 Pastoral Reflections
By James Lamkin
"Thy Will Be...Dunn" John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th. This past Saturday, Baptist preacher and prophet, James Dunn, did the same. Another great freedom lover, died on Independence Day. Dunn had been the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, DC, from 1981-1999. He was wiry, quirky, quick witted, always on point, and looked like a cross between Barney Fife and Yosemite Sam. He had been one of the interim pastors at Ravensworth Baptist Church just before I went there in 1992. When he preached at NDBC several years ago, he gave me one of his books: Truth with the Bark on It. Here are a few excerpts: "I'm a Texas-bred, Spirit-led, Bible-teaching, revival-preaching, recovering Southern Baptist. That's neither a boast nor a whine, just an explanation of where I'm coming from...." "Religious freedom marks off the playing field, establishes the marketplace, provides the context in which all faiths may offer their own understanding of the ultimate good news from heaven to humankind." "When government claims to aid all religions, it never fails to play favorites." "The trouble with a theocracy is everyone wants to be Theo!" "The best thing government can do for religion is to leave it alone." "As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in schools." "It is despicable demagoguery for the President to play petty politics with prayer. He knows that the Supreme Court has never banned prayer in schools. It can't. Real prayer is always free." "You don't speak for Baptists. You only speak to Baptists." "Jesus would have liked Mexican food, jalapenos, Blue Bell ice cream, and boiling hot chicory coffee." "Churches faithful to the Gospel cannot remain silent in the face of injustice. Silence is sin." "...No one is 'free as a bird.' Only a bird is free as a bird. We are not free to deny basic freedoms to others. When anyone's freedom is denied, everyone's freedom is endangered." Dunn had the power to turn a phrase; and he used that power as a champion of the oft mentioned, but poorly understood, First Amendment which speaks against the establishment of...but defends the exercise of...religion. I attended James Dunn's retirement party in D.C. years ago. Doug Marlette, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist and creator of Kudzu with Reverend Will B. Dunn, was the keynote speaker. Marlette said something like, "In a media driven, sound-bite age, one does not have the luxury of long explanation." James Dunn came into the commonwealth of God for such a time as this. He told the rough-cut truth...truth with the bark still on. | 
July 15 @ 11:15 PM
