Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Martin Niemöller 02182025

The Stuttgart declaration of guilt was signed by leaders of the Protestant Church in Germany in October 1945. It confesses in part: “That which we often testified to in our communities, we express now in the name of the whole church: We did fight for long years in the name of Jesus Christ against the mentality that found its awful expression in the National Socialist regime of violence; but we accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently.” It’s not too late to admit you’re mistakes.

An instigator and signer of that declaration was Martin Niemöller who had initially supported Adolph Hitler as an anti-semite. When Hitler ordered protestant churches to preach Nazi doctrine, Martin became one of the founders of the Confessing Church that said we will follow Jesus’ rather than the state. He spent 8 years in concentration camps where his views changed. When he barely survived, he became a famous speaker for protecting human rights. It’s not too late to change your mind.

As a teenager one of the posters on my bedroom was this quote from Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.” Sometimes it’s too late.

You can’t see the poster on my bedroom wall anymore, but you’ll find the quote at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. 

What is yours to do?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Wo Bist Du?  Dec. 14, 2024

Last Sunday we worshipped in the New Cathedral — new being 1860 — in Linz, Austria. It’s the largest cathedral in Austria but it’s spire was forced 6 meters below the spire of St. Stephen’s in Vienna. The Habsburg family had the empire’s home field advantage after all.

The church is named “Mariä-Empfängnis-Dom” which translates “the church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary”. The English translation didn’t help my incomprehension of immaculate conceptions. That Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church calendar just happened to be Immaculate Conception Day – Dec. 8. If I was supposed to be enlightened by this confluence, it was lost in translation; I could barely hear the German echoing off the high stone walls.

I was moved by the organ, the choir, the “smells and bells”. We were warmly welcomed in a cold room where we watched our breath. During the scripture I tried to sense what I was hearing. The first clue was garten (garden), then der mensch (the man), but I knew it was Genesis 3, when I heard “Wo bist du?” (God asking the man “Where are you?”). 

German has a proper form of you — sie — for strangers, formality, etc. The intimate, friendly, familial form of you is du — where are you my friend is what God asks. While I didn’t understand a lot that day, I heard the first question in the Bible — God asking human beings “Where are you?” 

The second most important question happens a few verses later. Cain has just murdered his brother Abel, and God asks him, “Where is your brother?” Where are you in relation to God and where are you in relation to all your brothers and sisters? Jesus completes these two initial questions by teaching the whole Bible is summed up with the command to love God with all that you are, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

What are some teachings of some churches you can’t translate or comprehend? When you are hiding, how do you sense God asking, “Where are you my beloved?” When you are estranged, what steps do you take to seek reconciliation with your brother/sister/neighbor/human?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 2 Comments

Abortion Silence Oct 28, 2024

My public church sermons center on the Bible. Since the Bible is silent on abortion, so was I. My leading inquisitive youth groups included “God’s gift of sexuality” materials. Our safe sharing focused more on committed relationships (plus STD and pregnancy prevention) than abortion; however, any written submission to the “question box” was discussed. In private counseling I walked with christian women through problem pregnancies. My questions helped them make their best choices because I trust women to do what is right. These writings have been called “Reflections and Questions” because in my experience, good questions help people discover the best answers for their lives within them.

When I was an associate pastor, I befriended a female associate rabbi. We had most of the Bible (and issues playing second fiddle) in common. She asked me, “Do you know a reason rabbis don’t protest women’s health clinics?” I said, “I guess rabbis ask questions rather than scream shameful statements.” She said, “Nice try. It’s because we study Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures).” I asked, “What do you read there?” She taught me……

In the second story of creation, God forms the “earthling” out of the “earth” (Hebrew: Adam/man out of Adamah/ground). Genesis 2:7 — then “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.” Life begins with the breath of life and ends when God’s breath leaves. In fact the name for God, Yah-weh (I am who I am), sounds like breathing. Yahweh — we breathe God’s name as long as we live. The possibility for life may begin at conception through gestation, but God tells us when life itself begins — the first breath of life.  

