,” she said, “the pulpit was missing. When I asked the pastor about it, he said he had moved it! We found out later he had gotten Oliver Spencer (he’s one of the new people) . . . He got Oliver to help him, and they put the pulpit up in the attic! I couldn’t believe it. My husband made that pulpit! We got it back down right away, I tell you. I am so glad you are here. We certainly needed a new pastor!”
We went downstairs to check out the space used for children's Sabbath School and potlucks. The linoleum tiles were broken and peeling off the floor. The men’s room stank. The plaster was cracked.
I liked Mabel. She was energetic, and bright-eyed. To hear her talk, she was a worker.
The Huntington Church was in better shape. It was a classic white rural church, inside a white ceiling made of pressed tin, white walls, frosted glass windows that filled the place with light on sunny days. Up front was a low, open platform.
My first Sabbath as the new preacher in the district, I was introduced in the Huntington Church by the Lay Ministries specialist from the Conference. The congregation was an interesting ethnic mix–about fifty percent from the West Indies, thirty percent Anglos, a few African Americans, several Hispanic families and a large Chinese family. Mr. Dennis, the head elder, was there that first Sabbath. He more than matched his reputation. He was tall and dignified with beckoning charisma.
I could tell this was going to be a fun place to minister.
The next week I was introduced in the Babylon Church by the conference treasurer. The weather was gloomy, but I boldly preached on a Bible passage describing the work of John the Baptist. “And all Judea went out to hear him.” I called the church to a new enthusiasm for serving God. We were going to do such a tremendous work that all of western Suffolk County would be drawn to us. (In the years since Karin has occasionally remarked on her amazement at my grandiosity. Fortunately, at the time, she did not tell me this.)
Huntington's Good People
I began visiting my parishioners. I learned Mr. Dennis was a brother-in-law to Mabel. He had been one of the key leaders of the Huntington Church when it was established twenty-five years earlier after an evangelistic campaign on the North Shore. Everyone in both churches revered him, even Mabel. He was dying of cancer. He had dragged himself out of bed to welcome me that first Sabbath. He was not able to make it again. His was my first funeral.
Mr. Hsu had his own dental appliance manufacturing business. Charlie, an African American was a machinist. Mr. Robinson appeared to be the unofficial leader of the West Indians. He commuted into the city to work. Mr. Johnson was an electronics engineer at Grumman Aerospace. He had built the church sound system, which was state of the art, and was nearly always there to operate it. Usually he was accompanied in the sound booth by one of the Acosta boys. All the kids seemed to like him. He would do anything needed except speak in public or pray out loud in any setting.
The Acosta clan were fascinating. It was three generations. The third generation formed a third of our youth group. The aunts and uncles lived in Huntington and New York City and Puerto Rico. And people seemed to move between these places without anyone thinking much about it. But Huntington, and granddad’s house, was the center.
The Saints of Babylon
The head elder at Babylon was short, five-six or five-seven, and heavy. His hands were hard and massive. His handshakes bone-crushing. He wore a perpetual grin. He hugged men and women indiscriminately. He owned a boat cover business where he worked a hundred hours a week from March through October and sixty hours a week the rest of the year. As I visited others in the church I heard nothing but affection and admiration for Sam.
Hans the second elder was a crusty German engineer. He had no use for anything other than perfect order and the meticulous performance of any assignment. The treasurer was another German, Mrs. Schoeps. She attended fairly regularly when they weren’t traveling. Her husband, who owned a machine shop, attended infrequently. Karin and I were immediately drawn to the Loughlin’s. He was a math professor. She was a nurse. Their four kids were fun. Veronica had a quiet, subtle charm. Her husband wasn’t a member, but her teenage children were in church every week. Jim and Marion were quiet, pleasant people you could trust with your life.
In the Huntington Church, sixty-five percent of the membership was non-white, but all the leading lay officers were White–head elder, head deacon, head deaconness, Sabbath school superintendent, treasurer. In the Babylon Church sixty-percent of the membership was White, but the head elder, head deacon and Sabbath School superintendent were West Indians.
Nothing in seminary could have prepared me to understand the social networks of a small, long-established church. These people had known each other forever. They knew who could do what, who would do what. As pastor, I fit into a predetermined slot in the networks, but the networks functioned quite independently of input from the pastor. I entered the pastorate with visions of revolutionary activity, visions fueled by books and conversations with fellow dreamers in seminary. As I got acquainted with my churches and with Long Island culture, revolution appeared increasingly inappropriate as a goal for ministry.
The day after we moved into the house, I drove down to Babylon to check out the church building. Mabel Smalling lived in a large, old house next door. It was owned by the church. The ground floor and basement served as a clothing distribution center. The second and third floors had two apartments. Mabel lived in the top apartment.
She showed me around. The concrete on the front steps, a steep, full flight of a dozen steps, was crumbling. Inside, the sanctuary featured Massive, dark beams above white walls. The windows along the side were unremarkable stained glass. At the front of the room, the platform was in a kind of alcove with a low ceiling. The carpet was threadbare and needed replacement.
Standing in the center aisle, she told me about the terrible pastor who had preceded me.
“Why, one Sabbath when I got to church,” she said, “the pulpit was missing. When I asked the pastor about it, he said he had moved it! We found out later he had gotten Oliver Spencer (he’s one of the new people) . . . He got Oliver to help him, and they put the pulpit up in the attic! I couldn’t believe it. My husband made that pulpit! We got it back down right away, I tell you. I am so glad you are here. We certainly needed a new pastor!”
We went downstairs to check out the space used for children's Sabbath School and potlucks. The linoleum tiles were broken and peeling off the floor. The men’s room stank. The plaster was cracked.
I liked Mabel. She was energetic, and bright-eyed. To hear her talk, she was a worker.
The Huntington Church was in better shape. It was a classic white rural church, inside a white ceiling made of pressed tin, white walls, frosted glass windows that filled the place with light on sunny days. Up front was a low, open platform.
My first Sabbath as the new preacher in the district, I was introduced in the Huntington Church by the Lay Ministries specialist from the Conference. The congregation was an interesting ethnic mix–about fifty percent from the West Indies, thirty percent Anglos, a few African Americans, several Hispanic families and a large Chinese family. Mr. Dennis, the head elder, was there that first Sabbath. He more than matched his reputation. He was tall and dignified with beckoning charisma.
I could tell this was going to be a fun place to minister.
The next week I was introduced in the Babylon Church by the conference treasurer. The weather was gloomy, but I boldly preached on a Bible passage describing the work of John the Baptist. “And all Judea went out to hear him.” I called the church to a new enthusiasm for serving God. We were going to do such a tremendous work that all of western Suffolk County would be drawn to us. (In the years since Karin has occasionally remarked on her amazement at my grandiosity. Fortunately, at the time, she did not tell me this.)
Huntington's Good People
I began visiting my parishioners. I learned Mr. Dennis was a brother-in-law to Mabel. He had been one of the key leaders of the Huntington Church when it was established twenty-five years earlier after an evangelistic campaign on the North Shore. Everyone in both churches revered him, even Mabel. He was dying of cancer. He had dragged himself out of bed to welcome me that first Sabbath. He was not able to make it again. His was my first funeral.
Mr. Hsu had his own dental appliance manufacturing business. Charlie, an African American was a machinist. Mr. Robinson appeared to be the unofficial leader of the West Indians. He commuted into the city to work. Mr. Johnson was an electronics engineer at Grumman Aerospace. He had built the church sound system, which was state of the art, and was nearly always there to operate it. Usually he was accompanied in the sound booth by one of the Acosta boys. All the kids seemed to like him. He would do anything needed except speak in public or pray out loud in any setting.
