Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Clergy Killer Response Aug 14, 2024

The book I read in 1999, Clergy Killers by Lloyd Redinger, (Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) lists on page 9 the 6 D’s that flawed and fatal bullies faithfully follow.

  1. Destructive: Clergy killers are marked by intentional destructiveness. They don’t just disagree or criticize, they insist on inflicting pain and damaging their targets. Their tactics include sabotage, subverting worthy causes, inciting others to do their dirty work.
  2. Determined: Clergy killers don’t stop. They may go underground or change tactics, but they will find ways to intimidate and break any rules of decency to accomplish their destruction.
  3. Deceitful: Clergy killers manipulate, camouflage, misrepresent, and accuse others of their own tactics. Their statements and negotiations are not trust-worthy. As masters of disguise they present themselves as pious members, who are “only doing this for the good of the church.” Often they convince naive parishioners that they are raising legitimate issues.
  4. Demonic: Clergy killers are evil and may be mentally disordered, depending on how you define behaviors that do not yield to patience and love, or honor human decency. Other leaders become symbols and scapegoats for the internal pain they feel.
  5. Denial: Most of us don’t want to admit to the reality of clergy killers, nor do we acknowledge the intentional damage they cause. Members who believe “this shouldn’t be happening in the church,” convince themselves it isn’t really happening or their threats and terror tactics aren’t that bad; this gives unrestrained power that leaves the church vulnerable.
  6. Discernment: This is the prescriptive sixth “D.” The spiritual gift of discernment is God’s grace that opens eyes to see and understand evil. Discernment is followed by confronting evil, which works best, of course, in a healthy community of faith. (End quote)

Like any body/organism, the best way to overcome a cancer is to strengthen the health of the body. Leaders who recognize this type can act with humor, hope, joy, and compassion (not with a return of violence, prejudice, and hate) to allow God’s grace and love to flow through the community. As with any system, non-reactive and steady leadership builds healthy communities. 

Although this was written 27 years ago for church communities, what speaks to you about whatever communities are yours? How does naming and confronting evil with peace, love, joy, and hope lead to an abundant life? Who in your life’s experiences dod you recall from this type?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 1 Comment

Serendipity  August 9, 2024

A friend at Emory had dreamed about and saved for buying her first car — a Cadillac to be precise.  When she entered the dealership in Atlanta, she was shown into a salesman’s office to choose a car to test drive.  Without rising from his chair or removing his feet from the desk, he asked her, “Now little lady, honestly, do you think you can afford to buy one of my cars?”  She replied, “Mister, I may not be able to afford two but I sure as hell can afford one!”  

She sought a better salesman.

In 1977 I was told her Cadillac had been ruined in a wreck, but she was not seriously injured. I called her and said, “I’m so sorry to hear what happened. How are you doing?” She replied, “We’re all devastated and doing the best we can; the family is gathering together to meet his plane. I so appreciate your call..…”  I knew we weren’t talking about her car, so I just kept listening.

Her uncle, Bert Lance, was flying home after resigning as the director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Jimmy Carter. He had been accused of mismanagement while serving on the board of a bank in Georgia, and had resigned from OMB to avoid even a hint of scandal so soon after Watergate. (He was later found not guilty).

Three lessons I learned: 

  1. If you call to ask about one thing and the other person wants to talk about something else, go with their topic; don’t insist on yours.  After all, it was Bert Lance who popularized the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
  2. Serendipity is when you seek one thing and find something else, and God is involved in the difference.
  3. Timing is everything.

How does my experience remind you of allowing the needs of the other person to steer a conversation? Who do you know who experienced a reputation slowly gained and quickly lost by trumped up charges?  How have you found serendipity in seeking one thing and finding another thanks to God’s involvement in the discovery? 

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 2 Comments

Getting It July 24, 2024

Tuesdays with Pauline were spent in the company of our black maid who cleaned our home during my childhood. I remember Pauline’s laughter, her chess pie, her discipline, her love, but I don’t remember her crying…. except once. The second Tuesday of April 1968, I was home from fifth grade watching a funeral procession on our color TV. It reminded me of the one I had watched in first grade on our black and white. Pauline sat with us, shedding so many quiet tears her apron was soaked.  I remember hugging her, but I really didn’t get it.

