[Dialogue] Spong on Dallas and on torture

[KroegerD at aol.com]

October 18, 2006 
Dallas, Texas: A New Vision  
Dallas, Texas, has never been one of my favorite cities. Its image was  
firmly set for me during the course of a single month in 1963, when two events  
occurred that rocked this country. First, the American Ambassador to the United  
Nations, Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., was booed, abused and spat upon by a Dallas  
crowd while making a speech on the United Nations. Recent harsh, right-wing  
editorials in its newspapers were considered responsible for inciting this  
mentality among Dallas citizens. Within a month in this same city, that anger  
struck again as President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Dallas became for me 
 a city of hostility.  
A decade later that negative image was enhanced when I was gathering material 
 to write the biography of my personal mentor and hero, John Elbridge Hines, 
who  had been Bishop of Texas prior to his election as Presiding Bishop of the 
 Episcopal Church (1964-1973). As his official biographer I had the privilege 
of  reading all of the correspondence sent to him and the press notices that  
referred to him. The amount of vituperative rhetoric that he received from  
Dallas citizens, and the stridently negative coverage of him in the Dallas  
Morning News confirmed my less than positive feelings about that city.  
Later in my days as a bishop, the leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of  
Dallas, especially its one-time Suffragan Bishop Robert Terwilliger, kept the  
Dallas negativity at full strength. Terwilliger was a consistently hostile voice 
 in our church as we sought to wrestle with the issues of a changing world. 
He  adamantly opposed the ordination of women to the priesthood and directed  
constant and emotional energy against every liberalizing move the church made 
in  the seventies and eighties to bring justice and acceptance to gay and 
lesbian  people. None of these experiences served to counter my poor image of 
Dallas.  
Yet I could recall things long stored in my memory bank about Dallas that  
were positive. When I was a child I was a Washington Senators baseball fan. The  
Washington organization was the parent team of the Charlotte Hornets who 
played  in my hometown and to this team my childhood devotion was intense. 
Charlotte  Hornet players who made it to the big leagues, like Early Wynn, Al Evans, 
Jake  Early, Jim Bloodworth and Bobby Estalella, were my ultimate heroes. Most 
did not  stay with the Senators, but were traded or sold by this chronically 
bad team to  pay its bills. Finally poor crowds forced this team out of 
Washington, first to  Minneapolis-St. Paul to become the Minnesota Twins, and after 
a second  Washington team also failed, it was moved to Dallas to become the 
Texas Rangers.  I then transferred my affection to the Rangers and pulled for 
this Dallas/Fort  Worth team until I moved to Newark in 1976 and fell in love 
with the Yankees of  Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson and Catfish Hunter. However, 
for that brief time  Dallas gained credibility and warmth inside my not 
always objective psyche and  served to temper my heretofore negative image.  
Over the years these positive feelings began to grow as I accepted a number  
of invitations to speak in this city. I lectured at Southern Methodist  
University where an "adopted" son of mine named Chace Brinegar was a student,  and 
then at the Perkins Theological Seminary where the great theologian Schubert  
Ogden was a respected and admired member of the faculty. I led a clergy  
conference for the Methodists of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I even engaged in a  
printed debate in the Dallas Morning News with the current Episcopal Bishop of  
Dallas, James Stanton, that I enjoyed, but I don't think he did. On three  
different occasions, I spoke at the very unique Dallas Cathedral of Hope. On  
three other occasions, I gave a series of lectures at the Unity Church of  
Dallas. All of these were wonderful experiences and I began to develop a circle  of 
friends in that city who forced me to recognize that the monolithic negative  
definition of any place is always inappropriate. Every city, indeed every 
place,  has within it both good and evil, things for which to be proud and things 
for  which to be ashamed.  
I go into this personal history as a preamble to a recent experience in which 
 Christine and I spent five wonderful days in Dallas, that were as meaningful 
as  any time as I have ever known.  