The Acosta clan were fascinating. It was three generations. The third generation formed a third of our youth group. The aunts and uncles lived in Huntington and New York City and Puerto Rico. And people seemed to move between these places without anyone thinking much about it. But Huntington, and granddad’s house, was the center.
The Saints of Babylon
The head elder at Babylon was short, five-six or five-seven, and heavy. His hands were hard and massive. His handshakes bone-crushing. He wore a perpetual grin. He hugged men and women indiscriminately. He owned a boat cover business where he worked a hundred hours a week from March through October and sixty hours a week the rest of the year. As I visited others in the church I heard nothing but affection and admiration for Sam.
Hans the second elder was a crusty German engineer. He had no use for anything other than perfect order and the meticulous performance of any assignment. The treasurer was another German, Mrs. Schoeps. She attended fairly regularly when they weren’t traveling. Her husband, who owned a machine shop, attended infrequently. Karin and I were immediately drawn to the Loughlin’s. He was a math professor. She was a nurse. Their four kids were fun. Veronica had a quiet, subtle charm. Her husband wasn’t a member, but her teenage children were in church every week. Jim and Marion were quiet, pleasant people you could trust with your life.
In the Huntington Church, sixty-five percent of the membership was non-white, but all the leading lay officers were White–head elder, head deacon, head deaconness, Sabbath school superintendent, treasurer. In the Babylon Church sixty-percent of the membership was White, but the head elder, head deacon and Sabbath School superintendent were West Indians.
Nothing in seminary could have prepared me to understand the social networks of a small, long-established church. These people had known each other forever. They knew who could do what, who would do what. As pastor, I fit into a predetermined slot in the networks, but the networks functioned quite independently of input from the pastor. I entered the pastorate with visions of revolutionary activity, visions fueled by books and conversations with fellow dreamers in seminary. As I got acquainted with my churches and with Long Island culture, revolution appeared increasingly inappropriate as a goal for ministry.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Chapter 40. The South Side of the Tracks
After our visit with the conference president, Karin and I drove east to check out our parish. Instead of driving out the Long Island Expressway, we took Northern Boulevard so we could get a closer look at the communities of the area. The further we drove, the more impressed we were. I had no idea Long Island was so rich. The homes got larger and larger. It would be more descriptive to call them estates. Palatial homes set in expanses of lawn or nestled in forest. In places the highway skirted harbors filled with sail boats and yachts.
In Cold Spring Harbor, the last town before Huntington, we crossed a low spot where you could look north to Long Island Sound. On the right was a beautiful, small, Episcopal Church set next to an immense lawn and a lake populated with ducks and swans. The yard of the church was filled with people. A bride and groom were standing on the steps with the pastor in his robes.
It was an idyllic vision of quiet, long-term pastoral ministry. A shepherd and his flock. A ministry rooted in lasting, deep relationships. It was the polar opposite of the drama of urban ministry focused on a relentless drive to change neighborhoods, change political systems, rescue people from dramatically dysfunctional lives. But this, too, was ministry. The well-to-do and sophisticated needed Jesus, too. I could imagine becoming friends with these people, becoming part of the social fabric, being part of the life cycle of children, baptisms, weddings, marriage conflicts, funerals. Visiting people in the hospital, representing the face of Jesus in the ordinary patterns of life. Influencing through long-term relationships the shape of an entire community, not just a church.
We drove up the hill out of Cold Spring Harbor and, five miles later, into downtown Huntington. It was a real town. Main street was lined with shops. The sidewalks were filled with people. There were restaurants. We could see the harbor to the north filled with expensive boats. In the center of town we turned right on Highway 110 that ran south toward the Long Island Expressway and ultimately to the South Shore. As we drove, more shops, a book store, restaurants, then less glamorous businesses, an auto repair shop, a printer, a gas station. Then we came to the railroad station. It was surrounded by vast parking lots. We drove under the tracks. As the road came up on the other side, everything changed–drastically. Liquor stores, unkempt houses, a vacuum repair shop, a shoe repair shop, a convenience store. Weeds, trash.
At the corner of Ninth Street there was a bank. We turned right. Past the bank and a vacant lot. Then the church on the right. It was a simple white building with high steps that climbed steeply from the sidewalk. The parking lot was gravel and grass.
Across the street and down one lot was the parsonage. The house was squat and unattractive. It looked like the walls weren’t tall enough for the roof. The yard needed mowing. The bushes were overgrown. We drove around the immediate neighborhood. The parsonage blended right in. Some yards were well kept. Some were wrecks. The streets were filled with parked cars.
I was embarrassed by my disappointment. I had regarded myself as an enlightened liberal when it came to matters of class and race. I had dreamed of making a difference in the lives of poor people. Now here I was looking at a poor parish and dreaming of ministry a few blocks north.
I struggled to pull myself back down to earth. My parish was on this side of the tracks.
We drove to Babylon. Thirty-five minutes straight south. The church was one block south of the center of town and only two blocks from the water. The building looked run down. The gravel parking lot had huge potholes in it. My heart sank. This was not the ministry I had imagined. But it was my job starting January 1.
In Cold Spring Harbor, the last town before Huntington, we crossed a low spot where you could look north to Long Island Sound. On the right was a beautiful, small, Episcopal Church set next to an immense lawn and a lake populated with ducks and swans. The yard of the church was filled with people. A bride and groom were standing on the steps with the pastor in his robes.
It was an idyllic vision of quiet, long-term pastoral ministry. A shepherd and his flock. A ministry rooted in lasting, deep relationships. It was the polar opposite of the drama of urban ministry focused on a relentless drive to change neighborhoods, change political systems, rescue people from dramatically dysfunctional lives. But this, too, was ministry. The well-to-do and sophisticated needed Jesus, too. I could imagine becoming friends with these people, becoming part of the social fabric, being part of the life cycle of children, baptisms, weddings, marriage conflicts, funerals. Visiting people in the hospital, representing the face of Jesus in the ordinary patterns of life. Influencing through long-term relationships the shape of an entire community, not just a church.
We drove up the hill out of Cold Spring Harbor and, five miles later, into downtown Huntington. It was a real town. Main street was lined with shops. The sidewalks were filled with people. There were restaurants. We could see the harbor to the north filled with expensive boats. In the center of town we turned right on Highway 110 that ran south toward the Long Island Expressway and ultimately to the South Shore. As we drove, more shops, a book store, restaurants, then less glamorous businesses, an auto repair shop, a printer, a gas station. Then we came to the railroad station. It was surrounded by vast parking lots. We drove under the tracks. As the road came up on the other side, everything changed–drastically. Liquor stores, unkempt houses, a vacuum repair shop, a shoe repair shop, a convenience store. Weeds, trash.
At the corner of Ninth Street there was a bank. We turned right. Past the bank and a vacant lot. Then the church on the right. It was a simple white building with high steps that climbed steeply from the sidewalk. The parking lot was gravel and grass.
Across the street and down one lot was the parsonage. The house was squat and unattractive. It looked like the walls weren’t tall enough for the roof. The yard needed mowing. The bushes were overgrown. We drove around the immediate neighborhood. The parsonage blended right in. Some yards were well kept. Some were wrecks. The streets were filled with parked cars.
I was embarrassed by my disappointment. I had regarded myself as an enlightened liberal when it came to matters of class and race. I had dreamed of making a difference in the lives of poor people. Now here I was looking at a poor parish and dreaming of ministry a few blocks north.
I struggled to pull myself back down to earth. My parish was on this side of the tracks.
