Do the People in the Pew Want to Be Told the Truth?
By Kenneth Chafin
[Dr. Kenneth Chafin has been pastor of the Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville and of the South Main Baptist Church in Houston and has held distinguished teaching posts at Southwestern and Southern Theological Seminaries. He and his wife Barbara divide their residence between Louisville and a farm near Brenham, Texas.]
Last Sunday l was the substitute teacher for one of the Sunday School classes in our department. They are all in their late sixties or older with only a member or two who have not yet retired. They have been professors, surgeons, public servants, homemakers, business people, and farmers. Members of the group had held almost every office or responsibility in the church and almost all of them had been Christians for years.
The lesson in the quarterly was from Jeremiah, at the time when Jerusalem was under siege and about to fall. The Prophet had been placed under arrest by the king because he had announced that God had already given Jerusalem into the hands of the Babylonians. The members of the class had probably heard this text preached on or had studied it dozens of times. My first thought was that there was no aspect to the lesson that they had not already beaten to death and I wondered how to involve them in any relevant discussion.
Then it occurred to me that Jeremiah was in jail because he preached to a crowd that didn`t want to hear the truth. After we had read the scripture I wrote a one question test on the chalk board to be answered either true or false. "The people in the pew want to hear the truth as the pastor understands it." The members of the class are both honest and articulate but they had a hard time with that question. They wanted to answer "Yes" because the other option was to suggest that God`s children don`t really want to hear the truth; but to admit that made them uncomfortable.
Witnessing their struggle reminded me of an experience thirty years before when I was teaching preaching at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. I had just completed twelve years preaching in one of the denominations finest pulpits, South Main Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. I`d gone back to the seminary out of a sense of calling to teach preaching to the young men and women whom God was calling. It was a fulfilling experience both from the caliber of students I had and the fellowship with my colleagues. But from time to time I would hear students say, "That may be what the Bible teaches but it would get you in trouble if you preach it in the churches." I was aware that the truth has always created some tension as it challenges conventional wisdom but to hear it stated so bluntly bothered me. I didn`t want to believe that the people did not want to hear the minister`s best understanding of the truth.
One day, just to see how wide-spread that feeling was among my students , I included in the regular Friday morning true/false test the question, "The preacher can assume that the people in the pew want to hear the truth, even fit makes them uncomfortable." I thought that they would struggle with it a bit, then answer it, "true." I was wrong. Twenty-two of the thirty students said it was false. The question, and the class`s response to it, created vigorous discussion without any consensus. As we moved to other matters the memory of their discussion lingered in my mind, disturbing me. I wondered if they were underestimating both the laity and the power of the truth to convict and change minds. Like Mary of old, I kept all those thoughts in my mind and pondered them.
When several years later I left the classroom to become the pastor of Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, that same issue became very personal. It was a historic pulpit in a church whose membership reflected the diversity of the city. While my predecessor had led the church to deal with race and gender issues the church had done very little thinking about the battle that was raging for the soul of Southern Baptists. At that time several Fundamentalists had been elected to the presidency of the convention and, in spite of the obvious effort to stack the trustees of the schools and the mission boards, many naive people still thought that all they really wanted was equity.
But there were those who realized that their goal was really absolute and complete control of the denomination and wondered if something might be done to reverse the direction that things were going. Someone in Nashville issued a general invitation to a meeting for those who were interested. The Courier-Journal in Louisville did a story on it and a reporter called me for a comment. I told the reporter that I felt that the meeting was needed and that if my schedule allowed it, I planned to attend. They ran the story on the front page the following day.
I hadn`t been in my office an hour before I got a phone call, from Bob Sanders, a respected and influential member of the church. Bob was a retired school principal with a keen mind and a willingness to question things that he didn`t agree with. Those two characteristics had created for him a large following in the church. I respected him as a man to be listened to.
He began our conversation with the statement, "I read that article in the paper this morning." I told him that I was glad but gave no other response. Then he asked, "Did they quote you right, that you plan to go to that meeting?" I told him the quote was accurate but that I hadn`t yet been able to clear my schedule but that I hoped to go.
His response was, "Your going to that meeting is going to upset a lot of church members." I tried to make light of his warning by suggesting that some of the members went places that upset me but that I didn`t let it undermine our friendship. Bob didn`t think it was funny. He added, "Pastor, I don`t think you are hearing me. They don`t want you to go!"
Instead of responding directly to his instruction, I replied, "Bob, you know that I`m preaching a series on the Ten Commandments. If, in preparation for next Sunday`s sermon, I were to discover things in the application that I knew would upset some members, would you like for me to back away from it so everyone would feel good, or should I go ahead and risk upsetting some people?" I think that at first he thought that I was trying to change the subject.
But before he could respond to my question, I added, "The question is directly related to what we have been talking about. You see, Bob, the preacher who can be intimidated by a phone call will also back away from telling you the truth from the pulpit. What do you want your pastor to do?"
There was a long pause. I could almost hear the wheels in his sharp mind turning. After what seemed like ages he said, "Pastor, no matter how it might upset me, I want you to tell me the truth when you
stand in the pulpit." Then, he chuckled and said, "I hope that you have a safe trip to Nashville." That`s the day Bob Sanders and I became the closest of friends. We fished together, ate meals and had fellowship together. Our discussions were vigorous and covered the whole range of our interests. Each of our lives was richer for the understanding we had reached. But I keep wondering if his answer represented only his own feeling or if he were speaking for most of the people in the pew. Do they really want to hear the truth?
