Wiley Drake                                       Dwight McKissic

A Southern Baptist pastor raised eyebrows earlier this month when he told an interviewer that he is praying for the death of president Barack Obama. 

Wiley Drake, a California pastor who once served as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has biblical support for his death prayers.  The Book of Psalms contains a number of furious polemics against evil men who prey upon the weak and the innocent.  Here’s an example from Psalm 109:

May his days be few; may another seize his goods!  May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow!  May his children wander about and beg, may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit!  May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!  Let there be none to extend kindness to him, not any to pity his fatherless children!

That’s just a brief excerpt; there’s lot’s more. 

Imprecatory, or cursing psalms are the flip side of the biblical call to justice for the weak and the poor.  The recipient of all the woes in Psalm 109 aroused the author’s wrath because “he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to their death.”

Words of imprecation crop up in even the most lovely psalms.  The plaintive Psalm 137 recounts the plight of captives from Judah forced to sing “the songs of Zion” for the amusement of their Babylonian overlords.  At the end, the focus shifts from lament to cursing: “O daughter of Babylon, you devastator!  Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us!  Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”

While this sort of unsettling outburst is largely confined to the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament’s book of Revelation breathes much the same spirit.  In Chapter 18, the “saints and apostles and prophets” of the Christian church are called to rejoice over the destruction of “Babylon the great” (an obvious reference to the Roman Empire) “for God has given judgment for you against her!”

Jews and Christians have always struggled with these passages.  The sentiments are understandable enough.  Anyone who has suffered oppression can be blamed for praying vengeance on the heads of the tormentor.  But do these emotions, human as they are, a reflection of the heart of God?

The prophet Ezekiel (one of the 6th century BC exiles in Babylon) cautioned those who called for judgment against the wicked.  “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” God asks through his prophet, “and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”  A man is accountable for his own sins, Ezekiel argued, but no one can be held responsible for the sins of his parents.

Words of curse and imprecation are particularly problematic for followers of Jesus.  “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’,” Jesus says in the 5th chapter of Matthew.  And “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who those who persecute you, so that you may be sons and daughters of your Father who is heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

If you asked Wiley Drake about Jesus’ teaching he would likely suggest that the forgiveness and pacifism of Jesus must be “balanced” with all the nasty bits about cursing the enemy found elsewhere in the Bible. 

While most Southern Baptist leaders have refused to comment on the Rev. Drake’s death prayers, a few brave souls (Richard Land, for instance)have suggested that Drake the flake lives far from the mainstream of Southern Baptist life.

This is likely so, but people who subscribe to the “flat Bible” theory have a problem with the cursing psalms, the martial spirit of books like Joshua and the spiteful tone of the book of Revelation.  If all Scripture is God-breathed and it to be interpreted literally we are forced to conclude that God inspired the psalmists, the author of Joshua and John of Patmos to rain down fire and brimstone upon their enemies.  There is a clear and unavoidable disconnect between cursing your enemies and praying for their well being; the two positions cannot be reconciled.

Jesus pulled rank on the rest of Scripture when he taught his followers to love, forgive and bless regardless of the circumstances.  This teaching marked a profound departure from mainstream views as Jesus well knew.  That’s why the 5th chapter of Matthew follows that pattern: “You have heard it said of old . . . but I say to you.”

Jesus wasn’t inventing a new teaching; he was radicalizing the prophets emphasis on “justice, mercy and humility” (Micah 6:8) that runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.   The forgiveness vs. vengeance debate runs through the length and breadth of Scripture. 

I hold two degrees from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, an institution currently celebrating its 150th year of existence.  Established fifteen years after Baptists in the South separated from their northern counterparts over the slavery issue, the seminary moved to Louisville after the Civil war.  Louisville was one of the few Southern cities still relatively intact after the Union armies did their worst.

In honor of Southern’s 150th anniversary, Gregory Wills has written a triumphal history of the school.  In the early 1990s, while I was hurrying to finish my doctoral dissertation, my almamater was taken over by champions of biblical innerancy led by the seminary’s current president, Albert Mohler.  Mohler’s name is on my PhD diploma. 

When I arrived at the seminary in 1989, the faculty was largely unchanged from 1978, the year I graduated with my Masters of Divinity.  Within four years almost all these men and women had been fired or forced into exile in what may be the most brutal institutional takeover the American religious world has ever witnessed.

Gregory Wills’ celebratory book argues that this dramatic about face brought the school back in harmony with the orthodox intentions of its founding fathers.  

Wills has a point.  Beginning in the late 19th century, and increasingly throughout the 20th, Southern professors trended in a liberal direction (at least by Southern Baptist standards).   For generations, Southern Seminary carried the torch for scholarship and ecumenical dialogue.

Wills calls this a betrayal of the intentions of founders like James Petigru Boyce and the conservative inclinations of a conservative denomination.  In order to survive as a an island of liberalism floating in a vast ocean of conservatism, Wills argues, Southern professors disguised their true beliefs from their students and convention laity.