We drove to Babylon. Thirty-five minutes straight south. The church was one block south of the center of town and only two blocks from the water. The building looked run down. The gravel parking lot had huge potholes in it. My heart sank. This was not the ministry I had imagined. But it was my job starting January 1.
Chapter 39. Called to Babylon
I met Karin Lundstrom on the steps of the James White Library at Andrews in January, 1978. We got married in May, 1979. After the summer together in my apartment in Times Square, she returned to her parent’s house in Takoma Park for one more quarter of school to complete her B.S. in nursing. She came home every other weekend. Our absences and reunions gave me a dramatically enriched view of the meaning and experience of Sabbath.
The Center was closing. The denomination had found a buyer–the Church of Scientology. That hurt. How could we relinquish our light house in Times Square to cult? But selling was inevitable. The Greater New York Conference was pumping $25,000 a year into maintenance at the Center. The Atlantic Union Conference (the northeast regional body) was spending another fifty thousand for salaries and maintenance. And, as far as I could tell, the Center was making no impact on the city. It was not producing baptisms. It was not raising public awareness of the church and its mission. Even though I regretted losing my place in the heart of Manhattan, closing of the Center made sense for the denomination.
The Center had given me a job–in Manhattan! It had been good for my boss, Ted Wilson. It gave him an administrative position, putting him on a fast track escalator within the denomination. It paid for his Ph. D. at New York University. Over the years it had provided an opportunity for a wide variety of people to experiment with urban ministry. It had served as a center of Adventist hospitality for traveling school groups and missionaries passing through. But as an evangelistic center it was a flop–like every other evangelistic center the church had funded in cities around the world.
It seemed to me an “evangelistic center” was wrong-headed in its very conception. Evangelism is the movement of the church outward, away from itself. But the idea of a “center” was the ambition to draw people in. It was hoped that the public would come to us. Time had proven that what we offered was not sufficiently attractive for the Center to work.
Metro Ministries was going to continue their Wall Street restaurant. Ted was still dreaming of putting together a comprehensive urban ministry based on Ellen White's blueprint. But it was time for me to go. I had no idea where.
In November, I got a phone call from Elder Kretschmar, the president of the Greater New York Conference. Would I be willing to serve as pastor for the Huntington and Babylon Churches, two congregations in the suburbs of western Suffolk County on Long Island?
The first few times I had heard references to “the Babylon Church” I thought it was a joke. In the Book of Revelation, the mythic city of Babylon represents the Dark Force. It is the premier enemy of God and his people. Adventist evangelists preach that Babylon symbolizes apostate Christianity (that is, all denominations other than our own). Right wing Adventists sometimes identify the denomination itself as Babylon—an organized Christian body that has compromised the pure religion of Jesus. Babylon is the Adventist bogey man. So when I heard people refer to the Babylon Church, I figured there was some congregation in the conference that was so messed up people had nicknamed it Babylon. But the Babylon Church was no joke. The Babylon Seventh-day Adventist Church was located on Fire Island Avenue in Babylon on Long Island, New York. (And the head elder's phone number was 666-6696. No joke.)
A suburban pastorate had never been my dream. Memphis wasn’t Brooklyn, but where I grew up was still "city." We played Army and cowboys and Indians in the alleys, climbing fences and sneaking through backyards. When we got a bit older we played football and sometimes even baseball in the street. People in our neighborhood did not drive station wagons. They did not have large yards. They did not have new houses. Our sidewalks were not bright, white and uncracked.
The suburbs was an an alien world. My cousins lived there as did all of my classmates at the Adventist elementary school. I enjoyed visiting my cousins' homes, but I never envisioned living in that kind of environment. In grade school and high school, when I imagined my future it was always exotic—Africa (as a missionary doctor), at sea (with Ed Link or Jacques Cousteau), or in the wilderness of northern Minnesota (as described in books by Sam Campbell). Suburbs were clean, orderly, uninteresting.
Then during college I spent a year as a volunteer at the New York Center. The City captured my heart. The year nearly killed me. I lost thirty pounds. At times I hated the ugliness and the raw displays of human pain, frailty and degradation. I hated the ways life there hardened me. I hated the inescapable noise. But once I was away from it for awhile, I craved the intensity, the vitality and energy I felt walking the streets in Midtown Manhattan. The rawness of humanity made sense of ministry. You could see the needs ministry was supposed to address. And, though I would never have admitted it out loud, doing ministry in New York felt more significant just because of the City's status. Ministry performed in New York was grander and more important than the same ministry done somewhere in suburbia because it was being done at the center of the world. New York had seduced me.
Then I went to Seminary.
In seminary, the books that fired my imagination were written by urban pastors or about urban ministry. The most compelling, engaging professor, Benjamin Reeves, was a Black man with tales of ministry in hard neighborhoods. In the books I read and in conversations with other avant-garde seminarians, the suburbs were associated with racist, self-satisfied, narcissistic Christianity.
After seminary, wonder-of-wonders, God gave me the opportunity to return to Times Square. I was clearly on track toward an urban pastorate. Instead, the pastorate being offered was at the outer edge of the quintessential suburbs of Long Island, fifty miles from Manhattan. I had hoped to pastor the Greenwich Village Church or maybe a church in Brooklyn. But what could I do? No one else was offering me a job (nor were they likely to).
When Karin came home for Thanksgiving break, she and I drove east from Manhattan for a formal interview with the conference president at his office in Manhasset, a wealthy berg in the endless Long Island suburban sprawl. He was avuncular, asked about our backgrounds, talked about his wife’s ministry. He wanted to know about my sense of call to the ministry. I couldn't tell what he thought of me, but he was impressed with Karin.
There was a parsonage across the street from the Huntington Church, he said. That’s where we would live. The Huntington congregation was going to be our favorite. The head elder, John Dennis, was a prince, legendary for his kindness and generosity. A previous pastor, Nikolaus Satelmajer, had been very active in the community. The church was a warm, welcoming congregation. We would have a great time there.
The Babylon Church was different, the president said. Good people, but they had a history of being fractious and perhaps a bit snobbish. They sometimes quarreled with conference leadership. There had been problems with the previous pastor. The elementary school next door to the church was deeply in debt. The principal was a volunteer who had a full time job as a teacher in the public school system. Two of the teachers–the wife of the former pastor and the wife of the principal—donated their salaries back to the conference to pay on the debt the school owed to the conference. I could see Elder Kretschmar was tempted to say more. It was obvious he didn’t like either the principal or the previous pastor. But propriety required him not to say anything too explicitly negative.
He was done. “Let’s pray before you go,” he said. He walked around his desk and the three of us knelt on the circular Persian carpet he called his prayer rug.
After prayer we stood. “God bless.” He grinned and patted me on the shoulder. “Give me a call, if you need any help.”
The Center was closing. The denomination had found a buyer–the Church of Scientology. That hurt. How could we relinquish our light house in Times Square to cult? But selling was inevitable. The Greater New York Conference was pumping $25,000 a year into maintenance at the Center. The Atlantic Union Conference (the northeast regional body) was spending another fifty thousand for salaries and maintenance. And, as far as I could tell, the Center was making no impact on the city. It was not producing baptisms. It was not raising public awareness of the church and its mission. Even though I regretted losing my place in the heart of Manhattan, closing of the Center made sense for the denomination.
The Center had given me a job–in Manhattan! It had been good for my boss, Ted Wilson. It gave him an administrative position, putting him on a fast track escalator within the denomination. It paid for his Ph. D. at New York University. Over the years it had provided an opportunity for a wide variety of people to experiment with urban ministry. It had served as a center of Adventist hospitality for traveling school groups and missionaries passing through. But as an evangelistic center it was a flop–like every other evangelistic center the church had funded in cities around the world.