Twenty years later, the thickest book on my shelf was “A Testament of Hope – The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.” Unlike too many books around it, I actually read this one — moved by his poetic prophetic preaching. During their annual meeting, the fourth week of April 1988, I was given the Mexico Missouri “NAACP Drum Major for Justice Award”. “Why me?” I asked, “I wasn’t even a ‘C’ in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.” The presenter replied, “Honey, we’re ALL colored by God — there’s just a variety in the complexion.”  I still didn’t get it.

Four years later, the last week of April, my friend and co-leader of youth events was my roomie at a training event at Montreat. The fact that Keith was African American only mattered when we awoke to the news of riots after the Rodney King verdict and I experienced his first reactions. Maybe I was beginning to get it.

The following December Keith and I were at a national training event in Kansas City for “God’s Gift of Human Sexuality” parent and youth curriculum.  After eating with a group at KC’s Country Club Plaza, I drove Keith to the Alameda Plaza, a ritzy hotel on a hill with an outstanding view of the Plaza Christmas Lights. As we walked in I said, “We’ll just ride the elevators up to a top floor and look out at all the lights below and come back down.” Keith said, “I don’t think we should, Wally.” I said, “O come on, Keith. It’s great. Just look like you’re going to your room and catch the view from a hall window. I DO IT ALL THE TIME!” With fear and frustration on his face and in his voice, Keith said, “Obviously you don’t do it in my skin!” I think I got it.

What is your experience of my story?  Whatever “getting it” means to you, what has helped you to or blocked you from “getting it.”

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Suspension  July 4, 2024

The final night’s hotel reservation for my high school trip to Washington, DC would have been the last one anyway. Our group’s taste of freedom and liquor resulted in an ice-bucket water-war that spilled into the hall and the floor below. If I hadn’t participated, it was because I wasn’t invited; I would have done almost anything to fit in. All of us were incriminated in a hotel suite “class action” suit.

The night we returned, my father came to my room to inform me that the school had informed him that I faced a 3-day suspension. (I thought being punished by missing school was like Br’er Rabbit begging Br’er Fox not to be thrown in the brier patch.) Dad and I decided the ground rules for my confinement.

Today, as I recall the disappointment in my father’s eyes, I admire his actions.

He did not let me avoid the consequences, use his influence to get me off, or rescue me from the results. I’ve observed how dangerous powerful people who never are held accountable for their actions can be. I was allowed to take personal responsibility, as I learned a lesson about collective responsibility.

He did not punish the punishment. He allowed the consequences without adding to them. He was not angry or violent; he did not abandon me or withhold his love. He suffered shame with me.

That’s one experience that led to my view about God. We are not punished for our sins; we are punished by our sins. God does not smite us with bad things in our lives. God does not rescue us from the consequences of our personal and collective responsibilities. God does not seek retribution with violence and vengeance. God suffers with us. As I learned in high school Latin “com-passion” literally means to suffer with.

How has seeking to be saved from responsibility kept you from learning from your mistakes? Where do you see the lack of personal and corporate responsibility enabling escalating problems like gun violence and climate change? How has being punished by your sin helped you cultivate an abundant life?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Supreme Court July 2, 2024

In 1972, I visited the office of a United States Supreme Court associate justice. My boys’ high school field trip to Washington, DC included the public small but tall courtroom where 8 white men and the honorable Thurgood Marshall sought justice together. We were privileged with a rare session with Byron White, associate justice of the supreme court — a half hour in his private office —the wood panels, the desk, and the chairs where we freshmen fidgeted.

It takes connections to gain the ear of a justice. Our class association with the associate justice came from our history teacher being the punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1965-1966. Byron “Whizzer” White led the league in rushing his rookie year of 1938 with the then-named “Pittsburgh Pirates”. Pro football brought us in the room where we learned about The Court and a few Steeler stories. 

Justice White did not align with liberal or conservative rulings. He advocated desegregation in public schools and affirmative action. He opposed Roe.v. Wade and wrote the opinion for Bowers v. Hardwick which would be later overturned.

We didn’t get to influence his decisions; we hadn’t given him 3-4 million dollars after all. We just had a unique ally which allowed our personal encounter to influence us. I came to respect and trust the ideals of the rule of law for all people in our country. Two years later in the United States v. Nixon — with one justice’s recusal for personal relationships — White joined the unanimous ruling that the president doesn’t wield great power without legal consequences.

