Remembering Al Pope

The giants, they are toppling, one after another.

  The latest to fall lacks the national stature of others I have hailed here. Nevertheless, he was a great influence on me – and many others, I am sure.

   Al Pope died May 5 at the age of 96. He was long retired as a United Methodist pastor and educator, but he remained remarkably active, physically and mentally, late in life.

   I knew him, first, as an instructor of the “United Methodist Polity” class at Saint Paul School of Theology. He was an engaging and easygoing teacher from whom I learned a lot, and not just about the way United Methodists run their churches.

   I remember the way he most often greeted us in class. “I bring you a word of grace and peace from the God who…,” always combined with a statement of how God was acting in our lives.

   I “borrowed” that pastoral greeting for the next 30 years of my ministry. Sure, Al borrowed it from Saint Paul himself, but I thought it was a brilliant way to begin any worship service or discussion of Christian life.

   I knew him, second, as the former pastor of two churches where I served: first, Roeland Park UMC, where I was the pastoral intern for several years; and later at Central UMC in Lawrence, KS, where I was co-interim pastor for six months.

   Al served at Roeland Park for five years, from 1981 to 1986. After a tumultuous end to the previous pastor’s tenure, he emphasized healing and stability. He set a rich pattern of congregational life that remained in place for many years.

   I saw him last at a reception at that church several years ago. I apologized for not calling him since the last time we’d run into each other. No matter, he said; his hearing was so bad that phone calls just didn’t work anymore.

   I intended to write him to tell him how much he had meant to me, but of course I never got around to it.

  Memo to me (and you): Always do those things NOW before it’s too late.

Super sci-fi

     I thought the “Lady Astronaut” series of science fiction books would be more of a curiosity than an exciting read. Boy, was I wrong.

     The series, four books so far, is by Mary Robinette Kowal, whose other works I know nothing about.

     The four, in proper order (and you do miss a little if you don’t read them in order) are: The Calculating Stars, The Fated Sky, The Relentless Moon, The Martian Contingency.

     The stories are set in a fictional future based on a fictional past — an “alternate history,” if you will. In 1952, a meteor strikes Chesapeake Bay, wiping out much of the Eastern Seaboard and setting the world on a collision course with a rough stretch of global winter followed by an intense global warming that cannot be survived.

     Out of the devastation arises a somewhat changed worldwide order (the capital of the U.S. is now Kansas City) and shaky international cooperation on a space program designed to get people off the planet before it becomes uninhabitable.

     The chief characters in the series are men and women of the space corps who travel first to the moon and then to Mars in search of a new home for humanity. The central character is Elma York, an experienced pilot and mathematician who overcomes much antagonism to become the original “Lady Astronaut,” the first woman in space.

     Sexism and racism are among the several contentious issues the books explore in their re-imagining of history. Elma and her husband are Jewish. Two of their closest friends are Black. One white astronaut from South Africa is a racist jerk. Even in an alternate reality, some things don’t change much.

     One of the delights of the books is the way the author re-imagines things. Electronics are in their infancy. Computers are stuck in the punch-card stage. The real “computers” here are female math whizzes (think Bletchley Park) who do complex calculations in a fraction of the time needed by mechanical devices.

     Trying to sabotage the space program are “EarthFirsters.” These people think all resources should be devoted to saving people on the dying planet. Though their tactics are despicable, they drive home a point the books never dance around: There will never be enough rockets to get all the people of Earth off the planet before it dies. Decisions will have to be made about who lives and who dies.

     Maybe future books in the series will face that issue squarely.

     Author Mary Robinette Kowal expertly mixes real issues with real personal drama. Just when you think the space program and the lives of those in it are running smoothly, along comes another set of impossible complications. These books are a fun read. They’re long – all nearly 400 pages or more – but they read as fast as books half that length.

UMC’s new vision

     The United Methodist Church has a new vision – or at least a new vision statement.

     It’s intended to complement our existing mission statement.

     That statement was adopted nearly 30 years ago, based on Matthew 28:18-20:

     The mission of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

     Here’s our new vision statement:

     The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.

      “The vision is about seeing — what we see ourselves doing as a denomination,” says Bishop Dee J. Williamston, who was co-chair of group that developed the new statement. She hails from the Great Plains Conference and leads the Louisiana Conference.

     Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine Area Bishop Christian Alsted explains the difference between mission and vision statements: “The mission is what we are about, what right now is our task. As a church, the vision is where we go. So the vision, from my perspective, would paint the picture of the future in a way that is compelling and engaging, that stirs passion and involvement.”

     In short, mission is what we do, vision is where we hope to go.

     The new vision statement was announced May 1, one year after General Conference set the denomination on a new path after years of infighting.

     It was adopted unanimously by the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table, a leadership body of lay and clergy. The Book of Discipline gives those two groups responsibility for discerning and articulating the vision of the church, so action by General Conference is not needed.

     The question, of course, is whether such statements actually help direct the life of the church or are forgotten after being relegated to some file drawer.

     I’ve always appreciated the mission statement. I like the “boldly, joyfully, and courageously” part of the vision statement, but I think overall it’s too wordy to be memorable.

     How about:

     United Methodist disciples of Jesus Christ love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously wherever the Holy Spirit leads them.

     Missed the moment, I guess. Wasn’t in the room at the right time.

A naval disaster

A total of 381 books (that we have been told about) have been removed from the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland.

What happened to them? Maybe they were just thrown out with the trash. Maybe they were dumped in some damp basement to molder away. Or maybe they were burned.

It was definitely a book burning, even if no flame was lighted.

If a torpedo had been fired into the hull of a Nimitz class warship, the whole country would be upset – up in arms, as it were.

But a torpedo has been fired into the Nimitz Library. What’s been damaged, if not sunk, is the Naval Academy’s reputation as an institution of learning.

Note I didn’t say higher learning. I mean learning period.

The current administration’s attacks on learning are just beginning. But the attack on the Nimitz Library is a sign of even more despicable things to come.

I looked through the list of banned books. It was helpfully provided by the Navy itself – a bit of integrity following an act of infamy.

I noticed several I have read. Among them:

* How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

* White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

* Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

* America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis

* I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

* White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

* The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward

I might mention more, but the database the Navy provided is not particularly user friendly, and its listings are hard to translate into plain text. You can find it for yourself by looking online for “381 books” or anything similar.

You’ll quickly notice several themes among the titles. They are mostly books about race, gender, the South, and history in general.

Somebody doesn’t want anyone thinking a thought about these subjects that is not approved by the powers-that-be.

And what does this gain us?

It gains us multiple new classes of Naval officers who don’t know much of anything about American history or how we got to where we are today in terms of race and gender relations – officers whose brains have been whitewashed with narrow-band propaganda.

Do we really want such poorly educated officers commanding our ships and defending our shores?  Or should we look elsewhere for the best and the brightest?

Two more giants gone

There were giants in our land. Two more have died.

 Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at age 88.

 Retired United Methodist Bishop Richard Wilke died on Easter morning in Winfield, Kansas. He was 94.

 Francis will be mourned throughout the world by all Christians and by followers of other faith traditions as well.

 Papal electors probably didn’t know what they were in for when they elected a Jesuit pope from Latin America.

 Francis proved to be (at least publicly) a gentle pastoral spirit who embodied the love of God for all. He also was a fearless voice for social justice and a tenacious opponent of ingrown Vatican politics and “conservative” Catholics who worship tradition rather than Jesus.

We shudder to think who will be chosen to follow him – or, more likely, replace him.

Wilke was best known for the pioneering Disciple Bible Study series, which he developed with his wife, Julia.

More than 3 million people around the world have taken part in a Disciple Bible Study 

The Wilkes’ daughter, Susan Wilke Fuquay, created Disciple Fast Track, a streamlined version of the original that has proved popular among churches.

Disciple grew out of a longtime frustration with the scriptural illiteracy of many in the pews. That frustration was embodied in a 1986 book, And Are We Yet Alive? The title came from a hymn frequently sung at the start of each year’s annual conference. The answer was supposed to be yes. Wilke wasn’t sure that was always true – and one remedy he suggested was deeper engagement with scripture.

In recent months I’ve marked the passing of President Jimmy Carter and theologians John B. Cobb and Richard B. Hays. There are surely a few other giants left out there. To paraphrase the hymn, if we ever needed them before, we sure do need them now.