“The devil sure got ahold of you!” – November 1970
“Bill, do you ever stop and pray for the president of our country or just complain about him? As Christians that’s our responsibility according to the Bible, or do you read it anymore? I can’t believe we grew up in the same church. ☹” – March 2020
Almost 50 years apart, two “friends” of mine expressed their amazement and disgust that I had abandoned the comfortable theological rut – a nice safe foxhole, if you will – that we once occupied together.
It was exactly 50 years ago today, November 12, 1970, which happened to also fall on a Thursday, that I climbed – no, leapt – out of that comfortable theological foxhole into the frightening darkness of unbelief.
It was my sophomore year at Oklahoma Baptist University, and I was sitting in Western Civilization class, listening to Dr. Bill Mitchell teach from Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
I had come to OBU, as many freshmen do, assured that – when it came to God, salvation, the hereafter, and so forth – I had all the answers. After all, I had been in Southern Baptist churches all my life, from Cradle Roll to Youth Choir; walked the aisle at 10 to profess my faith in Christ and was baptized the next week. I had been a leader in my youth group, was even elected “youth pastor” one year during Youth Week. My life had revolved around the youth group and, especially, Youth Choir.
Since I was around 14 or 15, I had known what I wanted to do with my life – be a music minister in Southern Baptist churches. My music minister, Joe Dell Rust, had become a great friend to me (still is today, in his 80s) and had helped prepare me to enter OBU (his alma mater) on a church music degree.
I don’t think I had even heard the term “fundamentalist” back then, but that was essentially the nature of my understanding of faith. I had grown up hearing the Bible preached and taught with literal and traditional interpretations that – to my mind, anyway – weren’t to be questioned. Everything I had been taught at church was fact, and that was that. Oh, in the very deepest recesses of my mind, there were questions and doubts, but I never allowed them to get to the top of my mind. I just pushed them back down and refused to entertain them. After all, questions and doubts were threats to my faith . . . to my salvation.
Then I got to OBU. I had friends who were just about where I was, faith-wise. But I also had friends, especially upperclassmen, who had started questioning the teachings of their home church and their parents. I remember one particular conversation the spring semester of my freshman year. A friend – a fellow freshman – who lived down the hall from me, who had arrived at OBU with much the same fundamentalist faith as mine, had started seriously questioning his beliefs. He challenged me, saying that these things we had been taught about the Bible, about God, about Jesus . . . they were open to question. Well, I was having none of this. I remember saying to him, “No, no, these are facts.” Whether the six-day creation, Adam and Eve, Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, Noah and the flood, Jesus’s virgin birth, Jesus’s resurrection . . . whatever the subject, they were all facts to be taken literally and not to be questioned.
Not openly, anyway . . . but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t doubts that I was suppressing, doubts that I was continually pushing down into the recesses of my mind. But the more I was exposed to the different perspectives of those around me at OBU, the harder it was to suppress my doubts. Like a volcano responding to ever-growing pressure, an eruption was imminent.
And erupt it did, in one moment . . . one earth-shaking moment . . . in Western Civ class on Thursday morning, November 12, 1970.
In teaching Dante’s Inferno, Dr. Mitchell uttered four words:
“There . . . are . . . no . . . absolutes.”
And in that one moment, the pillars of my “faith” crumbled to their foundations. I had walked into the class that morning still believing I had all the answers. I walked out after class, having nothing but questions . . . and doubts . . . and fears.
Other than those four words, I don’t recall anything else said in that 2-hour class that day. I don’t remember the context of Dr. Mitchell’s utterance. All I know is what came to my mind when I heard him say those four words: “He’s right. I can’t absolutely prove any of this stuff I believe about God, Jesus and the Bible. They aren’t facts, after all.”
The change in my thinking . . . in my life . . . was that dramatic. When I walked out of that class, I no longer believed there was a supreme being we call “God,” much less that Jesus was God’s son sent to save us from our sins.
I had lost my “faith.”
I was confused and fearful. It’s scary when the whole foundation of your life falls apart. Late that afternoon, I was in Ron Russey’s room, telling him about my experience. Ron lived next door to my roommate and me, and was the resident assistant for our section. He had become a good friend over the past year. He was a 5th-year senior, a ministerial student who was president of the OBU Ministerial Alliance that year.