It seemed to me an “evangelistic center” was wrong-headed in its very conception. Evangelism is the movement of the church outward, away from itself. But the idea of a “center” was the ambition to draw people in. It was hoped that the public would come to us. Time had proven that what we offered was not sufficiently attractive for the Center to work.
Metro Ministries was going to continue their Wall Street restaurant. Ted was still dreaming of putting together a comprehensive urban ministry based on Ellen White's blueprint. But it was time for me to go. I had no idea where.
In November, I got a phone call from Elder Kretschmar, the president of the Greater New York Conference. Would I be willing to serve as pastor for the Huntington and Babylon Churches, two congregations in the suburbs of western Suffolk County on Long Island?
The first few times I had heard references to “the Babylon Church” I thought it was a joke. In the Book of Revelation, the mythic city of Babylon represents the Dark Force. It is the premier enemy of God and his people. Adventist evangelists preach that Babylon symbolizes apostate Christianity (that is, all denominations other than our own). Right wing Adventists sometimes identify the denomination itself as Babylon—an organized Christian body that has compromised the pure religion of Jesus. Babylon is the Adventist bogey man. So when I heard people refer to the Babylon Church, I figured there was some congregation in the conference that was so messed up people had nicknamed it Babylon. But the Babylon Church was no joke. The Babylon Seventh-day Adventist Church was located on Fire Island Avenue in Babylon on Long Island, New York. (And the head elder's phone number was 666-6696. No joke.)
A suburban pastorate had never been my dream. Memphis wasn’t Brooklyn, but where I grew up was still "city." We played Army and cowboys and Indians in the alleys, climbing fences and sneaking through backyards. When we got a bit older we played football and sometimes even baseball in the street. People in our neighborhood did not drive station wagons. They did not have large yards. They did not have new houses. Our sidewalks were not bright, white and uncracked.
The suburbs was an an alien world. My cousins lived there as did all of my classmates at the Adventist elementary school. I enjoyed visiting my cousins' homes, but I never envisioned living in that kind of environment. In grade school and high school, when I imagined my future it was always exotic—Africa (as a missionary doctor), at sea (with Ed Link or Jacques Cousteau), or in the wilderness of northern Minnesota (as described in books by Sam Campbell). Suburbs were clean, orderly, uninteresting.
Then during college I spent a year as a volunteer at the New York Center. The City captured my heart. The year nearly killed me. I lost thirty pounds. At times I hated the ugliness and the raw displays of human pain, frailty and degradation. I hated the ways life there hardened me. I hated the inescapable noise. But once I was away from it for awhile, I craved the intensity, the vitality and energy I felt walking the streets in Midtown Manhattan. The rawness of humanity made sense of ministry. You could see the needs ministry was supposed to address. And, though I would never have admitted it out loud, doing ministry in New York felt more significant just because of the City's status. Ministry performed in New York was grander and more important than the same ministry done somewhere in suburbia because it was being done at the center of the world. New York had seduced me.
Then I went to Seminary.
In seminary, the books that fired my imagination were written by urban pastors or about urban ministry. The most compelling, engaging professor, Benjamin Reeves, was a Black man with tales of ministry in hard neighborhoods. In the books I read and in conversations with other avant-garde seminarians, the suburbs were associated with racist, self-satisfied, narcissistic Christianity.
After seminary, wonder-of-wonders, God gave me the opportunity to return to Times Square. I was clearly on track toward an urban pastorate. Instead, the pastorate being offered was at the outer edge of the quintessential suburbs of Long Island, fifty miles from Manhattan. I had hoped to pastor the Greenwich Village Church or maybe a church in Brooklyn. But what could I do? No one else was offering me a job (nor were they likely to).
When Karin came home for Thanksgiving break, she and I drove east from Manhattan for a formal interview with the conference president at his office in Manhasset, a wealthy berg in the endless Long Island suburban sprawl. He was avuncular, asked about our backgrounds, talked about his wife’s ministry. He wanted to know about my sense of call to the ministry. I couldn't tell what he thought of me, but he was impressed with Karin.
There was a parsonage across the street from the Huntington Church, he said. That’s where we would live. The Huntington congregation was going to be our favorite. The head elder, John Dennis, was a prince, legendary for his kindness and generosity. A previous pastor, Nikolaus Satelmajer, had been very active in the community. The church was a warm, welcoming congregation. We would have a great time there.
The Babylon Church was different, the president said. Good people, but they had a history of being fractious and perhaps a bit snobbish. They sometimes quarreled with conference leadership. There had been problems with the previous pastor. The elementary school next door to the church was deeply in debt. The principal was a volunteer who had a full time job as a teacher in the public school system. Two of the teachers–the wife of the former pastor and the wife of the principal—donated their salaries back to the conference to pay on the debt the school owed to the conference. I could see Elder Kretschmar was tempted to say more. It was obvious he didn’t like either the principal or the previous pastor. But propriety required him not to say anything too explicitly negative.
He was done. “Let’s pray before you go,” he said. He walked around his desk and the three of us knelt on the circular Persian carpet he called his prayer rug.
After prayer we stood. “God bless.” He grinned and patted me on the shoulder. “Give me a call, if you need any help.”
Monday, January 3, 2011
Chapter 38. Gentry's Halos
On a Sabbath morning in June I drove about an hour and a half north of the city to Camp Berkshire for Campmeeting. The main auditorium was packed. The morning service in the gym program dragged on and on as campmeeting services usually do. After church, I wandered the grounds to see if I could find anyone I knew. I saw a few old friends from the Crossroads Church, and, of course, a few people from the German Church, but walking around in the damp, cool weather felt like moving through a sea of strangers.
After lunch I attended a presentation by Robert Gentry in the youth building. The audience filled the building and spilled out the doors. I was mesmerized.
Gentry had worked as a physicist at a U. S. government lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where he investigated a phenomenon called pleochroic halos. These “halos” are little spheres are created by the radioactive decay in granite. They show up as haloes in cross section. Gentry explained how the halos were formed and where they were found.
Looking around at the audience, I wondered how much of his presentation they understood. Had they ever heard of alpha and beta decay? Did they comprehend the concept of “half life?” Whether they understood or not, they were captivated by the presentation. Biotite, zircons and thin sections might been just words to many of the people listening, but one thing they knew for sure: Mr. Gentry had found the silver bullet to kill the evolution monster. He was a scientist, and he was on their side. I was thrilled along with everyone else.
Gentry had not done his work at a Bible college. He worked at Oakridge National Laboratory. He had published articles about his research in these halos in Nature and Science. He was a bona fide scientist. I was impressed.
Listening to Gentry, I recalled an old preacher from North Carolina who came to Highland Academy when I was a high school student. He brought a car full of fossils and spread them out on tables at the rear of the chapel. In his speech, he regaled us with stories of finding fossils in places where they weren’t supposed to be. He told of finding mammal fossils in rock layers that were supposed to have only dinosaurs. He found trilobites in rock layers that were supposed to have been formed long after the trilobites went extinct. He would show his finds to scientists and they would be dumb-founded by his discoveries.
The point of his presentation was that the supposed order of the fossil record didn’t hold up to honest investigation. And, of course, belief in evolution was based precisely on that putative order. The preacher made fun of the scientists who dated rock layers. Rock layers were dated by fossils and fossils were dated by rock layers. It was completely circular reasoning.
After his lecture we were invited to examine his specimens. Trilobites, fossilized shark teeth, beautifully preserved fish and leaves, dinosaur tracks, a saber-toothed tiger skull. It was a mesmerizing collection. I dreamed of finding my own fossil treasures, of finding the final, decisive evidence in the rocks that would force the scientific establishment to change its understanding of earth history.
