[Dialogue] (no subject)

[KroegerD at aol.com]

June 14, 2006 
A Life Well Lived  

Reading obituaries is a remarkably insightful pastime. Each of us does it  
more and more as we grow older. The obituary writer obviously cannot recall all  
the twists and turns of a single life. Indeed, for the world to take note of 
a  particular death in the obituary pages of a major newspaper at all, there 
has to  be something special, something significant that lifts that particular 
life into  a dimension of human meaning. So one searches the obituaries to 
discover that  source of his or her qualification. Longevity without meaning is 
not necessarily  noteworthy.  
I recall that story in the Book of Genesis about a man named Methuselah, who  
is said to be the oldest man described in the Bible. The biblical text says 
of  him: “Methuselah lived 969 years and he died.” I have always thought that 
was a  remarkably negative commentary on his life. Even though Methuselah 
lived 969  years, all that anyone deemed noteworthy about him was that he died!  
I thought about Methuselah a few weeks ago, while I was in Montreal, Canada  
doing a series of lectures. Each morning I read Montreal’s English speaking  
daily known as “The Gazette.” One day the obituary page featured five persons  
whose deaths were treated as being of national or international note. The one 
 that intrigued me was the story of an 83-year-old Mississippi woman named  
Florence Mars. Her name called up no images from my memory bank and rang no  
bells of recognition. Why, I wondered, was the death of an 83-year-old  
Mississippi native receiving attention in the Montreal Gazette? Reading the  story, I 
discovered much about what gives value to human life.  
Florence Mars was born in 1923 and grew up in Philadelphia, not the  
well-known port in Pennsylvania, but a small Mississippi town by the same name,  
located in Neshoba County. This town was not unlike many towns in the rural  south 
in those early years of the 20th century in that its citizens seemed to  
believe unquestionably in white supremacy and its corollary of segregation.  Indeed 
this racist conviction was called “the invisible hand” that directed the  
public and private life of people in this region. The story of the South in the  
20th century was the story of conflict that arose and intensified, as this  
prejudice was first challenged and then began to die. By the late fifties and  
middle sixties that conflict had actually begun to recede, yet in parts of the 
 South it still fed deep emotions of hatred. In 1964, ten years after the 
Supreme  Court ruling on desegregation but a year before Congress was to pass the 
 National Voter Rights Act, three civil rights workers whose stated task was 
to  register black voters came to Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their names were  
Michael Schwerner, 24, James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20. That summer 
was  destined to be a hot and unforgettable time. The idealism of these three 
young  men, two of whom were white and one black, collided with that 
unrelenting racism  that had long informed the South’s way of life. After a short time 
these three  civil rights workers disappeared. The official story passed 
around among local  people was that their disappearance was part of a hoax invented 
by outside  agitators to gain national attention. Some of Philadelphia’s 
citizens even  questioned whether the presence of these young men had actually 
been itself just  a rumor to agitate the local people. If their presence was 
deemed to be nothing  more than a rumor, then their disappearance was reduced to 
the status of sheer  fantasy. In that same time frame a black church in 
Philadelphia had been burned.  The Ku Klux Klan claimed credit for that but the local 
folks dismissed even that  burning as one more publicity stunt orchestrated 
by outsiders, designed to split  and embarrass the white community. This “
common wisdom” was generally regarded  as “the gospel truth” by the white 
community, with one solitary exception. A  forty-one year old local businesswoman, a 
daughter of the town, named Florence  Mars was publicly skeptical. She had 
actually seen these three young men in  Philadelphia. She knew their presence was 
not fabricated. She also suspected  that their disappearance was not just real 
but the result of foul play, so she  began her own quiet investigation, 
listening, watching and questioning. On one  occasion, she confronted the editor of 
the local paper about his prejudiced  coverage of the racial violence that 
was gripping her town. She quickly emerged  as the unwanted and disturbing “
conscience” of Philadelphia, but her continued  efforts kept the issue alive until 
searchers finally discovered a deserted place  where the surface of the earth 
had been disturbed. Digging in this place,  federal authorities uncovered the 
bullet-riddled bodies of the three victims.  However, even after these 
murders were revealed, there was no prosecution and no  arrests. This crime thus 
entered the records of Philadelphia’s “unsolved”  murders. Florence Mars, 
however, continued to speak out, making it impossible  for this episode to fade into 
the forgotten past. It, therefore, became one of  the wrenching and memorable 
incidents of the civil rights movement.  
The white community, eager for this crime to be forgotten struck back with a  
vengeance at Florence Mars. She was vilified and harassed, as so often 
happens  when guilt is not allowed to be eased. She was ostracized and threatened 
with  death and violence. The KKK launched a successful boycott that ruined a 
cattle  auction business she ran, forcing her to sell out at a depressed price. 
She was  even arrested and jailed on a bogus charge of drunk driving as part 
of a planned  campaign of public harassment. Pressure from members of her 
church forced her to  resign from her position as a Sunday school teacher. Ten 
years later, she wrote  a book entitled, “Witness in Philadelphia” that kept the 
pressure on even after  charges for these murders against suspected Klan 
killers had been either dropped  or dismissed by hung juries. Her work finally met 
