Incontrovertible Proof of a Conspiracy to Silence Bloggers

I’m spreading the word, Dave! We’ll have you back in the SBC before Harold Camping can say “Oops!” You just wait and see!

Squirrel

O.K. it’s Story Time. First- AME Churches were/are very active in Civil Rights. Read that about six times and then know they know the correct God and that is our common denominator. There is an AME on a back road that I take that changes their marquee often enough that I always look. Today they were cooking in their kitchen and the sign outside didn’t say anything about AME ONLY. I’m hungry. I know the food is going to be good. I’m driving my old, but nice ’78 Ford, Jacked-up, pick-up , with dual loud mufflers , with my NRA sticker, USA Terrorist Hunting Permit sticker, VA Terrorist HUNTING PERMIT sticker, NY TERRORIST HUNTING PERMIT sticker, PA TERRORIST HUNTING PERMIT sticker, an AIR LINE PILOTS ASSN sticker, there’s a nice handgun in the truck and while I’m clean and presentable – I’m white ( w/ white hair) and I say red-neck in most ways. I must have driven back and forth passed this church at least 3 times. I told myself that I didn’t have a hair on my head if I didn’t GO IN – and just park. I did. Nobody in the parking lot to either “welcome me ” or pull their own gun , knife, razor and run me out. So I got out, locked the truck because of any children and the firearm inside. It gets better and worse and better. There was a lady cooking at an old cast iron, big gas stove with huge pieces of chicken frying. I “yes mam’ed” her and told her I didn’t eat much. She gave me the biggest piece on the stove. I got the rest and sat close by at a round table which was empty – waved to the guy sitting at a small table by the exit who was collecting the money. I thought about joking him by telling him I was a fast runner but got rid of that idea. I big guy came over sat down didn’t want to shake although I was eating and started to ask probing questions like where I went to church. I told him at that great, big, huge and new Baptist church up the road that owed a lot of money. He didn’t think that was funny. He must have been the local trouble maker as shortly a couple other guys came over sat down and rescued me. I eat, finish , pay, thank the lady cooking and now there are lots of children playing in the parking lot and in front of my truck. I stepped up on the foot rest of jacked up truck looked around and decided to not tell somebody else’s children what to do – like move – so I backed up and put my hitch into a nice Chrysler grill that I never saw. Everybody must have been watching me as the doors on the church opened like a fire drill. I saw the first big guy at the table and went to him and told him the story and that I didn’t pull out forward because of the children. He told the right people and got me “off the hook”. I met the lady that was driving that car and explained that I was insured but I’d rather pay her the cash and I didn’t need a written estimate etc. She wasn’t fast about it and I saw her at the church later and said I was glad I hadn’t overlooked a child playing behind my truck. I’m waiting for another sign at that church that advertises “lunch”. I’m going in but not in a red necked truck. I see the pastor of that church at another lunch counter now and then . Dave , you’ve been thrown a lemon, but there’s a good chance you can make a lot of lemonade. Don’t pass up the chance to try. She sent me every estimate and I paid her with a “bank check” – fast. AME folks have paid the price, don’t have a chip on their shoulder somehow and cook really good chicken !

On the upside, you may have some folks coming in looking for an AME who instead hear the Gospel proclaimed with saving power.
All in the Providence of God.

It could happen. 🙂

Well, there was that one secret meeting…..but I thought I heard the word Anglo Saxon. 🙂

Be glad you weren’t placed under “Cult”. 🙂

Dave:

You may have a legal remedy here, but I don’t know. Surely you should get some of the church’s money back.

I read a case in law school where a business had the slogan “Get it in Gear”, but when the yellow pages ad came out it said, “Get it in rear”.

I think that business won some money.

Results in your area may differ.

Check with a local lawyer.