We arrived on a Friday and that evening and on Saturday night, we both  
attended, along with some 400 people, two performances of the play "A Pebble in  My 
Shoe," written and directed by Los Angeles playwright Colin Cox. This play is 
 based on my autobiography, Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of  
Integrity, Love and Equality. It has been floating around the country at 
various  venues since it opened in Los Angeles in late 2005. Dallas was the second 
Texas  city, after Austin, where it has been performed. Both nights the 
audience was  wonderfully responsive to this drama about the Church's struggle with 
racism,  sexism and homophobia.  
On Sunday I spoke twice at the Cathedral of Hope to a combined audience of  
some 1,300 people. Founded in 1973 as a worship community for homosexual 
people,  this church has had as its senior pastor for the past nineteen years, the 
Rev.  Michael Piazza, a gay Methodist minister of enormous talent. During his 
tenure  the Cathedral of Hope emerged as one of that city's largest 
congregations with  an online ministry that reaches 10,000 people a week. The multiple 
Sunday  worship services are augmented by a spectacular choir of some 40 - 50 
voices and  a marvelous full orchestra under the direction of Cynthia Brown. 
Once they had a  choral group calling itself "The Positive Singers," because all 
of its singers  were HIV positive. The new leader of this church is the Rev. 
Dr. Jo Hudson, who  has a graduate degree in Theology from Perkins and a PhD 
from Texas A. & M.  She was an ordained Methodist minister who was outed as a 
lesbian and dismissed  from her congregation. She found her ministry in this 
incredible place where,  along with Michael, she is universally loved and admired 
and where her  incredible talents are on full display. The Cathedral of Hope 
was originally  affiliated with the Metropolitan Community Church, a 
denomination created by the  Rev. Dr. Troy Perry specifically for the rejected 
homosexual members of all  churches that today has over 300,000 members around the 
world. The Cathedral of  Hope is at this moment negotiating to enter the 
Christian Protestant mainstream  by affiliating with the United Church of Christ. This 
transition is symbolic of  the transition going on in America as homophobia 
dies and gay and lesbian people  enter the life of full citizenship in both our 
nation and our churches. Michael  Piazza told me some years ago that at the 
height of the AIDS epidemic, he was  conducting as many as 20 to 25 funerals a 
month, almost all of them for young  males less than 40 years of age. I have 
thought many times of how grateful I am  to this church for giving its love and 
pastoral care to so many who found the  welcome of Christ lacking in the 
churches in which they were raised.  
As the service unfolded in that church on that Sunday morning, tears came to  
my eyes as I watched worshipers come up as couples or as family groups to  
receive communion. The acceptance accorded to so many who have endured so much  
rejection was present in the joy and love on the faces of these gay and 
lesbian  people. Couples held hands, sometimes a gay son or lesbian daughter would 
come  to receive the sacrament accompanied both by their partners and their 
parents.  This was a church in which they could finally be openly together.  
That afternoon, my wife and I accepted their invitation to ride in the back  
of a Lincoln Town Car convertible as part of the Dallas Gay Pride Parade. On  
that ride we received the love, cheers and applause of the thousands who lined 
 the streets along the parade route. We were announced at the various stops 
along  the way as the Episcopal bishop who had fought for the full acceptance 
of  homosexual people in the life of the church. The crowd waved, shouted and 
called  us by our names. It rained constantly during the parade on that open  
convertible, but neither the rain nor a group of Bible-wielding counter  
demonstrators could dim the joy of that day for us. The counter-demonstrators,  with 
voices screaming and faces contorted by anger promised us the fate of Sodom  
and Gomorrah. I am always amazed at how the Bible, that portrays my Lord  
embracing the outcasts, touching the lepers, welcoming the Samaritans, not  
judging the woman taken in the act of adultery, and inviting "all of ye," not  "some 
of ye," to "come unto me," can, in the hands of a few distorted people be  
turned into a book of hatred, violence and judgment.  
The Dallas visit ended with a lecture delivered to a large audience of people 
 at the Unity Church of Dallas on Monday evening. The Unity Movement is a 
branch  of Christianity to which I have in recent years become deeply attracted, 
as it  quite self-consciously seeks to redefine the Christian faith outside 
the  categories of sin, guilt, rescue and control. Its theology begins in 
Matthew  Fox's concept of "Original Blessing" rather than with the traditional 
concept of  "Original Sin." It sees and encourages personal growth and the call to 
full  humanity. It proclaims a Christianity built on love and inclusion. It 
affirms  each person as he or she is and then seeks to provide both the 
community and the  resources to help that person grow into being all that he or she 
can be. Unity  sees Christianity as a religion of acceptance not judgment, of 
expanding life  not controlling behavior. The Unity movement contains much of 
what I believe  will mark the Christian Church of the future.  
