The music world was stunned by the death of 48-year-old Whitney Houston, whose voice inspired millions with its range and purity. Her greatest hit, arguably, was I Will Always Love You, her version of which became the top hit in the country just three weeks after its release — a place it held for 14 weeks. Not even Dolly Parton, who wrote and first recorded the song, sang it like Whitney. She was the first person to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with seven consecutive singles. All of her top 10 hits became number one songs in the country and in the course of her career she was awarded six Grammys.
Jim White
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But for all her fame and fortune, hers was a troubled life. While her husband, Bobby Brown, whose demons are legion, may have been partially responsible for Houston’s struggles, it is clear that the girl who grew up singing in the gospel choir of New Jersey’s New Hope Baptist Church battled plenty of her own.
Despite her periodic public pleas for prayer and her appeals to Jesus for help, the reports of drunken outbursts during her last days seem to contradict the principles of her faith. What she achieved may have been legendary, but it pales in comparison to what might have been.
I seek neither to explain nor eulogize Houston’s life, however. I leave that to those who knew her personally. From a distance, hers was a magnificent talent compromised by self-destructive behavior and a promising life cut short by sin. Falling short. Missing the mark. I am not moralizing. I am merely describing.
In future days we will undoubtedly learn even more — perhaps more than any of us really wants to know — of her sad and glorious life.
But Houston’s life is representative in a sense. Perhaps her highs were higher and her lows were lower than most, but “sad and glorious” describes the human condition. In truth, we all struggle with demons of one kind or another. One person struggles with demons disguised as calories and carbohydrates. Others fight a losing battle to keep their tongues in check. Someone else is a hoarder while his neighbor is a closet alcoholic. In extreme cases the demons are showcased in the news: “Man charged with beating death of 4-month-old daughter” proclaimed a recent headline in Newport New’s Daily Press.
Even churches and denominations struggle with their demons. This past week Gerald Harris, editor of the Christian Index (the Baptist paper in Georgia) wrote an opinion piece called, “The Calvinists are Here.” In the editorial he expressed concern about the resurgence of a doctrine claiming that God decided long before they were born who would be saved and which others would be consigned to hell for all eternity. Harris is concerned that such a notion will inevitably conflict with another resurgence promoted by the SBC, the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).
Harris alleges that such doctrine is seeping into LifeWay’s curriculum material and is embedded in some new church starts funded by NAMB.
Judging from responses, Harris must have hit a nerve. Critics have taken issue with Harris’ hodge-podge inclusion of unrelated material, but to this point no one has taken issue with his primary assertions by proving them wrong.
The SBC demons are not the Calvinists, however. Calvinism in Baptist life is nothing new. The demons are in the attitudes of those who demand doctrinal uniformity and exclude from their circle of approved brethren those who differ; and in the arrogance that presumes to dogmatically demand that one’s own beliefs be adopted by all as uniquely correct. Like Houston’s these behaviors, too, are self-destructive. It is sad to contemplate what the SBC might have been. Falling short. Missing the mark. I am not judging. I am merely describing.
But the BGAV has its demons, too. Self-complacency, tradition and our own brand of arrogance create a self-destructive inertia that keeps moderate Baptists in the Mid-Atlantic and elsewhere from becoming what we could have been. Falling short. Missing the mark. I am not judging; merely describing. It’s sad.
But sadness is only part of the story. In Whitney Houston’s case, her accomplishments, her talent and her faith were part of a glorious life. It remains to be seen whether her life will ultimately be remembered for its gloom or its glory, but both were present. Even in a Christian.
It is true for the rest of us as well. Most Baptists (a tenant of Calvinism is that human beings are totally depraved and can’t even believe in Jesus unless God causes them to) believe that being created in God’s image means that some spark of glory resides in even the worst of us. The exception to this being, perhaps, the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church who, inexplicably, are planning to picket Houston’s funeral. In them the glory is kept well hidden!
For the rest of us, we are capable of rising from our complacency and overcoming our self-centeredness. Genuine humility can replace the puff of pride.
Side by side with the sadness of our imperfections shine the reflected glories of redeemed attitudes and achievements that bless the world of people around us. As individuals and as denominations we possess the power to bless. And we do. The hungry are being fed; the prisoners are visited; the poor are cared for. Glory. Although it is a sad aspect of our condition that we are not introducing a troubled world to Jesus Christ as fervently as we ought, still, lives are being gloriously transformed by those we do reach with the gospel.
What we need to do better, of course, is exactly what Houston needed. To slip the grasp of those besetting demons and hold fast to the “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). But what matters ultimately isn’t whether we can hold fast to Jesus but whether, when we fail, he will continue holding fast to us. That’s the glory I’m talking about. Sing it, Whitney. Sing, oh, sing of our Redeemer. Sing it with the saints of glory gathered by the crystal sea. Glory. Strange. I seem to recall that eternal security is also a tenant of Calvinism. We Baptists are a sad and glorious mixture.
Jim White ([email protected]) is editor of the Religious Herald.