Still, I was troubled by the preacher’s cavalier dismissal of science as a discipline and scientists as a community. Surely not all scientists were as dogmatic and dishonest as he implied. And I was a little puzzled. Why couldn’t the thousands of scientists who were looking for fossils find any of the anomalies that he was finding everywhere?
On the other hand I couldn’t believe this preacher was making up his discoveries. He had them right here, spread out on tables for us to examine. And he wasn’t the only one making these kinds of discoveries. I had heard about the discovery of human footprints in a rock layer that also contained dinosaur footprints–exactly what you would expect if fossils were formed during the flood.
As encouraging as I found the presentation by the preacher and others like him, I could never quite escape my own skepticism about evidence that only creationists could find. If the evidence for a recent creation was really there, then surely some regular scientists would find it. And at least a few scientists would have the guts to publish it.
Listening to Gentry I thought, Finally! A real scientist, publishing in real scientific journals, has found hard evidence of creation.
After explaining the halos in layman’s language and detailing the determined refusal by the scientific establishment to investigate his findings, Gentry moved to the climax of his lecture. Since the halos were evenly distributed throughout blocks of granite, the original radioactive atoms must have been there from the beginning. They could not have been transported into the granite by the movement of atoms in solution. And since the mother atoms have a very short half life, the granite must have been formed miraculously in a very short time–in a matter of minutes–and not through an eons-long process as conventional geology taught.
Gentry insisted instantaneous creation was the only plausible explanation of the phenomenon. While other scientists had criticized his work on general principles—Gentry's work had to be wrong because it contradicted established theory—none had presented any research-based alternative to Gentry's explanations. The critics had suggested the mother atoms were transported into the granite, but Gentry said his research had ruled that out. He was eager for more scientists to examine the halos because the evidence right there in the rocks would eventually force a re-working of the orthodox understanding of the formation of granite and the age of the earth.
Once you recognized that granite did not form over millions of years of slow cooling, this would require rethinking all sorts of related questions in geochronology. It would create a revolution in geology, a paradigm shift. In this new world of geology, perhaps scientists would have the honesty and perspicaciousness to recognize the truth of the Bible account.
Because Gentry argued on the basis of physics and mineralogy, citing experimental evidence that could be replicated, his arguments seemed very strong. This was not speculative. This was not interpretation of once-upon-a-time events like the fossilization of dinosaurs or the creation of birds–events no one saw involving processes we have never observed producing effects that we cannot replicate. No, Gentry was making his case based on phenomena that could be studied in the lab. The decay rates of polonium were short enough that people could reasonably attempt to replicate the formation of the halos in the lab. Besides that, further study of a sufficient number of samples could determine if the halos were in fact evenly distributed in granite. The half-life of the mother products could be measured. Alternative decay paths could be ruled out. Even the formation of granite itself could be investigated. Scientists could make molten stews of the appropriate minerals and cool them at different rates and pressures to see if granite formed from the mixture.
Gentry cautioned us not to get our hopes up. He spent a fair amount of time detailing the animosity he had experienced from other scientists. As the implications of his research came to be more widely recognized, journals were refusing to publish his research. They were even refusing to publish his letters rebutting inaccurate references to his work. The bias in the scientific establishment was entrenched and apparently unassailable. But he vowed to continue his work as long as he could find the funds to do so. The quest for truth must go on.
Leaving the campground, I was elated. Finally, here was the silver bullet I had been dreaming of. Solid, non-speculative, non-theoretical, concrete evidence that countered the irresistible onslaught of conventional geochronology. The Bible was true. My church was right.
(The trickiest part of writing a memoir is remembering! I vividly remember listening to Gentry's presentation at Camp Berkshire. I am rather uncertain about what year this happened--1972, 1979 or 80. I'm sure there are other details equally susceptible to my "creative" memory.)
After lunch I attended a presentation by Robert Gentry in the youth building. The audience filled the building and spilled out the doors. I was mesmerized.
Gentry had worked as a physicist at a U. S. government lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where he investigated a phenomenon called pleochroic halos. These “halos” are little spheres are created by the radioactive decay in granite. They show up as haloes in cross section. Gentry explained how the halos were formed and where they were found.
Looking around at the audience, I wondered how much of his presentation they understood. Had they ever heard of alpha and beta decay? Did they comprehend the concept of “half life?” Whether they understood or not, they were captivated by the presentation. Biotite, zircons and thin sections might been just words to many of the people listening, but one thing they knew for sure: Mr. Gentry had found the silver bullet to kill the evolution monster. He was a scientist, and he was on their side. I was thrilled along with everyone else.
Gentry had not done his work at a Bible college. He worked at Oakridge National Laboratory. He had published articles about his research in these halos in Nature and Science. He was a bona fide scientist. I was impressed.
Listening to Gentry, I recalled an old preacher from North Carolina who came to Highland Academy when I was a high school student. He brought a car full of fossils and spread them out on tables at the rear of the chapel. In his speech, he regaled us with stories of finding fossils in places where they weren’t supposed to be. He told of finding mammal fossils in rock layers that were supposed to have only dinosaurs. He found trilobites in rock layers that were supposed to have been formed long after the trilobites went extinct. He would show his finds to scientists and they would be dumb-founded by his discoveries.
The point of his presentation was that the supposed order of the fossil record didn’t hold up to honest investigation. And, of course, belief in evolution was based precisely on that putative order. The preacher made fun of the scientists who dated rock layers. Rock layers were dated by fossils and fossils were dated by rock layers. It was completely circular reasoning.
After his lecture we were invited to examine his specimens. Trilobites, fossilized shark teeth, beautifully preserved fish and leaves, dinosaur tracks, a saber-toothed tiger skull. It was a mesmerizing collection. I dreamed of finding my own fossil treasures, of finding the final, decisive evidence in the rocks that would force the scientific establishment to change its understanding of earth history.
Still, I was troubled by the preacher’s cavalier dismissal of science as a discipline and scientists as a community. Surely not all scientists were as dogmatic and dishonest as he implied. And I was a little puzzled. Why couldn’t the thousands of scientists who were looking for fossils find any of the anomalies that he was finding everywhere?
On the other hand I couldn’t believe this preacher was making up his discoveries. He had them right here, spread out on tables for us to examine. And he wasn’t the only one making these kinds of discoveries. I had heard about the discovery of human footprints in a rock layer that also contained dinosaur footprints–exactly what you would expect if fossils were formed during the flood.
As encouraging as I found the presentation by the preacher and others like him, I could never quite escape my own skepticism about evidence that only creationists could find. If the evidence for a recent creation was really there, then surely some regular scientists would find it. And at least a few scientists would have the guts to publish it.
Listening to Gentry I thought, Finally! A real scientist, publishing in real scientific journals, has found hard evidence of creation.
After explaining the halos in layman’s language and detailing the determined refusal by the scientific establishment to investigate his findings, Gentry moved to the climax of his lecture. Since the halos were evenly distributed throughout blocks of granite, the original radioactive atoms must have been there from the beginning. They could not have been transported into the granite by the movement of atoms in solution. And since the mother atoms have a very short half life, the granite must have been formed miraculously in a very short time–in a matter of minutes–and not through an eons-long process as conventional geology taught.
Gentry insisted instantaneous creation was the only plausible explanation of the phenomenon. While other scientists had criticized his work on general principles—Gentry's work had to be wrong because it contradicted established theory—none had presented any research-based alternative to Gentry's explanations. The critics had suggested the mother atoms were transported into the granite, but Gentry said his research had ruled that out. He was eager for more scientists to examine the halos because the evidence right there in the rocks would eventually force a re-working of the orthodox understanding of the formation of granite and the age of the earth.
