A Turn in the South (40 page)

I was surprised. Jim had promised to arrange a meeting with someone with doubts, but I had been expecting to meet that person on another day.

Jim said, “As a mentor, let me say first of all I think Henry is typical of a person who grows up in a religious setting in which he makes a profession of faith.”

Henry said, “As a doctoral student I have come to question the objectivity—the rational processes—which the Church of Christ—”

I had noticed at the beginning how he qualified his words. Now he appeared to be having trouble completing a train of thought: many new things were breaking into the original idea.

He said, “I feel compelled to throw this. My African experience has reinforced a suspicion I’ve had that there might be something amiss—what I want to say—a Westerner’s thought processes or thought form—I believe I can broaden this, and include not only the Church of Christ but other conservative Protestant churches as well—our misuse of reason—the Western mind—the conservative evangelicals—”

I noticed that he was wearing an Yves Saint Laurent belt.

Jim said, “I see you headed to the reduction of a lot of concepts.”

“I got to Africa and I was repulsed by what the missionaries had
done. Instead of teaching the Africans first-century Christianity, they had taught them a Western, white-man’s Christianity. Of all things—many of the young African ministers did not see themselves as carrying out their ministry in the most proper way without, for example, wearing a sports coat and tie, something that’s totally un-African.”

That appeared to make a whole: the ideas of the Church of Christ fusing with a rejection of colonial mimicry.

And Henry went on along that line. “Christianity was born out of an Eastern framework—”

A thought, unexpressed, came to me: an Eastern religion for the Wild West? Had the early Church of Christ really been presented to its followers like that? Or was the Easternness of the religion a more recent idea?

“—and we need to know when to separate the true essence of Christianity from Western cultural baggage.”

That made a whole, but then Henry said, “My parents’ mentality is very exclusivistic, in terms of who is going to get to heaven. It’s as basic as saying who are really—with a capital ‘R’—Christians. The real tension began when I went to the university. They were not happy at all about that. I’ve been questioning parts of the body of church knowledge. And the idea seems to be that, if I don’t have the same set of beliefs as my parents, I am rejecting the right belief.” Abruptly he said, “I feel so desensitized to what’s going on.”

He said that with relief, as though glad to give up the juggling with so many new and unrelated ideas.

Jim said, “That’s typical of questioning people of conservative churches.”

I said, “Somebody told me that I should study the Southern churches well. Because in fifteen years it’s all going to change.”

Jim said, “I agree.”

Henry said, “I agree.” He added, “The whole package of Christianity is bothering me. The point is, Jim, that is what is going on in my mind intellectually. But emotionally I have a very strong attachment to this
fellowship.”

An experience of Africa, the shock of a tribal civil war, a new vision of missionary effort, leading to a wider questioning: what had once been the complete, satisfying faith of a complete, clear, enclosed world no longer answered. And he was “in a whirlwind.”

B
UT
B
EN
—whom I met on another afternoon in Jim’s office—was serene. He came from a Church of Christ family. His grandparents on both sides were of the church, and his father was a professional man. Ben was eighteen. He hadn’t come from the country; he had been born in Nashville, but his faith was pure. He had preached for the first time when he was sixteen.

He said, “The youth leader of the church encouraged us to get to know God—”

I asked about the youth leader.

Jim said, “He’s a full-time staff person.”

Ben said, “The youth leader encouraged us to get to know God and to share him with others. He tried to instill in us a zeal and a fervor that would radiate. So naturally, when my knowledge of God grew, I wanted to share that.”

“Were there certain exercises that you were made to do?”

“In worship and in church we would go to class and we would study and interact with each other. But then outside the church we would go and do things together—have a devotional at someone’s house and eat together. And then, just being with the people you share the faith with, you would be uplifted. A lot of the time we would talk about what was going on in our lives. If you weren’t getting on with your parents, for example, we would sit down and talk about that—both as a personal problem and a general issue or topic.”

Jim said to Ben, “A lesson in helping others.” And to me, “A great amount of peer pressure which the adolescent faces. We believe that Christians live in the real world and should not withdraw from the real world.”

Ben said: “Occasionally we would—thirty or forty of us—go out of town, to a camp area, where we would be away from a lot of the distractions, the TV and radio, the outside influences, where we would all be together and break down into groups of four or five people. In the smaller groups you can always get more personal. It’s easier to share with each other in the smaller group than in the group of thirty.”

I said, “Like the early Christians going into the desert.”

Jim said, “It’s comparable.”

Ben said, “That re-creation of our spiritual lives—that’s where the comparison with the early Christians holds good.”

“How long were those camps?”

“Friday afternoon, all of Saturday, and much of Sunday. A weekend.”

“Fun? Or solemn?”

“Not solemn,” Ben said. “Meaningful.”

“Joyful occasions?”

“Joyful. An inner joy, that we were re-creating, and growing. We knew that we were always stronger people, closer to God, and closer to the people around us as well as to ourselves, when we left. And that’s the idea of the whole weekend.”

“How many weekends have you been on?”

“I’ve been on eight.”

Jim said, “Twice a year.”

I asked him about his knowledge of God, and how that had come.

“Oh, not miraculous. Nothing that happened last Wednesday or last Thursday. But all through the day I have a constant feeling of his presence and I know that he’s with me. It’s really developed in the last couple of years, when I have started to search the Scriptures. We’re encouraged to search the Scriptures. You don’t have to. It’s a personal decision.”

“What of the future now?”

“I hope to become a lawyer. I think it fits hand in hand. The type of religion that we have is a people religion. Just as Mr. Vandiver can be an influence from the pulpit, just as easily I can be a light in my community as a lawyer, and have people see me as a kindhearted, moral individual.”

