Sleep on Old Soldier, Sleep On, How long? Not Long! This is a rhetorical pathos - phrase; it is an emotional appeal that belongs to African American funeral oratory. Aristotle calls this epideictic speech or ceremonial discourse. It is a way to appeal for future hope, it is a way to praise and avoid blame of an individual, group or subject. It is well known as a rhetorical device in African American Baptist’s culture. However, these words are preserved for giants of the faith like pastors, church officers and pillars of the church.
Warren Lewis was one of those giants. For more than forty two years, he served as pastor of Mount Tabor Church in Lewisburg, West Virginia; he began his pastorate there during his middle – twenties. What is more, he served as the secretary of the West Virginia Baptist State Convention for more than five decades; more than likely, he holds the longest tenure in the history of the Baptist state’s convention. Strangely, Lewis’ death is a larger story. His life’s work as a Baptist leader also is a kind of metaphor. What else died with Lewis? An era died as did a cultural understanding of how we do church.
There is a common way that most African American Baptists worship. Many local assemblies of Baptists do not permit drums or dancing in their churches; many do not permit or at least they discourage women and young girls from wearing pants in public services, and many do not permit women to preach. All these values are perceived to be correct biblical interpretation.
I support this as a right. Baptists believe in autonomy of a local congregation; this means they have the privilege and awesome responsibility to interpret scripture and therefore govern themselves by their discoveries, despite traditional and conventional hermeneutics and despite new hermeneutic reform. By this I mean, some biblical interpretation is conventional and well understood by all and other interpretation is less conventional and differently interpreted. For these reasons, culture may play a large role in understanding and implementation for faith into practice in a local body of believers. They have the right to be wrong; they have a right to be right too.
When King Hussein of Jordan died, his wife Queen Norah alongside then first lady Hillary Clinton, where not permitted to accompany Hussein’s body through final stages of the burial rites and ceremony. Only men were given that privilege and responsibility, but not their queen, not the king’s wife. By contrast, women were among the first to visit our risen Lord’s tomb, and they shared the good news with the disciples as the gospels boldly claim.
In early stages of the 21st century, most people in the world are painfully observing treatment of women in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle East countries, not to mention the misogynous atrocities that occur in Africa. Most emotionally object to this kind of treatment and moreover, find this behavior irrational to Western sense and sensibilities. Well at least today, once Western and American culture in particular, did not see any contradiction in how we discriminated against citizens. Slavery ended in 1865 and women did not receive the right to vote well into the 1920’s.
We see through a glass dimly and need the light of God’s Spirit to illumine for us the correct paths to take. What African American Baptists must grapple with is whether our theology is cultural or biblical. What are the absolute necessities for worship, faith and practice in an ever changing society? Does one size fit all? Alternatively, can we agree that some of what we do is not biblical theology, but cultural norms that lag behind? I am in the process or re-familiarizing myself with three seminal works: Christianity and Culture by T. S. Eliot, Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr and Theology of Culture by Paul Tillich. These books help us determine the differences between theology and culture. It may help us to understand the end of an era that died with its giants. Stay tuned….
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