Once you recognized that granite did not form over millions of years of slow cooling, this would require rethinking all sorts of related questions in geochronology. It would create a revolution in geology, a paradigm shift. In this new world of geology, perhaps scientists would have the honesty and perspicaciousness to recognize the truth of the Bible account.
Because Gentry argued on the basis of physics and mineralogy, citing experimental evidence that could be replicated, his arguments seemed very strong. This was not speculative. This was not interpretation of once-upon-a-time events like the fossilization of dinosaurs or the creation of birds–events no one saw involving processes we have never observed producing effects that we cannot replicate. No, Gentry was making his case based on phenomena that could be studied in the lab. The decay rates of polonium were short enough that people could reasonably attempt to replicate the formation of the halos in the lab. Besides that, further study of a sufficient number of samples could determine if the halos were in fact evenly distributed in granite. The half-life of the mother products could be measured. Alternative decay paths could be ruled out. Even the formation of granite itself could be investigated. Scientists could make molten stews of the appropriate minerals and cool them at different rates and pressures to see if granite formed from the mixture.
Gentry cautioned us not to get our hopes up. He spent a fair amount of time detailing the animosity he had experienced from other scientists. As the implications of his research came to be more widely recognized, journals were refusing to publish his research. They were even refusing to publish his letters rebutting inaccurate references to his work. The bias in the scientific establishment was entrenched and apparently unassailable. But he vowed to continue his work as long as he could find the funds to do so. The quest for truth must go on.
Leaving the campground, I was elated. Finally, here was the silver bullet I had been dreaming of. Solid, non-speculative, non-theoretical, concrete evidence that countered the irresistible onslaught of conventional geochronology. The Bible was true. My church was right.
(The trickiest part of writing a memoir is remembering! I vividly remember listening to Gentry's presentation at Camp Berkshire. I am rather uncertain about what year this happened--1972, 1979 or 80. I'm sure there are other details equally susceptible to my "creative" memory.)
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Chapter 37 German New York Seventh-day Adventist Church
When Ted Wilson hired me to work for Metropolitan Ministries, there was no open slot in the organization. He created a position just for me. It was a bold move on his part, but not utterly illogical. While I was at seminary I never met another Anglo student who had the slightest interest in going to New York City. In fact, I had never met any Adventist pastor anywhere outside New York who had any interest in moving to the City. So, while I was eccentric, atypical, a maverick as one of my professors put it, I did have this going for me: I had a demonstrated ability to draw people together in spiritual work, I had lived in the City before, so my dreams of ministry there had some anchor in reality, and I WANTED to live and work in New York.
It didn't hurt that my father was a generous supporter of the church and a long-time acquaintance of Ted’s father. I'm sure it didn’t hurt that my name was recommended to Ted by a woman I met at Andrews who gone to high school with Ted. (After getting the job, I married her!) Still, I think the decision to hire me evinced Ted's commitment to reaching New York City. He was himself pursuing a radical vision of institutional ministry. And he was willing to give another radical visionary a chance, even if that visionary did not fit the usual profile of Adventist clergy.
Our prophet had written specific prophecies about Adventist work in New York City. The church was to send its best workers there. She predicted the Adventist work in NYC would become a shining example of what God wanted to accomplish in the rest of the world. She offered detailed strategies—a network of retreat centers and medical facilities in rural areas outside the city linked with churches, vegetarian restaurants and treatment centers in the city. After a few early attempts to implement this vision, denominational leaders forgot the city.
It's not that there was no Adventist presence in the City. By the 1980s there were well over a hundred Adventist congregations in the City, some with over a thousand members. Most of these congregations had distinct ethnic identities. In the first half of the 20th Century, Italians, Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, French, Japanese Adventists all had their own congregations. Over the decades as immigration patterns changed, these congregations switched to English as the language of worship. New ethnic groups coalesced. In the second half of the 20th Century, the ethnic makeup of the Adventist Church in New York City shifted dramatically, becoming largely Black and Brown—West Indian and Hispanic. All of this happened without any significant structural adjustments by the denomination. Congregations developed as they usually do. Pastors preached and conducted evangelistic meetings. People invited their friends and co-workers and sent their children to Adventist schools.
Occasionally, someone (usually white, usually from the West Coast) would read Ellen White's comments and feel called to come to New York to implement the prophet’s vision. Over the years these dreamers had established vegetarian restaurants and holistic health centers. They didn’t last—neither the people nor the institutions. They never had much impact on the city. But the history of failure appeared to have no impact on subsequent efforts.
Ted was not from the West Coast. And he had something going for him other visionaries lacked. His father was president of the world-wide Adventist Church. And his father had ambitions for his son.
In the mid-twentieth century, church leaders began to give attention to the fact that Adventist work world-wide was largely a rural and suburban phenomenon while the global population was migrating to the cities. We had to do something to reach the cities if we were going to be obedient to God's call to take our message to all people. The denomination purchased buildings in the center of several large cities to serve as evangelistic centers. The New Gallery Centre in London and New York Center in Times Square were the most famous of these centers.
The buildings did not effectively alter the church's visibility or effectiveness in these cities. A director would arrive. Church papers would publish a glowing article detailing the director's plans for creative outreach to the city. A few years later, another set of articles would appear detailing another incoming director's dreams and plans. There were never any articles about the realization of any of these dreams. The failure of the New York Center to impact the work of the church there was especially painful. Times Square was only four hours by train from the denomination's international headquarters outside Washington, D.C. And our prophet had specifically called the church to do noteworthy work in New York.
Eventually, Ted’s father, the General Conference President, led in the formation of a completely new organization to do something about the challenge of the New York City metropolitan area. Its director would report directly to the General Conference, thus bypassing the territorial jealousies created by the denomination’s administrative lines that separated Newark and suburban New Jersey from New York City and Westchester County from suburban Connecticut. Ted was appointed head of this organization. He came to his position absolutely persuaded that the key to doing effective outreach in New York City was “the blue print” mapped out by Ellen White. If we would only implement her vision, the church would experience dramatic, sustained growth. It would become a movement recognized by civic and business leaders as a boon to the well-being of the City.
Ted was assisted by a vice-president and treasurer and the usual secretaries. I was the first non-administrative person hired. My job was to give Bible studies, to do outreach in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood east of the Center, to assist in the running of monthly smoking cessation programs and be available for any other assignment that might support the denomination's evangelistic work. Ted talked with the Greater New York president about placing me unofficially in a Manhattan congregation where I could assist the pastor and gain ministerial experience.
I was assigned to the German New York Adventist Church on East 87th Street.
My first Sabbath there, I counted the people. Forty two. The occupancy notice posted on the rear wall read 455. The place looked empty. The building was very plain. Very high ceiling. The walls consisted of painted concrete block punctuated by cheap, aluminum-frame windows. The pews were white-blond oak with red cushions on a few of them toward the front. (Why buy cushions for pews that no one will sit on?)
The five English-speaking people there had their own Sabbath School class. During the worship service we sat in the back and Kurt Paulien, the head elder, translated for us. Actually, it was a loose paraphrase. I had no way of knowing whether the preacher was as boring as the translation.
The two things the church had going for it were the warmth of the old Germans–they were delighted to have visitors and made their delight evident–and the warm light flooding through the east windows.
The pastor said hello to me and that was the extent of our interaction. He never talked with me about the church or my work. He never invited me to attend board meetings. “Good morning, how are you,” at church on Sabbath morning was as far as we got. After I had been there a few weeks, the head elder (the leading lay person in an Adventist congregation) asked me to preach once a month. He explained that the German pastor did not feel comfortable preaching in English. I presumed he was speaking on behalf of the pastor, but the pastor never spoke to me about my preaching.