“But the Church of Christ brotherhood is shrinking.”

“Numerically we might decrease. But the people who will be falling by the wayside will be those people who were halfhearted in their faith anyway.”

H
ENRY
, in all his turmoil, had spoken—and Jim Vandiver had pointed it out to me—of his emotional attachment to the fellowship within the church. And Ben loved the idea of the brotherhood. But Melvin, who was in his early forties, and had drifted away from
the Church of Christ in the last five years, made a face when I mentioned the subject of fellowship.

He said,
“No, no
. The fellowship would
irritate
me. I’ve never enjoyed the fellowship,
ever.”

And it was hard, indeed, to see someone so elegant and accomplished, playing down his profession and his skill in that profession-it was hard to see someone with those manners drawing sustenance from the kind of weekend Ben had described.

He said, “It’s boring.”

And at once the objection, so simple, appeared unanswerable. But Melvin had been in the church for much of his life. There was much knowledge behind that snappy word.

“I don’t think it was always boring. Going back seventy-five years, I think it would have been entertaining, a form of entertainment, the fellowship. Now I would agree that it’s an extension of the evangelical movement. To keep you involved, to keep the numbers up.

“The South was almost entirely agrarian. Tent revivals were an opportunity for almost the entire community to meet in one place—as well as Sunday services. You’ll find that revivals played a very large part in the growth of the Church of Christ up till ten years ago—and they are
the
most boring, dull experiences you can have.”

I said, “America being a fun civilization.”

“Agree. They’re fighting a losing battle. And that’s a very large factor, the fun civilization. Most of the people that attend these large evangelical events are young people. Eventually they don’t go back. They get bored. And that’s unfortunate. The church should never attempt to provide entertainment. It’s boring when they try. It doesn’t stimulate you emotionally or intellectually. All you have to do is to turn your TV on to be entertained.

“I think I could defend this point easily. The whole American evangelical movement was based on these
shows
, these circuses. The best example now is Oral Roberts. Those days are gone. There’s movies, TV, traveling. But if all you did in the old days was sit on your farm, that provided a break in your life.

“It will completely die, the church. Or let’s say it will not exist in twenty-five years as it exists today. If it were to exist at all, it must go
back
to its teachings. No, that’s wrong. I think it probably was an error from the beginning. To keep it alive, it must offer answers of a redemptive nature. By which I mean that’s really all it can do. It can
only address people’s questions about what life is. It’s got to stop trying to be a judge, the entertainer, the meeting place. In the old days it was even the town hall. You didn’t take your problem to a lawyer. You went to the church. The Church of Christ will tell you today that you shouldn’t bring a lawsuit against anyone, that you should take your problems to the church and allow the church to arbitrate. This was a very efficient way of handling problems in a small agrarian community. Very effective. Though the church being judge and jury imposed on people moral guilt—they felt condemned by God for civil offenses.”

A rising professional man, he had grown to reject the completeness of the culture of his childhood. Religion, the frontier faith, had created this completeness; now it was a burden he could do without. In a new world, he wished religion to have its place, like everything else. Yet he knew that he was rejecting a part of his identity.

“The Church of Christ does an excellent job in meshing traditional values with Christian principles, universal Christian principles. The result is that when one begins to doubt the traditions he is unable to separate his doubt about tradition from his belief in Christian principles. It becomes very confusing. The confusion is at times unbearable. I can understand why Henry has trouble finding words for certain things. There’s guilt and alienation, the idea of abandoning your heritage. I went through a lot of guilt. Guilt is the most critical. The Church of Christ deliberately instills guilt in people. It is extremely judgmental. There is almost the circle-of-wagons sense that if you attack certain traditions it’s blasphemy. I think I should tell you that I think of myself as a spiritual person. Actually, I think I am more spiritual now than I was. In a literal sense.”

And in Melvin there was something like grief at the necessary break with the South he had known.

“The South is losing its identity, and that’s a lamentable thing. Being Southern is a state of mind. I know that’s a trite thing to say. It’s a way of looking at your place in the world, a place that’s more defined than many other places. Have you been to California? It’s everything the South isn’t. And an odd thing about that is that many business ideas begin in California. The fast food, the interstate highways, clothing styles. The reason is that creative people are stifled in the South. They move from the South and other places to California. Creative people have to get away from the South. It will be a very long time before that stifling will disappear. It will be my generation that
will break the link. It’s not something I say with any pride. Nor shame. No judgment. I say it purely as fact.”

Wasn’t there the possibility of a new kind of intellectual life, a new kind of strength, from that breaking of the link?

Melvin wasn’t having any of that. He went back to his original point. “The link is broken by people of my generation because they don’t want the boredom deal. As opposed to soul-searching experiencing. ‘I just don’t need this.’ The church are genuinely perplexed by what’s happening.”

There was confirmation of what Melvin had said from another distinguished man. This man told me that his neighbors, professional people, successful people, originally from small towns where they had been Baptist or Church of Christ, were now all Presbyterians. One reason (as Reverend Ptomey had hinted) was that the Presbyterian religion was more socially acceptable. The other reason was that it was more lenient, less demanding, less intrusive or encompassing. Religion now had to have its compartment, almost its social place.

The frontier had ceased to exist. And the religions it had bred were beginning slowly to die. In the old days, when men, often of little education, had needed only to declare themselves ministers, people would have seen themselves reflected in the expounders of the Word. This quality of homespun would have made the religions appear creations of a community, personal and close and inviolable. Now a certain distance was needed.

O
NE OF
the most successful country-music songwriters is Bob McDill. The South is his best subject: redneck celebration, against a background of the hard years middle-aged men have lived through and have spoken to their children about. McDill’s best songs have the feel of folk songs.