When has a connection invited you into a relationship you would’t otherwise have? How do you use your privilege for personal gain? How do you respond to opportunities in life to do acts of love for others? 

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Mistaken Miracle June 5, 2024

As my parents and I left home, we were told the hole in my bone looked like cancer; my left arm would probably be amputated before we returned. MD Anderson in 1975 was gigantic even for Texas. One desk would take blood, X-rays across campus, questions in one room, more blood in another. We wondered how 3 days of disparate data could come together.

On D-day (diagnosis day) we toured the Johnson Space Center before our 3 pm appointment. We entered an auditorium of desks filled with 30 students in white coats. My X-rays lit a wall behind an examination table on a stage. Mom’s legs buckled and I helped her into a chair before she hit the floor.

I was invited onto the stage table. Each time I answered a question about a specific symptom, the doctor would nod at me, nod at the room, and 30 white coats would scribble. No severe pain during the day (notes); 2 am wake up with sore arm (notes); aspirin helped me sleep (notes); onset a month or more ago (notes). We 3 were asked to wait outside.

The brief silent wilderness of waiting, watching a hundred promenading strangers facing their own fears, seemed like hours. The auditorium we re-entered now contained only our two doctors. Finally we were told that it was a benign tumor called Osteoid Osteoma; they could cut it out next week. In the moment, the reality of bone surgery on me seemed more frightening than the unreality of cancer; that feeling was fleeting.

One of my parents’ friends told me it was a miracle. God had reached down from heaven and cured me of cancer by changing the tumor. At the time I didn’t say what I thought: “It was more of a mistake than a miracle — a premature diagnosis with insufficient experience.” Later I would wonder if God really reaches in to miraculously change reality for people. If God acts alone to rescue one person, then why does God withhold a miracle from another? Maybe we need better understandings of miracles and how God works with us in our lives.

How do you interpret the metaphor of miracle in the Bible and in your life? If God could, why wasn’t Jesus rescued from state sanctioned execution by the empire? When have you waited for God to change something in your life? Do you wonder if God is waiting for you? How have you been partners with God to bring healing and wholeness?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 1 Comment

Jury Duty May 31, 2024

During seminary I was summoned for jury duty. Without question, I was immediately scratched by one side. I asked a friend the rejected playground question of my childhood: “Why wasn’t I picked? What’s wrong with me?” My friend said, “Probably your seminary address; lawyers figure ministers are strong-willed thinkers. They want to be able to sway a juror to see things their way.”

I lived under that baseless theory for thirty years until I was summoned with 60 people for jury duty. Even though I made sure I proclaimed my vocation was ministry, I still was one of “the chosen” — though I wasn’t fully convinced I wanted to be.

The trial wasn’t a white-collar crime; it concerned violence. Various body-camera views from officers called to the scene were edited and shown. One victim testified the violence wasn’t that bad; her son was really a good boy. The accused man took the stand to have his say.

We the jury seemed to spend more time in the break room while the lawyers and judge met, than we did in the courtroom. I almost finished the book I had been invited to bring in the summons letter.

The judge gave us written instructions about options the law gave for various degrees of guilt or innocence. I was elected jury foreperson because I had a career of running meetings where every side was heard. That was the first I learned how the other jurors  reacted to what they heard. After clearing up three questions, we became unanimous in deciding the severity of the crime. We ordinary people in an alien environment made a decision that led a judge to sentence a man. I was disturbed (and made a little afraid) by the man’s eyes looking to blame everyone in that room (except himself).

I received a gift I wish more jurors could receive — confirmation that dispelled uncertainty. In the parking lot, an observer told two of us we had made the right decision. When we were out, the defense made sure the body-cam footage was highly edited so we didn’t hear officers mentioning previous encounters. Other evidence was suppressed as too prejudicial. She said, “If you research his past cases and sentences, you’d learn this wasn’t his first time, and I hope you helped make it his last. Thank you for your service.” I was thanked for playing a part in a system of justice that worked.

What roles have you played in our system of justice? When you say the Pledge of Allegiance — with “liberty and justice for all” — who does the “all” include? What does the promise of “liberty and justice for all” mean to you?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Vested Power  May 29, 2024

23 Memorial Days ago I went home to perform a wedding for a widower and a widow — she was my dad’s sister. At the St. Matthew’s Mall I ducked into a Hallmark store to ask, “Do you have a greeting card that says, ‘To my aunt, whom I marry today?’” My one-liner was topped by the immediate reply, “Honey, not in this state”……. and I was in Kentucky!