The congregation was wrestling with reality. They could not continue as a German-speaking church. German immigration which had built the church in the 30s and 40s and filled it with members in the 1950s was over. The last German-speaking person to join their church was a Romanian. Most of the kids who had grown up in the church had moved away from New York. Those who remained in the city no longer considered themselves Adventists. The average age of the Germans was somewhere north of 65. The youngest German was a single woman in her fifties. Still they treasured their German identity. They prided themselves on their industry and organization, their financial generosity, their strictness in observing all the Adventist rules. How could they surrender their church to people who would lower the standard? Still, it had to happen. The German identity and culture of the church could not be maintained without Germans. The English-speaking Sabbath School class and the English translation of the German sermon and now an English sermon once a month were their first steps toward a transition they dreaded.
While the pastor completely ignored me, the members made me welcome, at church and in their homes. They loved to tell me about their children–adults older than I was. These children of the German Church were were engineers and lawyers, doctors and teachers. They were attentive and generous with their parents. Most of the children were significantly better off financially than their parents. And their parents loved to brag about the ways their children helped to ease the challenges they faced as they aged.
Ursala’s daughter, Brita, was a lawyer. She did a fair amount of pro-bono work for indigent clients. Ursala was a brittle diabetic with frequent medical needs. Brita took her to the doctor. Ursala could get around the city by herself. She even had a car, but Brita insisted on driving her mother the doctor.
Ursala protested she didn’t need Brita to play taxi. She wasn’t helpless. But Brita brushed her protests aside. Ursala’s husband had left her when Brita was only a year and a half old. Together, they had struggled through lean years. Ursala had sent her to the Adventist School in Jackson Heights, then to the Adventist high school in Flushing. There was never enough money, but somehow they made it through.
Now Brita was a lawyer. She was married and had two boys. They were the smartest boys in the whole world. One played the piano. The other liked to tinker with things. He won first prize in his school’s science fair. She thought he was going to be a scientist.
Brita was a good daughter. “I couldn’t ask for a better daughter.” Ursala said. “I pray for her every day. And for her boys and her husband. I pray that she will come back to church.
“I don’t understand. I sent her to Greater New York Academy and Atlantic Union College [both Adventist schools]. When she was young she learned all her memory verses. She used to sing in church. But once she got out of college she just seemed to lose interest. She used to go to church sometimes, ‘just for you’ she would say. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
What could I say? I had no children of my own. I wasn’t even married. What did I know about why people grow up in Adventist homes then decide to be good people who don’t go to church? In the world I grew up in, people who quit going to church were bad people. They were people with moral problems–liars, cheaters, adulterers, people who were selfish, greedy and disrespectful of parents. I didn’t have a category for people who were good and no longer interested in church.
Over the months other English-speaking people began attending. Vincent and Marilyn Gardner worked for the “Van Ministry.” This was the brain child of Juanita Kretschmar, the conference president’s wife. Pairs of volunteers drove remodeled RVs to neighborhoods all over the city to offer free blood pressure checks to passers-by. They visited Wall Street and midtown Manhattan and desperate neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx. They offered health information to everyone and urged people with elevated blood pressure to see their physicians. They looked for opportunities to pray with people and offered Bible study guides to those who seemed receptive.
It was the most effective outreach the church had ever done, touching far more people than the New York Center and the Adventist-owned vegetarian restaurants and book stores combined. Not that a lot of people joined the church through this ministry, though some did. The Van Ministry made friends for the church and helped the church turn its face outward.
Vincent Gardner was a physician who had left his comfortable practice in Colorado to serve God in New York. In New York he did not practice medicine, instead he acted as the medical adviser for the Van Ministry and gave health lectures in area churches and in health fairs and any other place that gave him an audience. He offered Christian counseling by appointment at the Van Center.
At the German Church, Vincent and his wife quietly welcomed visitors. She exuded a gentle graciousness that was magnetic. Vincent occasionally preached the English sermon. His sermons were thoughtful and ponderous. They had substantial content, but it was work listening to them.
Not long after I began attending, a young woman in her twenties showed up. In hind sight she was the first sign of the future of the German Church. We didn't know it then, of course. We were just thrilled to have young person among us.
Under Ted's leadership, Metro Ministries opened a lunch shop near Wall Street as the first institutional component of their master plan. Then, Ted and his vice-president began scouring the close-in upstate counties for a location for their country outpost, a compound where city workers could live while providing ministry in the City. It would provide an escape from the noise, filth and decadence of the city. At the same time he was working on a dissertation for a Ph. D. in religious education at New York University. His dissertation was a detailed business plan for doing evangelism in New York City based on the visions of Ellen White.
Ted finally found a defunct Catholic college for sale in New Paltz. I was invited along when the Metro board toured the place. Everyone was talking excitedly about how this could be remodeled into the perfect country refuge for church employees and for patients who would come to the health center they imagined. Setting it up would take millions of dollars, but that was God’s problem. All they had to do was to be faithful to vision God had given his people through the prophet.
It didn't hurt that my father was a generous supporter of the church and a long-time acquaintance of Ted’s father. I'm sure it didn’t hurt that my name was recommended to Ted by a woman I met at Andrews who gone to high school with Ted. (After getting the job, I married her!) Still, I think the decision to hire me evinced Ted's commitment to reaching New York City. He was himself pursuing a radical vision of institutional ministry. And he was willing to give another radical visionary a chance, even if that visionary did not fit the usual profile of Adventist clergy.
Our prophet had written specific prophecies about Adventist work in New York City. The church was to send its best workers there. She predicted the Adventist work in NYC would become a shining example of what God wanted to accomplish in the rest of the world. She offered detailed strategies—a network of retreat centers and medical facilities in rural areas outside the city linked with churches, vegetarian restaurants and treatment centers in the city. After a few early attempts to implement this vision, denominational leaders forgot the city.
It's not that there was no Adventist presence in the City. By the 1980s there were well over a hundred Adventist congregations in the City, some with over a thousand members. Most of these congregations had distinct ethnic identities. In the first half of the 20th Century, Italians, Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, French, Japanese Adventists all had their own congregations. Over the decades as immigration patterns changed, these congregations switched to English as the language of worship. New ethnic groups coalesced. In the second half of the 20th Century, the ethnic makeup of the Adventist Church in New York City shifted dramatically, becoming largely Black and Brown—West Indian and Hispanic. All of this happened without any significant structural adjustments by the denomination. Congregations developed as they usually do. Pastors preached and conducted evangelistic meetings. People invited their friends and co-workers and sent their children to Adventist schools.
Occasionally, someone (usually white, usually from the West Coast) would read Ellen White's comments and feel called to come to New York to implement the prophet’s vision. Over the years these dreamers had established vegetarian restaurants and holistic health centers. They didn’t last—neither the people nor the institutions. They never had much impact on the city. But the history of failure appeared to have no impact on subsequent efforts.
Ted was not from the West Coast. And he had something going for him other visionaries lacked. His father was president of the world-wide Adventist Church. And his father had ambitions for his son.
In the mid-twentieth century, church leaders began to give attention to the fact that Adventist work world-wide was largely a rural and suburban phenomenon while the global population was migrating to the cities. We had to do something to reach the cities if we were going to be obedient to God's call to take our message to all people. The denomination purchased buildings in the center of several large cities to serve as evangelistic centers. The New Gallery Centre in London and New York Center in Times Square were the most famous of these centers.