Christine and I flew home on Tuesday with the smiles of those who have been  
in the presence of the Holy. We also came away with warm new feelings about 
the  city of Dallas. Is it possible that the Kingdom of God might be dawning in  
Texas? God does move in mysterious ways, doesn't she?  
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 
Several weeks ago I solicited reader comments on a letter from Graeme  Moore 
on torture. I promised to print the responses in place of the regular  
question and answer feature to my column. The letters below are a fulfillment of  
that promise. Thanks to all of you for your participation in this debate.  
John Shelby Spong  
Gerald Nordstrom from Minneapolis, MN, writes:  
Graeme Moore is correct in saying that torture or any defense of it violates  
the Golden Rule. Failure to observe this rule accounts for cruelty and  
dishonesty of all kinds - the effluence of self-centeredness, the core of all  
evil. By contrast and at the heart of the Golden Rule are empathy, kindness,  
generosity, and forgiveness.  
Too many born-again Bible-worshipers brush the Golden Rule aside, disinclined 
 to do the soul-searching necessary for following it. Preferring commandments 
 easier to follow, they proudly come out against abortion, stem-cell 
research,  gay marriage, etc., and then comfortably give ignoble support for 
preemptive  violence, presumptuous dominance, and torture.  
As to why liberals do not move against the President's defense of these  
things, liberals are characteristically laissez-faire, and their tolerance has  
dangerously allowed Bush too much rope - though there is hope it will be pulled  
back smartly in the coming election.  
Gladys M. Peckham from Bradenton, FL, writes:  
These are the same people who advocate war as an answer to world problems.  
There are no faces in war, not even our own troops. It is simply the good guys  
and bad guys. Us versus them, and them is always wrong. It takes too much  
trouble to work things out by listening and respect. Seems we are back in the  
wild west, no value in people, just land.  
John Backus via the Internet writes:  
I come from a family whose past (before my parents) was very violent. My  
mother, in a fearful time of our life, once told me (before I was a teenager)  
that if someone were to ask me a question, and then start breaking my fingers -  
I must never answer - because I was already dead, but just didn't know it 
yet.  And if I absolutely had to speak, I must lie - and lie in such a way that I 
take  "one of them" with me.  
I not only believe that any form of torture is beneath us - but it is  
demonstrably counter productive. I have witnessed it in my country, and it was  what 
I was taught in my own family. Those days are long gone - all those folk,  
and my parents, are dead. But the memory of that conversation lingers strong.  
Alan via the internet (jepysdad) writes:  
As Mr. Moore from Canada wrote and you so accurately nailed in your "Small  
Leaders in a New Dark Age" column there appears to be no political price for 
our  leaders to wander naked down the street in the parade. Sure a few of us are 
 pointed at the horror of two old rich white men in their sagging birthday 
suits,  but most cheer them on cause they wear the crown. I did a piece on my 
blog about  torture being a new family value. It is below. Peace, Alan  
New Family Value, Torture!  
Apparently listening to sermons preaching fire and brimstone isn't torturous  
enough. Family values means more than just imaging the damning lake of fire, 
it  entails ensuring Biblical level suffering is inflicted upon infidels. The  
techniques have been updated for our century. Rather than dunk suspected  
evildoers in the closest river or lake, modern day plumbing enables the drowning  
to occur inside a jail cell.  
Two techniques approximate a winter time dunking in the Elizabeth River. One, 
 the prisoner is kept naked in a 50 degree cell and splashed with cold water 
for  days at a time. The second is called waterboarding, where the prisoners 
only  think they are drowning. Really they are just suffocating due to plastic 
wrap  over their face while water splashed over them.  