44 years ago, when my brother proposed I marry him, I couldn’t in that state. I had to be an ordained minister. I had yet to complete four years of seminary education before approval by my denomination. However, I could assist my seminary professor who had legally married my sister back when he was our associate pastor. (You need a scorecard to keep up).

When I asked my mentor, “How much of the wedding can I do?” He replied, “As much as you want.” “Can I do the vows?” “They say their vows; you can lead them.” “Can I bless the rings?” “God blesses the rings; you can pray.” 

“Is there anything I can’t do?” “Yes. You can’t say, ‘By the power vested in me by the laws of this state… because you ain’t got no power. I’ll say that.’” 

Now anyone can get a state’s vested power to perform a wedding with a free online ordination certificate. You just pay $50 for the state’s credentials, or maybe a c-note for the deluxe package.

The hundreds of weddings I’ve performed had a mix of religious, social, and legal obligations. During my years of seeking marriage equality, I wondered if, separately, states could perform the legal side, any blessing could done by whatever religion, and the economy could influence the social aspects of a wedding. 

Since 2014 I have my religion’s blessing, social encouragement, and the state’s vested power to equally perform same-sex weddings. Blind guides still have the right to refuse, but they don’t have the right to keep me from following God’s path. I pray my religious freedom isn’t taken away by those seeking to abuse their power to unvest mine.

How have the legal, social, and religious aspects of weddings affected your life? Where have you seen more attention placed on a wedding than on the (hopefully longer) marriage? Where do you see the positive millennial evolution of marriage in various societies?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

My Gang  May 24, 2024

My high school church youth group was my gang. Our initiation was professing shared beliefs. When I felt out of place elsewhere, I was welcomed and supported by them. I only dated the girls in the gang. I could be their leader when I felt like a nobody elsewhere. Our perspectives weren’t limited by poverty; we were made myopic by our neighborhood of white wealth. We went door to door, not with threats, but with invitations to help us collect magazines and newspapers for Louisville’s new recycling center; we sought to preserve God’s creation. We invaded our streets by cleaning up dozens of homes destroyed by the 1974 tornado. Our “West Side Story” was “Godspell” where I was to perform the role of Jesus.

Our church allowed our group to talk about almost anything. We asked deep questions with complex answers as we began to evolve beyond a childish christian faith. We ate, laughed, traveled, and played together. We role-played in situation games to learn about ourselves, others, and life. We couldn’t come to a moral consensus when one older brother fought in Viet Nam, and one older brother objected; we still supported each other.

Maybe my experience helps me understand the pressure adult gangs feel to normalize white christian nationalism in their religious or political groups. I have to confess that in my youth group I doubt I would have put truth over tribe, because of my stronger desire to be liked and accepted. My explanation cannot be an excuse.

How have you felt accepted by a religious, social, or political community? Where was your vision limited by your gang? When have you felt pressured to put tribe over truth and how have you responded?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

My First Best Man  May 6, 2024

When I finished four years of Emory college in Atlanta, I started four years of seminary studies at Union in Richmond, I had been dating a high-class underclass-woman for a year. After two years of long-distance romance, she graduated and we planned our wedding to be in the seminary chapel.

I called Jeff to invite him to be my best man and see if he could schedule our wedding date around his world-traveling business trips. He asked, “Are you sure you want me to be your best man?” Puzzled, I said, “Of course I want you. You’re my best friend!”  “No Wallis, do you want a gay man standing beside you at your seminary chapel wedding? Would that be allowed?” 

I quickly responded, “I’m not asking you because you’re gay. I’m asking you because you’re you. You’re my best man because of what you’ve done to become my best friend.”

In the silence before he said “I will” stand beside you when you promise “I will”, I did not ask the question I could have — but wondered if I should have. I did not ask, “How did the church you loved and brought me back to harm you so?” Instead, I silently grieved my friend’s pain.

Soon enough though, I got back to planning my first wedding. I got back to seminary studies to learn how to follow and serve my Lord Jesus as an unfinished person in an unfinished church. I got back to becoming the pastor God called me to try to be.

How have you (or someone you love) been hurt by a church in the name of God’s love? Where have you received healing and wholeness? In what ways does your community invite your transformation in your unfinished life? 

Video of the blog above