She then filled my silent reflection with more mundane Torah… Exodus 21:22-24 “When men who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and the woman is not harmed, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If the woman dies, then you shall give life for life.” Back when patriarchy viewed wives and children as property, causing a miscarriage was a monetary fine for the loss of a future possible child (not murder); the death of a woman was punished as taking a life; other harm to the woman was punished by equivalent recompense. The difference makes all the difference.

If you live in Missouri how will you decide on Amendment 3 to our state constitution that restores the reproductive rights an old law removed? How much do you trust women and physicians to make good decisions? How much do you trust outsiders seeking the power to control you? When have you experienced good intentions result in bad consequences?

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Could We Both Be Right? 10/23/24

Seventeen years ago when I was committed by the court to our psychiatric hospital, my psychologist sister arrived from Seattle as my first visitor. That morning I spent six hours of mania scrawling 43 pages on “Law and Gospel” which I commanded her to copy and distribute. She said, “Why don’t you trust me to do what’s best with this.” She was a check on my abuse of power.

As I returned to the floor, I told the charge nurse my sister had brought a suitcase with clean clothes. She made a phone call and said, “It’s not in the room yet. Check back later.” When I checked back, the nurse re-dialed the number and said, “There’s no suitcase in the room. Maybe you misunderstood your sister.”

After sitting in my stinking clothes for a while, I returned to the desk. “Ma’am, I know she brought a suitcase; I need clean clothes.” After dispatching an aid to investigate, the nurse explained: “If your sister had brought a suitcase, it would have been searched and placed in our storage room. It’s not there. Sit down. I need to finish these charts.”

I sat down and pondered calling her “Nurse Ratched” although she hadn’t really earned the title. How does a manic mental patient convince the charge nurse that his reality is real? I recalled that Jesus asked powerful questions in response to challenges and arguments.

Believing it was my last chance, I stood at the desk and asked as calmly as I could, “Is there any way we could both be right? In fact, while you’re charting, would you chart that I asked, you ‘Could we both be right?’” Her frustrated face changed to pondering. She dialed a different number, smiled, and said, “Your suitcase was put on the wrong floor. I’ll get it.”

I abhor the dichotomy of 2 choices in a political election every 2, 4, or 6 years. I enjoy conversations where we can share our different desires and find ways to meet our goals. I love listening to different experiences, insights, perspectives, seeking solutions. I relish both/and (not either/or) answers, where we can both be right. But here we are with the civic responsibility to make a dichotomous decision.

How do you listen to needs and desires of others in reaching solutions? When have you experienced situations where “we both are right?” When have you had to make a clear choice?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Betrayal 10-03-2024

Her name was Leslie? I seldom mention names in these reflections, but it may have been fake. She sprung into my frat house the spring of my sophomore year at Emory. For weeks, we shared several socials together until I left for summer study in Vienna, Austria. Upon my return in the fall, I fell into two betrayals.

The first was a feared betrayal that wasn’t. The fraternal code was broken by a brother seeking to oversee Leslie’s availability — while I was unavailable overseas. Like Jacob to his brother Esau, he was afraid of how I might react to being betrayed. I told the three friends sent to “confess on his behalf” that I really had no claim on or plans for a relationship. I trusted women to make decisions about their lives.

The betrayal that didn’t matter resulted in the one that did. I was told that Leslie lied to me. He wanted to protect me with his discovery that she was in high school, not college; she lived at home, not an apartment, and on and on. I didn’t want to believe it. How could I have been so gullible? What kind of person would lie repeatedly? What was her motive? Experiencing someone who knows the truth while repeatedly lying dispelled my naïveté.

Some of her statements that had seemed a little off, now began to make sense. My ego-protecting denial eroded, as my pride crumbled. Everyone knew I had been conned; they saw the usurper as the better investigator. I wonder how that experience influenced my future visceral reactions to religious and political leaders who confidently con followers with deception. I hope my embarrassment helped my compassion for other people — I wouldn’t want to waste the pain.

When have you realized someone had been lying to you? How did you react? What actions ended or restored your trust? How long did it take to move forward?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 2 Comments

With God On Our Side 090424

My deepest theological roots were watered by the poetry of Bob Dylan. As a youth I spent hours each day in the presence of two-sided LPs by BD, JB, K3, AG, S&G, and PPM. Meanwhile, each unrhythmic Sunday sermon was sort of listened to one time only. Baez’s rendition of Dylan’s song “With God On Our Side” inspired a lifetime of resisting religious justification for the conquest of violent victories. “If God were on our side, he’d stop the next war.”