Groups endorsing these practices include the Family Research Council and The  
Traditional Values Coalition. Apparently these are common adolescent behavior 
 modification practices in the Biblical family known for treating others the 
way  they wish to be treated. Leaders of both groups implied those blocking 
the  President's plan to use coercive techniques and testimony, hearsay, and 
restrict  access to evidence will pay the political price.  
"Maverick status is looked upon as a strength in Congress, but a maverick in  
the White House is not looked upon with great admiration from our folks," 
Tony  Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Monday.  
"Politically, this isn't wise," added the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the 
 Traditional Values Coalition, which supports the president's call for 
Congress  to approve touch interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects.  
Tony Perkins and Rev. Sheldon likely desire the day any God fearing Christian 
 can simply shout "This person is possessed" and the might of governmental 
power  descends upon the innocent victim. Yes, bring back the use of hearsay 
that saw  many innocents in America's early history exterminated for crop 
failures and  violent storms.  
Yet, there is no price for government failure.  
D. A. Taylor via the Internet writes:  
I agree with Mr. Moore that leadership must find its voice in this horrendous 
 spectacle of Mr. Bush using and manipulating torture to further ends of war. 
 Where are the Jerry Falwells, the Oral Roberts, The Billy Grahams, the Pat  
Robertsons and Shulers of the Christian world? Or are they extremists similar 
to  the Imans and clerics who burn churches and effigies in the name of peace 
loving  and tolerant Islam? I guess I know the answer to that part of the 
established  Christian leadership and that it exposes their hypocrisy for its 
enormity. At  the same time, leaders of the main line denominations like United 
Methodists,  Jews, Catholics, Baptists, etc. should all be stepping up to the 
podium to speak  clearly of Christian values and how they are against the 
behavior being shown by  the born again Mr. Bush, a self professed Christian 
disciple. To hear Mr. Bush  puzzle over what is meant by "outrages upon human 
dignity". As John Spong  relates, this puzzle is a smokescreen that seeks to hide the 
fact that  outrageous things have already been done and condoned by the 
leadership.  
I have seen the documentary called Guantanamo and it makes me sick in its  
portrayal of the abuse and inhumane treatment of political prisoners at the  
hands of Americans and British. Canada's Mayar Arar is only the tip of the  
iceberg in what has happened in the American-led Western World in the last 6  
years. It is truly appalling.  
Rob Hirschman from Saginaw, MI, writes:  
The honest answer is that many Christians support torture because they  supp
ort George W. Bush and his so called war on terror. These are the people  that 
continue to say Saddam was involved in 9-11 and that we are doing God's  will 
by liberating the people of Iraq no matter how many of them get killed  along 
the way. Facts mean nothing to these people who honestly believe God is on  
their side. The foundation of their belief is that they and they alone know the  
truth about God and everything concerning God. These people have no room for  
doubt or open thought because it makes them uncomfortable even to consider 
the  possibility that they might be wrong. The world is black and white to them 
with  no shades of grey. They pick and choose which part of the scripture to 
follow.  It is like eating at a buffet. The bottom line with them is that only 
Christians  have real truth and to hell with everyone else figuratively and 
literally.  
Dr. Sharon Gilliland from Indianapolis, IN, writes:  
I completely agree with Graeme Moore's comments about Christians and torture. 
 I feel strongly that torture is wrong. I feel appalled to realize that my  
feelings and opinions are not shared by those who have power in this country. I 
 am ashamed to be an American and wish I could easily move my allegiance to  
another country. I feel powerless to effect any change in those who rule this  
country.  
John Kenyon from Silver Spring, MD, writes:  
Regarding the recent letter writer's question about the failure of Christians 
 to stand up against torture, I think it is much like anything else: we only  
notice the thing that "sticks out" (Erich Fromm's term) and not that which is 
 already doing as it ought. We committed Christians, not necessarily aligned 
with  any specific sect or organization, are raising Holy Hell about this 
issue, and  we will continue to make a loud noise and will walk the walk as well 
as talk. I  would go so far as to say that those who oppose man's inhumanity to 
man,  regardless of the banner beneath which they do so, are all acting in 
the spirit  of Christ and therefore may be considered Christians (even if some 
of them might  be offended by the appellation).  
This is about as succinct as I ever get. Thanks for your ongoing good work.  
We are with you, and we are many.
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