While Ron and I were talking, a friend from across the hall walked in, noticed we seemed to be in a pretty serious discussion, and asked what was going on. Ron told him about what I had experienced that morning, and the confusion I was feeling. This “friend” (and we really had become pretty good friends over the past year, or so I thought) looked at me and said, “Boy, the devil sure got ahold of you!” Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heels and walked out.
I don’t think I ever spoke with that “friend” again. At least I hope I didn’t!
No, the devil didn’t get “ahold” of me that morning. Instead, it was God who, in a touch of divine irony, had used Dante’s Inferno to knock the props out from under the thing I called “faith,” because God knew I would never be of any use until I lost that cocksure belief system and began searching for God from ground zero, searching for an authentic faith, ultimately one built on relationship and trust, not facts. And I didn’t give up on faith or give up on the possibility of God being real. I was searching.
It took me several years of searching and struggling before I could again claim faith in God and Christ. I remember praying this prayer many times: “God, I don’t know if you’re there. But if you are, please don’t give up on me.”
My testimony is that God heard that prayer and graciously granted it. God put the right people in my life, beginning with Ron Russey being on the spot that very day to listen and understand. The next week, he even called a section meeting to tell the guys that my experience had made him realize that he had a responsibility, as resident assistant, to listen to our concerns and to help give us some direction.
And Ron did give me direction – he directed me to Jerry Barnes, pastor of University Baptist Church across the street from the OBU campus, who became instrumental in helping with my search and, ultimately, helping me find my way back to Christ but in a much deeper and more authentic way than before. I went to Jerry and told him honestly that I no longer believed in God, much less Christ as God’s son, and Jerry said, “Come join our church.” Jerry wasn’t one to stand on ceremony, he just wanted to be the presence of Christ to me, binding up my wounds, helping me to heal. He met with me once a semester after that to hear about the progress of my search and help suggest some next steps.
God also blessed me with wonderful parents who were not judgmental but were understanding, patient, and loving. My daddy, a longtime Baptist minister on the staff of the SBC Home Mission Board, even told me that he understood what I was going through because he had gone through a similar period of questioning and doubting when he was young. He told me that this was something I needed to figure out for myself, but also assured me that he would be there if I ever wanted to ask him questions or just talk about it with him.
Ron Russey and my roommate, Cary Wood, among others, helped me to learn to think for myself and to struggle with faith issues, especially in late-night bull sessions in the dorm.
Ron was a great friend to me until his untimely death in a car accident in 1979. Less than 2 months before his death, Joanna and I visited the church he was pastoring, and I sat next to Ron on the chancel during the morning service, as Ron had asked me to sing a solo that morning. I was devastated at the news of his death just a few weeks later.
I remained close friends with Jerry Barnes and his wife Bobby through the years. Jerry passed away just a few years ago.
We have stayed close to Cary and his wife, Susie, through the years. Joanna and I attended their wedding in 1974, and they attended ours in 1976. After attending Jerry’s funeral in Miami, OK, in January 2017, I stopped along the way and spent the night with Cary and his wife, Susie, at their lovely home. The three of us spent that entire evening talking over old times as well as catching up on the years since. They’re very special to me.
Those were the folks who played key roles during my faith struggle, and God has brought an uncountable number of people into my life since, people who have helped me to learn and grow in my faith, people who have given me opportunities to serve.
The point is that a journey began on that day 50 years ago today . . . a journey that continues today and will continue until God takes me out of this life and into the next.
I’m not sure how long it took me, after losing my faith, to realize it, but eventually I had to face the fact that, if I no longer believed in God, I could no longer be a music minister; thus, I would have to change my degree. That was hard. After all, I had never envisioned doing anything else with my life, and I really had no special love other than music. So I switched my degree to music education. There was only one problem with that – I had never really had a great desire (or any desire) to be a schoolteacher.
I graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Music Education degree, then wondered what in the world I was going to do with my life. As far as I recall, I never even applied for a teaching job. So the faith journey also sent me wandering through an occupational wilderness. That, too, has been a “journey.”