Having researched these issues in considerable depth, I am inclined to agree with Wills.  My dissertation was on the thought of W.O. Carver, a professor of missions and the philosophy of religion who joined the Southern faculty in 1898 and continued as a professor emeritus until 1954.  Carver, his students tell me, was likely a closet universalist (someone who believes that all shall be saved in the end) in his later years.  As his theology gradually evolved in a liberal direction, Carver’s prose became more dense and less distinct.  What he wanted to say couldn’t be said–not within the stifling confines of the SBC.  As a true child of the South; Carver couldn’t imagine life outside the SBC.

But Wills fails to address an important question: Why did so many Southern Seminary professors opt for a comparitively liberal theology in a denomination where such views could spellprofessional death?

Were men like Carver tempted onto the rocks of theological nihilism by the siren song of Yankee liberalism? 

I think the answer is far more simple.  Carver et al wished to remain true to the teaching of their Master and that meant saying No to the vengeful rage that surfaces throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.  They were what Tony Campolocalls “Red Letter Christians”; people who interpret Scripture in light of the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels.  When Jesus was out of step with the rest of the Bible, men like Carver went with Jesus.

According to the tenets of “inerrantist” fundamentalism, Jesus always marched in lock-step with the rest of the Bible.  Jesus was God, the Bible is God’s word and God cannot contradict himself.  

Or, some would argue, if Jesus did depart from the biblical mainstream it was because God periodically changes the rules of the religious game.  At times God is judgmental and vengeful; at times he is gracious and forgiving: it all depends on which “dispensation” one is living in.  Currently, this thinking goes, we are living in the dispensation of Grace–but that will all end when Jesus comes in triumph to kick ass and take names.

This week, the Southern Baptist Convention holds its annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.  The Rev. Dwight McKissic, the black pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, has proposed a resolution celebrating the election of Barack Obama as “as a significant contribution to the ongoing cause of racial reconciliation.” 

McKissic is famous for his opposition to gay rights.  “To equate civil rights withgay rights,” he once said, “is to compare my skin with their sin.”  The Texas pastor couldn’t even bring himself to vote for Barack Obama (because the Democrat was pro choice) or for John McCain (because of the Republican’s opposition to Martin Luther King day).  Being a black Southern Baptist gets complicated.

It will be interesting to see if the SBC allows McKissic’s resolution to reach the floor and, if it does, how the vote will go.  The current SBC President, likely fearing negative media, has signalled his suport for the resolution and he may carry the day.  But President Obama is even less popular in much of the Deep South (particularly in Mississippi and Alabama) than Democrats like John Kerry.

Ostensibly, Obama’s great sin is support for abortion rights and, to a slightly lesser extent, gay rights.  Obama holds moderate views on both positions, but for zealots on the extreme right and left there are no shades of gray on these matters. 

Who speaks for Southern Baptists, the Rev. McKissic or the Reverernd Drake?   Or is neither man a representative voice?

Wiley Drake’s big issue is abortion.  He is proud of the fact that he prayed for the death of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita abortionist who was recently gunned down as he distributed church bulletins at a Luthern church.  Drake isn’t saying he approves of the way the deed was done; but he isn’t inclined to quibble–God, after all, works in mysterious ways.

There are hundreds of thousands of sincere men and women across America who identify deeply with the unborn.  These people are shocked by that a parent would terminate a living soul out of mere convenience.  But political opposition to abortion is particularly strong in the South because the issue enables Southern conservatives to regain moral high ground surrendered during the civil rights movement. 

In the period just before and after the Civil War, supporters of southern slavery made much of the fact that the Bible neither condemns nor endorses the South’s peculiar institution–slavery in most sections of the Bible is simply accepted as a social fact.   The Yankee call for abolition was interpreted as a rejection of biblical norms.  God, it was argued, blessed and honored the South because the South upheld the sanctity of God’s Holy Word.

The same sort of argument is currently being pressed on the abortion issue.  As guardians of the unborn, southern conservatives stand against the callous Yankee infidel.  Southern Baptist leaders like Al Mohler now admit that their embrace of slavery was unfortunate (the convention formally apologized for slavery in 1995); yet they demonize their political opposites using the same sort of culture war rhetoric employed in the 19th century and throughout the Jim Crow period.

Supporting McKissic’s resolution might distance Southern Baptists from their racist reputation; but how can you celebrate the election of a baby killer without getting cosy with the Devil? 

This religious stuff isn’t a parlor game for me.  Southern religionists are among the most punitive and vengeful people on the planet because they have never embraced Jesus’ call to mercy and radical forgiveness.   A region in love with mass incarceration and the death penalty has surrendered the right to sanctimony.   Southerners are every bit as friendly as their reputation suggests, but the region is controlled by the hard of heart.  This contradiction defines the region.

I pray that a new generation of compassionate conservatives will resurrect the radical grace of Jesus in the Southern Baptist Convention (for all I know my prayer has already been answered).  In the meantime, I will be following the denomination’s annual convention with rapt interest.