Letters for November 3, 2005

Thank you for the excellent front page article “A Marine is remembered” [Herald, Oct. 20]. Sgt. Jayton Patterson represents the best of America. Freedom is not free and it has been won and protected by fine men and women like Sgt. Patterson. He was willing to serve his country because of the teachings of his parents and his dedication to others. John 15:13 tells us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (NRSV).

We should pray each day for the brave men and women who protect the cause of freedom by serving in our nation’s military forces. We should also pray for their families and particularly the families of those who have paid the ultimate price. In this time of an all-volunteer military our military personnel are those who are bearing the cost of freedom for all of us. Take time to thank God for them and for our veterans.

Taking a stand

Thank you for your editorial, “The Pulpit Leads the World,” in the Oct. 20 issue of the Herald. Having listened to books on tape while traveling, I sensed your enthusiasm for the classic, Moby Dick. Like one of your readers, Frank Schwall Jr., I also am an admirer of Fred Anderson’s weekly “Heritage” column. This week I was taken by a connection between your editorial and Fred’s column about one of your earliest predecessors at the Herald, Jeremiah Bell Jeter.

Fred recounted how Jeter was critical of Robert Baylor Semple and his BGAV peers for their lack of boldness on certain unnamed issues of the day. In your editorial you told of reading the committee report of the “state of the nation (the Southern one)” presented at the annual BGAV meeting on June 4, 1863. That report gave ample evidence of the willingness of Jeter and his esteemed fellow committee members, Andrew W. Broaddus Jr., and Lyman W. Seeley to take a bold stand on a paramount issue of their day—domestic slavery—and they supported it! You decline to “speak critically of the likes of these pastoral giants,” but you properly noted that had they understood that preachers must consider “the overall teaching of the text as well as the individual verses of the text” they would not have defended slavery on scriptural grounds.

For the pulpit to lead the world you point out that preachers must be courageous enough to speak the truth even if their congregations don’t agree and contend that it will take deacons and other congregational leaders who are willing to be led by the voice in the pulpit. You specify that you are “talking about laypersons who are so close to Christ themselves that they recognize when the voice of the Lord is coming from their own preacher.”

I’m sure you would acknowledge that there are laypersons sufficiently close to Christ that they can recognize when the voice from the pulpit is not the voice of the Lord. In 1863 the voice of the Lord was not coming from the pulpits of Jeter, Broaddus and Seeley as concerned slavery! A century later Baptist pulpits would not support that despicable institution on scriptural grounds but many of them still did not convey the voice of the Lord on many civil rights issues.

The connective thought that occurred to me as I read your editorial and Fred Anderson’s column? I hope it does not take another century for the pulpits that would lead the world to be fully representative of all God’s children. And I would hope that in far less than a century some of our conservative Baptist leaders, as well known today as were Jeter and Broaddus in their day, would open their hearts and minds to the broader fellowship of Christian brotherhood, worldwide. Please continue to challenge your readers to examine our hearts and seek to understand the will of God as expressed from our pulpits and other valid sources, including our own reading of the holy Scripture.

Need the death penalty

I have not heard anyone except professor Daniel Bagby re-examining use of Virginia’s death penalty [Herald, Oct. 27]. The questions relate to whether a candidate for governor will betray his personal religious beliefs and not commute death sentences if elected. The majority of Virginians are solidly in favor of the punishment.

I agree it should be re-examined, since it is not applied widely enough. An example is [name witheld], recently shown in the Religious Herald, as we pay to house, feed and clothe her until she must be released in 2032. She and her lover, conspired together to murder her parents. One cannot sink much lower than that. Agreeing with professor Bagby’s opinion of the death penalty, they fled to wonderful, capital-punishment free Europe. After being finally dragged back here, she testified against her lover to save her own neck. They should both have been exterminated long ago. Instead, they fancy themselves as writers and publish articles and books from prison; while the Virginia public is taxed to support them.