Fast-forward to 1990, when an old OBU friend – knowing that I had developed an interest in writing – offered me a job as a technical writer and editor, which led to a 20-year career in that field, which ultimately led to using those writing skills and expertise in the faith world.
Yes, the route was roundabout with many twists and turns, but – after my faith struggle had forced me to abandon a ministry career in 1970 – God ultimately brought me back into ministry in the 2000s, in service on the boards of both Texas Baptists Committed and the T. B. Maston Foundation, then leading both of those organizations as executive director of TBC (2011-2017) and chair of the Maston Foundation (2012-2016).
Today I continue to publish Weekly Baptist Roundup e-newsletter, which I began in 2011, and which over 800 Baptists around the country, and even a few overseas, open every week. It’s a ministry for which I’m very grateful.
It’s been – and continues to be – a remarkable journey. And I’ve been especially blessed to have Joanna by my side for all but the first few years of that journey. We have journeyed together and grown together in our faith.
Sadly, too many today are still stuck in the comfortable fundamentalist foxhole, occasionally raising their heads to fire at those of us who leapt into the dark in order to find the light. That “friend” who finds it hard to believe that we grew up in the same church? She and her husband were friends of mine when we were all teenagers in the 1960s. I know others from that church whose faith has grown far beyond their teenage faith . . . but hers is still stuck there, and she can’t understand why I’m not still there over 50 years later.
Her attitude reminds me of a piece of dialogue in one of my favorite movies, Inherit the Wind. The two opposing lawyers, longtime friends but now adversaries, are sitting on the porch of the hotel where one is staying, and they’re talking over old times and how life has brought them to this point. Brady, the prosecuting attorney who uses his literal interpretation of scripture as a weapon, says to Drummond, the defense attorney, “There used to be a mutuality of understanding and admiration between us, Henry. Why is it, my old friend, that you’ve, you’ve moved so far away from me?” Drummond replies, “Well, all motion is relative, Matt. Maybe it’s you who have moved away by standing still.”
One thing I’ve discovered along this journey, however, is that there are many Christ-followers today who have not stood still. They can relate to my experience. Oh, their epiphany might not have come in one dramatic moment with four little words, but I have many friends today whom I have heard share their experiences of growing up in a fundamentalist “faith” environment, one in which scriptures had only one rigid interpretation that was never to be questioned, and somehow they found their way past it to a faith that grows, evolves, changes, motivates, and empowers.
I get back to Bison Hill every 5 years for the reunion of my 1973 graduating class (hard to believe the next one will be our 50th), and I always find myself overcome with emotion. It’s not the same OBU today – the trustees, and thus the administration and faculty, answer to the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which was taken over by fundamentalists in the wake of their takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1990. So the faculty is bound by the repressive (and unBaptist) 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which is wielded as a creed. When I was there, we were encouraged to wrestle with our faith, to question, to challenge the teachings of our youth. It’s not that way anymore. OBU students are indoctrinated with rigid SBC doctrine. Faculty that dare question the creed face threats, intimidation, and ultimately firing.
Nevertheless, when I “proudly stand on Bison Hill” (lyrics from Hymn to the Alma Mater), I look at Raley Chapel, then glance over to Brotherhood Dorm, take a walk over to Shawnee Hall (where I sat in Western Civ that morning), and remember how God – not the devil – “got ahold” of me one morning and how God used people on and around that campus to help me in my faith struggle . . . and how God has walked every step with me since, even when the ground has been rocky and the way ahead has been dark.
Thanks be to God.
Thanks for giving us the chance to read this! As one who walked those halls and knew those times and people, it resonates. We know that those were the golden years of OBU. Jerry was a treasure! Far too many worship the Book and notbthr Author, so to speak. The Way is a journey and I am glad you are still walking on that path.
Thanks, Dan. By the way, the ‘friend’ who told me the devil had gotten ahold of me? You would have known him, because he had a job working with the basketball team when he & I were freshmen in ’69-’70, when you were still there & playing basketball. Does the name Steve Troxel ring a bell? I checked the OBU Directory they published in the 1990s and discovered that he was a professor – where else? – at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University! Seems about right.