The buildings did not effectively alter the church's visibility or effectiveness in these cities. A director would arrive. Church papers would publish a glowing article detailing the director's plans for creative outreach to the city. A few years later, another set of articles would appear detailing another incoming director's dreams and plans. There were never any articles about the realization of any of these dreams. The failure of the New York Center to impact the work of the church there was especially painful. Times Square was only four hours by train from the denomination's international headquarters outside Washington, D.C. And our prophet had specifically called the church to do noteworthy work in New York.
Eventually, Ted’s father, the General Conference President, led in the formation of a completely new organization to do something about the challenge of the New York City metropolitan area. Its director would report directly to the General Conference, thus bypassing the territorial jealousies created by the denomination’s administrative lines that separated Newark and suburban New Jersey from New York City and Westchester County from suburban Connecticut. Ted was appointed head of this organization. He came to his position absolutely persuaded that the key to doing effective outreach in New York City was “the blue print” mapped out by Ellen White. If we would only implement her vision, the church would experience dramatic, sustained growth. It would become a movement recognized by civic and business leaders as a boon to the well-being of the City.
Ted was assisted by a vice-president and treasurer and the usual secretaries. I was the first non-administrative person hired. My job was to give Bible studies, to do outreach in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood east of the Center, to assist in the running of monthly smoking cessation programs and be available for any other assignment that might support the denomination's evangelistic work. Ted talked with the Greater New York president about placing me unofficially in a Manhattan congregation where I could assist the pastor and gain ministerial experience.
I was assigned to the German New York Adventist Church on East 87th Street.
My first Sabbath there, I counted the people. Forty two. The occupancy notice posted on the rear wall read 455. The place looked empty. The building was very plain. Very high ceiling. The walls consisted of painted concrete block punctuated by cheap, aluminum-frame windows. The pews were white-blond oak with red cushions on a few of them toward the front. (Why buy cushions for pews that no one will sit on?)
The five English-speaking people there had their own Sabbath School class. During the worship service we sat in the back and Kurt Paulien, the head elder, translated for us. Actually, it was a loose paraphrase. I had no way of knowing whether the preacher was as boring as the translation.
The two things the church had going for it were the warmth of the old Germans–they were delighted to have visitors and made their delight evident–and the warm light flooding through the east windows.
The pastor said hello to me and that was the extent of our interaction. He never talked with me about the church or my work. He never invited me to attend board meetings. “Good morning, how are you,” at church on Sabbath morning was as far as we got. After I had been there a few weeks, the head elder (the leading lay person in an Adventist congregation) asked me to preach once a month. He explained that the German pastor did not feel comfortable preaching in English. I presumed he was speaking on behalf of the pastor, but the pastor never spoke to me about my preaching.
The congregation was wrestling with reality. They could not continue as a German-speaking church. German immigration which had built the church in the 30s and 40s and filled it with members in the 1950s was over. The last German-speaking person to join their church was a Romanian. Most of the kids who had grown up in the church had moved away from New York. Those who remained in the city no longer considered themselves Adventists. The average age of the Germans was somewhere north of 65. The youngest German was a single woman in her fifties. Still they treasured their German identity. They prided themselves on their industry and organization, their financial generosity, their strictness in observing all the Adventist rules. How could they surrender their church to people who would lower the standard? Still, it had to happen. The German identity and culture of the church could not be maintained without Germans. The English-speaking Sabbath School class and the English translation of the German sermon and now an English sermon once a month were their first steps toward a transition they dreaded.
While the pastor completely ignored me, the members made me welcome, at church and in their homes. They loved to tell me about their children–adults older than I was. These children of the German Church were were engineers and lawyers, doctors and teachers. They were attentive and generous with their parents. Most of the children were significantly better off financially than their parents. And their parents loved to brag about the ways their children helped to ease the challenges they faced as they aged.
Ursala’s daughter, Brita, was a lawyer. She did a fair amount of pro-bono work for indigent clients. Ursala was a brittle diabetic with frequent medical needs. Brita took her to the doctor. Ursala could get around the city by herself. She even had a car, but Brita insisted on driving her mother the doctor.
Ursala protested she didn’t need Brita to play taxi. She wasn’t helpless. But Brita brushed her protests aside. Ursala’s husband had left her when Brita was only a year and a half old. Together, they had struggled through lean years. Ursala had sent her to the Adventist School in Jackson Heights, then to the Adventist high school in Flushing. There was never enough money, but somehow they made it through.
Now Brita was a lawyer. She was married and had two boys. They were the smartest boys in the whole world. One played the piano. The other liked to tinker with things. He won first prize in his school’s science fair. She thought he was going to be a scientist.
Brita was a good daughter. “I couldn’t ask for a better daughter.” Ursala said. “I pray for her every day. And for her boys and her husband. I pray that she will come back to church.
“I don’t understand. I sent her to Greater New York Academy and Atlantic Union College [both Adventist schools]. When she was young she learned all her memory verses. She used to sing in church. But once she got out of college she just seemed to lose interest. She used to go to church sometimes, ‘just for you’ she would say. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
What could I say? I had no children of my own. I wasn’t even married. What did I know about why people grow up in Adventist homes then decide to be good people who don’t go to church? In the world I grew up in, people who quit going to church were bad people. They were people with moral problems–liars, cheaters, adulterers, people who were selfish, greedy and disrespectful of parents. I didn’t have a category for people who were good and no longer interested in church.
Over the months other English-speaking people began attending. Vincent and Marilyn Gardner worked for the “Van Ministry.” This was the brain child of Juanita Kretschmar, the conference president’s wife. Pairs of volunteers drove remodeled RVs to neighborhoods all over the city to offer free blood pressure checks to passers-by. They visited Wall Street and midtown Manhattan and desperate neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx. They offered health information to everyone and urged people with elevated blood pressure to see their physicians. They looked for opportunities to pray with people and offered Bible study guides to those who seemed receptive.
It was the most effective outreach the church had ever done, touching far more people than the New York Center and the Adventist-owned vegetarian restaurants and book stores combined. Not that a lot of people joined the church through this ministry, though some did. The Van Ministry made friends for the church and helped the church turn its face outward.
Vincent Gardner was a physician who had left his comfortable practice in Colorado to serve God in New York. In New York he did not practice medicine, instead he acted as the medical adviser for the Van Ministry and gave health lectures in area churches and in health fairs and any other place that gave him an audience. He offered Christian counseling by appointment at the Van Center.
At the German Church, Vincent and his wife quietly welcomed visitors. She exuded a gentle graciousness that was magnetic. Vincent occasionally preached the English sermon. His sermons were thoughtful and ponderous. They had substantial content, but it was work listening to them.
Not long after I began attending, a young woman in her twenties showed up. In hind sight she was the first sign of the future of the German Church. We didn't know it then, of course. We were just thrilled to have young person among us.
Under Ted's leadership, Metro Ministries opened a lunch shop near Wall Street as the first institutional component of their master plan. Then, Ted and his vice-president began scouring the close-in upstate counties for a location for their country outpost, a compound where city workers could live while providing ministry in the City. It would provide an escape from the noise, filth and decadence of the city. At the same time he was working on a dissertation for a Ph. D. in religious education at New York University. His dissertation was a detailed business plan for doing evangelism in New York City based on the visions of Ellen White.
Ted finally found a defunct Catholic college for sale in New Paltz. I was invited along when the Metro board toured the place. Everyone was talking excitedly about how this could be remodeled into the perfect country refuge for church employees and for patients who would come to the health center they imagined. Setting it up would take millions of dollars, but that was God’s problem. All they had to do was to be faithful to vision God had given his people through the prophet.
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