with success in 2005, 41 years  after these murders, when 86-year-old Ray 
Killen, a local preacher and Klan  member, was convicted of these murders and 
sentenced to jail for the balance of  his life. In a wheel chair, Florence Mars 
attended every minute of that trial,  overjoyed that justice had finally come to 
her town.  
At her recent death she was memorialized throughout the nation. Her role in  
this episode had made her life one of great significance. A local attorney, a  
member of an interracial organization known as the “Philadelphia Coalition,” 
 that had lobbied for the reopening of this case and the subsequent trial and 
 conviction of Killen, said of her, “I shudder to think how little progress 
we  would have made if not for Florence. She was our guide along the path to  
resolution and redemption for our community.” Florence Mars’ single gift was  
that she was not willing to be silenced or to be passive in the face of evil.  
She had little obvious power. No one thought of her as a community leader. 
Armed  only with the conviction that if citizens can murder one another because 
they do  not like their victim’s opinions, then no life is finally safe. In 
obedience to  that conviction Florence Mars found the courage that enabled her 
to absorb the  slings and arrows of a dying racism. She lived to see her faith 
in that  conviction vindicated and to gain the appreciation of her world. It 
is because  of people like Florence Mars that a new consciousness about what it 
means to be  human was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where this woman 
lived her entire  life. Because she lived her life so well serving a universal 
human principle,  her death was noticed around the world. The obituary in the 
Montreal Gazette was  a signal tribute to the power of her life.  
Heroic activity is not always reserved for heroes. In almost every sense of  
the world, Florence Mars was an ordinary person. She lived on a very small  
stage, in a place not likely to be noticed by the world’s power brokers. Yet in  
the commonplace action of raising her voice against hatred and of lifting her 
 conscience against intolerance, she changed her world. She left this earth a 
 better place for having been in it.  
Is that not the ultimate criterion on which all life must be assessed?  
Wealthy people who dominate great industries retire and die every day and are  
quickly forgotten. Political figures who achieve great power in one century are  
lost in the pages of history in another. How many Americans today can relate 
any  fact about such persons as Franklin Pierce, James K. Polk or Millard 
Fillmore?  Yet each was elected in the 19th century to the highest office of this 
land.  Millions of best selling authors suffer the fate of being unknown twenty 
years  after their deaths. Who in 2050 will know the name of Dan Brown? These 
things  cause me to wonder about the value system under which we live. The 
discovery of  meaning is something that touches the dimensions of timelessness 
and eternity  and access to meaning is within every person’s ability to achieve. 
It demands  only that we escape our self-centered zone of comfort and place 
an ideal at the  center of our lives from which we never waver. To enhance life 
is a virtue. To  diminish life is a vice. To seek truth is a virtue. To kill 
truth in the service  of prejudice is a vice. That is all it takes to enter 
into the realm of meaning.  Florence Mars did just that. That was why she was 
remembered at the time of her  death the world over. To serve truth without 
compromise, to be willing to pay  the personal cost of abuse, harassment and 
rejection in the service of that  truth is the pathway into meaning and thus I 
believe the pathway into God. Truth  does not compromise to achieve a lesser goal 
like unity, popularity or personal  well-being. Unity is never a substitute 
for truth or justice. That was the  simple lesson that Florence Mars knew well. 
It is a pity that so many of our  political and religious leaders have not yet 
embraced this elementary  understanding of reality.  
Florence Mars was not born to lead but lead she did and history will remember 
 her. How many of us will it occur to the editors of the Montreal Gazette to  
memorialize when we come to the end of our days?  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note from  the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores everywhere  and by clicking here!_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060762055/agoramedia-20)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Larry E. Farr, via the Internet, writes:  
Besides enjoying your audiotapes from the Westar Institute, I am enjoying the 
 audiotapes from Bart Ehrman from The Teaching Company. This company also 
offers  tapes from a man named Luke Timothy Johnson. On your audiotapes of the  
resurrection, you mention several times a Luke Timothy Johnson who has been  
critical of your ministry. From your description of him and their description of 
 him, it sounds like they are the same person. My question is are they the 
same  person? If so, would you recommend me investing in purchasing his tapes?  
Dear Larry,  
Luke Timothy Johnson is a Roman Catholic priest, not practicing the  
priesthood, who teaches New Testament at Candler Theological Seminary at Emory  
University. He is bright, articulate, winsome and, in my opinion, is almost  always 
wrong. He has been particularly critical of both the Jesus Seminar and of  me. 
The basis of his criticism when reduced to its essence seems to be this:  “
Since these people disagree with traditional Christianity, they cannot be right  
since traditional Christianity is always right.” It never seems to occur to 
Dr.  Johnson that traditional Christianity could be compromised, acculturated 
or  inaccurate. I find that a narrow, self-serving and naïve conclusion that is 
not  worthy of serious consideration.  
I think it is important to know all sides of a debate. So, if you want the  
tapes then by all means get them and judge for yourself.  
John Shelby Spong 
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