As a Black Historian, I can tell you there is every reason to be proud of being listed under AME’s designated and disguished cognomen. Of course, being Baptist, I can understand you preference for being listed under that term. In any case, I wrote a prospectus for a doctoral dissertation at Columbia Univ., NYC, in the Summer of ’71, and a major point of it was to show the superior exemplification of the Christian Faith that was produced among the Black folks in the days of slavery. Unfortunately, I was not able to return to complete that doctorate…though I did do my Doctor of Ministry project at SEBTS on Christian Love and Race Relations. More recently, Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer revealed that the African Americans made such an impression on that German Lutheran Martyr that he took the spirit of their adherence to the Bible and their Negro Spirituals (which ranks as some of the great music of the world) back to German. Their spirit of faithfulness and creativity in the worship of Christ inspired Bonhoeffer in his labors in the Confessional Church that he established and in his faithfulness during his incarceration and execution….If most people knew what I know about the history of Black folks that would be moved beyond words. While I, too, am a Baptist by conviction, and know my denomination to have been severely wanting in the area of race relations, I am still comforted by the fact that most Blacks are Baptists. And the church I attend has a number of Black folks in its membership. This morning three Black people who have been attending for some time joined our church along with six other people. Praise God for Black folks or African Americans as some prefer that term.

Rick Patrick, I always wondered if the real deal will show up but you lose me with ” your unusual interest in phone books ” which by the way has kept this conversation alive a few days now. Good video but now tell us the real truth about AME churchs and what the rest of us don’t know.

Why would this hurt your nomination for IMB President? It shows your ability to work with other faiths, like Southern Baptists, given your willingness to be here with us at SBCVoices.

Since I now consistently hang up on the Yellow Page sales people when they call, we’ll probably be listed under something that’s actually bad next yellow pages around here.

By the way, to prove the conspiracy, remember that in some parts of the country, the SBC Yellow Pages are the “Real” Yellow Pages.

I think that’s down in the old-line states, too….

Or have they renamed the phone company again and I’m behind in my joke?

Dave:

Maybe your church should seek “dual alignment” with the AME and the SBC. Then you could run for SBC President as the first Pastor of a church affiliated with an African American group.

Gee, I went on a mission trip 31 years ago this past last of Jan and first of February. Not even a single thought of ever getting to be head of IMB…even though I voted for the Bible every time. The folks that got the top slots could care less for the poor slobs on the bottom who might not measure up to their stick of straightness..which turns out to be just as crooked as ours when put up against our Lord’s truly straight stick of character and conduct. The Pharisees can be just as troublesome as the Sadducees, and they both get together to do the Lord in while the true believers all forsook Him and fled. I trust I am in the third group, but to flee in fear is not helpful to assurance.

Dave, Make Lemonade !

Dave, Is this the first you have been aware of the AME denomination ? Do you feel uncomfortable with you or your church being associated with a black denomination that has a rich history and worships the true God. Have you ever heard of the “Underground Railroad” before this ? I feel these questions are fair and straight forward with no hidden agenda. Lemonade

What about the other questions ?

Dave, Are these questions out of line ?

This whole conversation reminds me of how many Blacks crossed over into the white community. One slave on a plantationin Arkansas (sent their by his master and father on a plantation in Tn) was told by the oerseer to hit the road and never mention that some of his ancestry was Black. Such things did happen. I had a descendant of Sally Hemmings in one of my classes of American History that I taught at South Carolina State College from ’70-’72. I also had two students from a town in Fla. where John Trammel, the cook for Jesse W. James’ gang. He was a two gun man, and I read later the fellow who shot the sub for one of the Jesse’s in St. Joe, Mo. A real charade (there were at least 5 Jesse James and at least two of them had brothers named Frank and at least two, possibly three Jesses had gangs that robbed banks, etc., to raise money for the reviving of the Confederacy. My great grandpappy worked for that Jesse W. on a ranch in New Mexico and didn’t believe he got shot in St Joe (Wonder why? Could it have been for the the fact that he worked for him before and after the fact?). That black James Gang memer was quite a shootist and gunman, and then there was the black fellow from S. Carolina who had an Oxford education while still a slave, cause his master’s sons, thought that their slaves should be able to do what they did. And, of course, stangely, there was a black man near Orangeburg, SC., who was married to a white woman and over 200 slaves. Life was awfully contradictory back then, including white Southern Baptist who believed in the Bible as the word of God and who also believed it taught and justified slavery until God took away in judgment the finest flower of manhood of the South and put a cannon ball in the leading preacher’s grave for saying Baptists would fight in defense of slavery.