Thanks be to God, indeed! I appreciate this so much. My spiritual journey has been much like yours. I’m 84, but I grew up in a strong, typical Southern Baptist Church in a small Texas town. I “walked the aisle” and got baptised when I was seven. Grew up going to Sunday School and church, went to church camps, went to a Baptist college, married a young Baptist minister, but I didn’t truly experience the Living Christ until I was in my late twenties. The joy that flooded my whole Being in that moment was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I knew complete peace. I’ve never since had any doubts about the reality of Jesus Christ and His Provision for us! Nancy Pannell, Denton, Texas
Thank you, Nancy.
Thanks Bill. I too grew up in a very safe foxhole. My preacher, father, was right before there was a right. I went through college and seminary and through several church ministry positions before I could peek up out of that foxhole. Mine was not a moment of arrival, mine was a long-term struggle with what I saw as loyalty to my understand of God and my fierce loyalty to my father. Had Dad lived longer and observed the world as I have, I am rather sure that he might not have been as dogmatic. I appreciate you and your loyalty to truth.
Interesting to hear of others’ experiences, E. B., how we experience similar things yet in different ways. Thanks for your gracious comments and for sharing your own experience.
I was very interested to read your story, Bill; thank you for it.
As one of the “few overseas” readers of the newsletter I found it resonated very strongly with me while at the same time jarring in certain respects. The jarring results purely from my experience in the UK being so far removed from yours in the US. I have no doubt that there are “fundamentalist” Christians here, but my life-story (I think we must be pretty much the same age, by the way) has led me to feel that they are little but a very strange, fringe element in the church. I was converted at 15 in a middle-of-the-road Baptist church in London, and the word we always used was “evangelical” (sometimes prefixed with “conservative”) rather than fundamentalist. (That latter word is now far more often used to describe Islamic, or other, extremists: I personally have never used it to describe myself or others, or even heard it used by others in Christian circles.)
As a teenage Christian I knew there were various people who were viewed as “unsound” or “liberal”, but in general we were encouraged to read and think outside our bubble. And so when, at 18, I went to a completely secular university to read theology I had already developed a measure of – what shall I call it? – flexibility. No doubt there are people from my past who would look at me today and shake their heads in sorrow, but, while sometimes envying what I might call their simplistic certainties, I am deeply grateful for the more generous sympathies which over the years I feel I have developed – while still very happy to define myself as an “evangelical”.
One little complaint re your article… You tell us a lot about what you leapt out of that day 50 years ago – but very little about where you are today! I know that labels and pigeon-holes are very dangerous, but I would be interested (or am I just being plain nosey?) to know how Baptists such as yourself see yourselves!
Thanks, Colin. That’s very interesting – the difference between the “fringe elements” in the U.S. and those in the U.K. Unfortunately, in the Southern Baptist Convention, those “fringe elements” were able to seize control through a carefully prepared long-term strategy. Suddenly, it was we (who called ourselves “moderates,” in contrast to the “fundamentalists”) who found ourselves out on the “fringe.”
I appreciate your “complaint” about my article. That’s something I have to give some thought – and will try to “flesh out” my 50-year journey and where it has brought me today, in a future blog post or, more likely, series of blog posts. It’s interesting how questions like yours can serve as a catalyst for deeper study and contemplation.
My current “project” is to respond to a friend I knew in a former church (where my wife & I were members from 1987-2004). He read this blog post of mine last week when I posted it to Facebook. He – and that church where we knew each other (he may still be there, I’m not sure) – have not stayed informed about the fundamentalist takeover; in fact, I tried for 17 years to inform people in that church about Baptist principles and the fundamentalists’ violations of them, and they simply refused to listen. So last week Terry (with whom I haven’t been in contact, except occasionally through Facebook, since my wife & I left that church 16 years ago) read my blog post and asked the question, “What is fundamentalism?” I told him that there is no quick and easy answer to that question. So I’ve gone back to re-read some of my favorite books & materials on the subject and hope to further a dialogue with Terry on the subject, as he has shown a very sincere desire to learn. (I wish he and others in that church had shown that desire back when I was trying to educate them!)
Anyway, stay tuned – I will give some thought to your question, but it will probably take awhile before I’m ready to respond.
Thanks so much, Colin, for your interest, for reading the Roundup regularly, and for your own blog – which I find extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking, and appreciate being able to frequently include in Weekly Baptist Roundup.