As I matured, I learned that the third commandment was not about childish cussing. Using the Lord’s name in a “wrongful way” (or in vain) was more about misrepresenting God. Thou shalt not use God to justify actions that actually go against God’s desire for us. Thou shalt not say God is on our side and against them — when we proclaim “there is no them”. Thou shalt not use God’s name to justify violence, oppression, racism, sexism, pyramids over tables, to name a few.

Later still I was taught that the worst wars and most violent acts in human history have been done in the name of God — and the times aren’t changing today. The song “With God On Our Side” revealed the importance of learning lessons from history instead of ignoring or distorting history; after all, every LP has 2 sides. How many times can a preacher proclaim the all-powerful prefers “his” politician? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

Which song lyrics have influenced your beliefs and impacted your life? What songs inspire you,, lift you up, and bring you joy? Which genre of music spoke to each age and stage of your life?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Clergy Killers August 13, 2024

In 1999 a pastor in a “Healthy Congregations” workshop told us about a man who told his board, “A lot of people are complaining to me about our pastor.” The board members wisely asked him to identify “a lot of people,” but he refused to name them — “to preserve confidentiality”. They asked for specific examples of complaints; he refused to give them — only generalities. He threatened the board, “You’d better take action because so many of these important members will leave the church and take their donations with them.”

After an investigation, when no evidence was found to back up the threats, the bully relentlessly escalated — accusations now went from he’s not visiting enough to financial and “maybe” sexual abuse. Some wondered what truth there might be to these attacks. The pastor doubted himself and his call to be a servant leader. After his heart attack, when he swore that “the whole church is against me”, it was revealed it was two cruel people who brought the carnage and chaos.

That’s when I read the book Clergy Killers that had been published in 1997. I learned how often clergy killers bully their way to power in a church. When pastors think the whole church was against them, it is almost always 2 or 3 — what we began to call a TLG (that little group).

From the introduction to the book: People rightly often criticize and disagree with their minister, but clergy killers are intentionally destructive. Whether you call them mentally ill or evil, they insist on inflicting pain and damaging their targets. They call on others to do their dirty work, subvert worthy causes, lead acts of sabotage, and cause their victims to self-destruct.  (Pg 9 Clergy Killers: Guidance for Pastors and Congregations Under Attack, G. Lloyd Redinger, 1997, Westminster John Knox Press).

Have you ever experienced someone bent on destruction who says “somebody should look into” some false accusation? What is it about a church that allows clergy killers to gain so much power? Read the book, or stay tuned if you want to learn some positive ways to respond.

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?

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My Best Friend May 3, 2024

In 1979, my father captured the best picture of my best friend and me. We are celebrating all we have learned at our graduation from Atlanta’s prestigious Emory College and Business School. With all our knowledge, we can’t figure out the puzzle of our hoods. How do these things work? Later in life I’d learn, “Information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom.”

Jeff and I met the first week of college. We were randomly placed in a group to tour all the fraternities during rush week. After all the visits, he invited five from our group to pledge Sigma Chi as a unit. “What if we’re not invited?” I asked. “We will be,” he said. I don’t think he was risking “one for all and all for one”; I think he had inside information. Accepting his suggestion changed (and may have saved) my life.

I liked to double-date with Jeff. I knew we both treated women with respect — not some conquest. Like most college students, I left my childhood church behind, but Jeff invited me to re-enter church with him. 

The summer after he was elected president of our fraternity, we were roomies in Vienna, Austria. Although it was a “study abroad”, we spent more time experiencing the culture, seeing the sights, and traveling by train than we studied. On the way west, we joined three fraternity brothers for a month-long incredible journey — driving all over England and Scotland together.

Soon after this picture, while I was away, five friends met with Jeff. They said, “You know you’re gay, we know you’re gay, everyone knows you’re gay….. why don’t you just say it?” When he told me, I thought “apparently I’m not everyone.” For whatever reasons, I had no idea.

When have you learned something new about someone you thought you knew? Who invited you to deep friendship, a renewed faith, living your best life? How has a best friend impacted you?