I intend no position on Right or Wrong for anyone to get unglued over. I only know that Life’s pain and suffering as well as peace and prosperity knows no boundaries and all its experiences can be shared over a handshake with Christ as the common bond. I’m exceeding my abilities here to express myself as I was almost a high school dropout but I respect your experiences and your “Real” Doctorate and Theology as someone to emulate. I never have won a popularity contest and I’m sure you see why. Good Travels. I respect Dave’s not answering my questions, but I greatly respect his not cancelling the Blog. I’ve always been bothered by what I don’t know but I’ve never, ever been bothered by asking to find the answers. And I’ve received so much help from so many different kinds of people that made me whatever I am that I don’t “appreciate”, saying it mildly, people causing others problems for rotten reasons.

I Googled “Underground Railroad ” in Iowa and was pleasantly surprised to find that the National Park Service has taken over some of the official “Stations” there and opened them to the public. Mayhaps someone from an AME in Sioux City wold be gracious enough to provide a speaking tour. I’ll lock the basement door after you all have gone down and I have thrown some pots and pans down the stairs . Now that’s funny ! Don’t straighten up to fast or you’ll hit your head(s).

In 1970 I moved to Orangeburg, S.C. to teach History at South Carolina State College. It was quite an experience. Black folks of the South are closer to White folks of the South than they are to Blacks up North, and the same goes for White folks. I definitely found that I had more in common with Black folks from South than I did with White folks from up North. There are really some great Christians and great people among Blacks just as there are among Whites. The same goes for bad people. They exist in both groups. That’s where we who preach the Gospel come in. It is our task to win them to Christ with the truth, I have attended 10 schools above the secondary level, one of those schools being Lincoln University, where I had the opportunity to study under one of the great Black Historians, Dr. Lorenzo J. Greene. He is mentioned in the bibliography section for chapter 8 on slavery in colonial New England by John Hope Franklin as the authority on slavery in that area and period. I had Dr. Greene for three courses in small classes and received as did the other students personal attention. You can’t get that sometimes even in graduate school in some of the bigger state institutions. He helped me immeasurably. Later I would take an M.A. in Intellectual History from Morehead in Ky and be elected to membership in Phi Alpha Theta – the International Honor Society of Historians. I thank God for my experience with Black people, African Americans. I remember the one time I surprised Dr. Greene. I was teaching at South Carolina State, and I attended the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (Now The African American Historians Association). Somehow or another I would up setting at one of the tables of the Executive Board for dinner (a member met me outside and invited me, saying, “There is plenty of room – not every one will make it”). Dr. Greene walked in the door right to me, and he looked shocked (I had not seen him in 4 yrs., since my days at Lincoln in Mo.). “Mr Willingham, ” he asked, what in the world are you doing here?” I could entertain you all with some interesting stories of Black Americans. I thank God for my experiences with them. I remember winning one to Christ from Nagodoces (sp?), Texas in the spring of ’59. I had a pastor from ’97-2000 who had been won by a Black Christian on an American Warship in the Gulf of Mexico. He was going to have that fellow come and speak at that church then, but he was unable to get it worked out. God grant us all a great awakening, and let us win the whole earth to Christ and every soul in it beginning with our generation and continuing for another 999 generations in order to fulfill the promises of God to Abraham of a seed as innumerable as the stars of heaven, the sand of the sea, and the dust of the earth.

Thank you Brother Wolford, but the praise goes to the Lord and to those Black Americans who have exemplified the best of the American Spirit in their response to Sovereign Grace.

A trinket for David, A fellow Iowan named John L. Lewis was born in Lucas Iowa in 1880 today. I have a video tape of him as the President of the United Mine Workers of America standing up in the U.S. Capitol which was then heated by coal and loudly proclaiming to Congress who had a war on their hands, that if they, Congress, would guarantee his men and wives and children a roof over their heads, and enough food to eat then he would guarantee them all the coal they needed. It was settled then and there. I wonder what faith he was.

I have no idea if this is serious, or a joke, stumbled here looking for southern baptist info. But the yellow pages placing your church under AME instead of Baptist, is a big deal to you? Nobody even uses the phone book these days. People look on the net for churches. Other than phone books being nothing but junk body bothers with, what is the issue here? You are likely the only person that noticed it.