Bill Moyers is one of my heroes. I think he exemplifies the best of the Baptist tradition.
Here is his commentary on Karl Rove.
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Thin Places - those places or events in life where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin... to the point that the ordinary becomes holy and the holy becomes ordinary
About Me
- roy
- - follower of Jesus (most of the time if I'm honest) - I'm pastor of the Cambridge Drive Community Church in Goleta, CA - guitarist - I play a Lowden O25C Custom acoustic, a fretless Bee Bass GrooveBee bass, & a partscaster electric that I put together. I also have a baritone ukulele that is fun to play. You can listen to some of the music I did with Alexis d by clicking below. And you can watch my sermons at Cambridge Drive Church here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2N6eGxfyTaKjNV8r2_lQLQ
Alexis d Music
5 comments:
Roy,
You probably won't be too surprised that Moyers is not on my list of heroes, Baptist or otherwise. I find him brilliant, committed, possessing a certain and unvarying ethical compass . . . and one of the most predictably partisan people in recent decades.
Even Jerry Falwell could take a surprising position from time to time. But, in more than 40 yrs. of watching Moyers, I cannot remember a single statement he has ever made that was not suffused with liberal Democrat partisanship.
Remember, Roy, wan't it Moyers who was the Karl Rove-like brain who green-lighted the Tony Schwartz produced notorious "Daisy" ad during the LBJ-Goldwater campaign?
Partisan then; partisan now. Brilliant? Yes? Entirely tunnel vision in his political sight? Absolutely.
It is ironic that for a Baptist hero, you select a fellow who was ordained as a Baptist but "Moyers and his family have been members of the Garden City (N.Y.) Community UCC for 40 years" even though he has started attending Riverside Church
no question... he is partisan. But I don't have issues with whether one is partisan if they're right.. er correct ;-) And as you say, he does have an ethical compass.
I hadn't realized tht he had anything to do with Daisy... It certainly represented fear-mongering at its worst. Do you think Moyers would sign off on something like that now? Or has that ethical compass matured over 40+ years?
I also hadn't realized he was a member of a UCC church... I have heard him indentify himself as a Baptist on a number of occassions.
Roy,
His M.Div. is from Southwestern ('57). He also served as an SBC pastor for a couple of years before becoming "Bill Moyers" the LBJ aide.
I suspect that believing you are right can make it more difficult to discern ethical lapses. Afterall, LBJ is not exactly my model of Christian ethics, either personally or in terms of his national politics. Yet, Moyers served him faithfully for a very long time. Remember, back then I was a McGovern Democrat. LBJ was a little conservative for my taste, not to mention Vietnam.
Roy,
While Moyers has always seen himself as a Baptist (his childhood and seminary training and his early pastorate), I would guess that a UCC church would have had a better chance of capturing his ethical sensibilities than an SBC congregation. Now that he is attending Riverside, he can justly claim the name Baptist again since it is dually aligned with the ABC and the UCC.
BTW, my favorite Moyers line was from the time he served as LBJ's aide. Tasked to pray at a meal in the White House (amazing how a M.Div. ALWAYS earns one the role in family gatherings, etc.), LBJ objected: "Speak up Bill, I can't hear you." Moyers, without missing a beat, responded: "I'm sorry Mr. President. I wasn't speaking to you."
Roy,
On the point of the Moyers commentary, today Rove said: "I am a Christian, I go to church. I am an Episcopalian. [In admitting my shortcomings living out my faith compared to some of those on the White House staff such as Mike Gearson I made some self-deprecating comparative comments.] Somehow he goes from me being an Episcopalian wishing I was a better Christian to somehow making me into an agnostic. Mr. Moyers needs to do a little bit better research before he does another drive by slander."
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