James Dunn and the Restless Melody of Peace
By Bill J. Leonard
Well, damn.” That’s what James Dunn would say if one of us was being memorialized today. We know he’d talk like that at our passing, because, well, that’s how James talked; and because we were all his best friends! Jorene Taylor Swift at Broadway Baptist, Fort Worth wrote: “We loved James for many reasons— I was proud of him because he said things we all want to say and he said them in such a pithy, direct way— he was our own Baptist folk hero and probably the most important —once he met us he never forgot our names.” You think you have personal stories about James? Well, he had personal stories about most of you, too, and when he saw you, or your name came up, he’d tell those stories, the devil take the hindmost. No matter, when James Dunn was one-on-one with you, it was like you were the only person in the world. His longtime friend and ecumenist George Reed says that James “probably left more people with more memories than anyone else I’ve known.” No argument there.
Dunn outdistanced death so many times that most of us lost count. He ran through his nine lives years ago— multiple cancer treatments; radiation and chemotherapy administered in unspeakable places, like Dallas and Houston; untold near-misses while driving his car—one friend says that he never rode with James unless he was prayed up!
And then there was the ruptured aorta in March, 2003, which he would not have survived save for the quick action and oxygen of the Wake Forest emergency team. On that day I had just finished class when a staff member burst in to say, “Dr. Dunn has had some sort of spell in Reynolda Hall.” Rushing across the Wake Forest quad I thought—honestly— “James has either had a heart attack
or punched out a Republican.” His tough, tender heart held 12 years longer, thank God.
After the 2003 health event, I encouraged him to outline this service, and we follow it today, gathering with the Knollwood congregation he and Marilyn have loved and faithfully served for over a decade. In that document, he requested that his longtime friend Bill Moyers and I should speak, but we’ve divided the occasions, and Mr. Moyers will present a Dunn memorial lecture at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity next fall at a date to be determined. James would be delighted that Bill Moyers, the dearest of his dearest friends, will return to the WFU campus. It was Moyers who first suggested we invite James to Wake Forest to help start the School of Divinity in 1999. Moyers’ providential recommendation, made during a 1997 visit to the university, was, shall we say, a Holy Ghost moment. “Imagine what studying with Dunn will mean to students,” Moyers commented. Well, we couldn’t have imagined. Dean Gail O’Day, who deeply regrets not being here today, writes: “Not only were our students able to learn from and with a man of his level of accomplishment and acumen, but they were also able to experience firsthand what real passion and commitment look and live like. Recent graduate Reverend Abigail Pratt summed it up on Face
Book: “Thank you Dr. Dunn for the smiles and laughs, for supporting us as young ministers, for advocating for women in ministry, for fighting for religious freedom, for always raising hell when there was hell to be raised (and even when there might not have been), thank you.”
James included me among today’s participants, with this admonition: “Just preach the gospel,” “and if you mention me at all, try to tell the truth, mostly.” Here’s the truth: James Milton Dunn was committed to Jesus Christ, to Marilyn McNeely Dunn, to Baptist ways of being the church, to the ceaseless struggle for religious liberty, to his Texas heritage, and to the Democratic Party—all in that order, EXCEPT on election day!
Whatever else James taught us about life and faith, it was inseparable from the Jesus story. Like those earliest disciples, Dunn was haunted, maybe even hounded, by Jesus, who he was, what he said, and the implications of Jesus’ most basic message: “The kingdom of God has come near you.” Bill Moyers wrote: “Like his mentors, J.M. Dawson and T. B. Maston, the mystery of the Christ event has been central to James’ understanding of his faith and practice. The encounter occurred early on and it transformed him, producing a principled commitment to action and aware[ness] at every turn of that transcendent Presence.” Moyers, 1999
Like those who first encountered him on the lakeshore, it was Jesus who claimed James, and James who claimed Jesus. Indeed, one of his most famous declarations— “Ain’t nobody gonna tell me what to believe except Jesus”—got him into huge trouble with folks right and left of center. Like those who first encountered him on the lakeshore, it was Jesus who claimed James, and James who claimed Jesus.
That line, and its accompanying theology, was neither glib platitude nor quirky individualism, but a heart-riven confession grounded in the power of uncoerced faith and the transforming community of God’s New Day in the world. In Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out the gospel’s first responders, giving them economic, spiritual and practical instructions, centered in this imperative: “Tell them, the kingdom of God— God’s New Day—has come near you.” That message, honed by the likes of Walter Rauschenbusch, Dorothy Day, and Gardner Taylor, shaped James’ own radical Christianity, centered in personal transformation, communal justice, and compassionate dissent.
You heard it in his prayers. At the opening of the Wake Forest School of Divinity, James prayed: “Help us to be so full of our freedom in Thee, so literally liberated from the fears and phoniness that damn so much of theological education that we rejoice even in the responsibilities that ride piggyback on every freedom. And in it all, empower and humble each one of us, professor and student, donor and Dean, to do all we do as our high calling of God in Jesus Christ.” Across the years, students in that first class have referenced that prayer both for its call to freedom in Christ, and as the first time they ever heard the word “damn” in a prayer.
Then there was the irony of it all. For James Dunn, the gospel was nothing if not filled with irony, the “incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.” Yes, he said, the gospel of Jesus is peace-inculcating, life-transforming and world-confronting—but often it doesn’t seem to work like it’s supposed to, perhaps because of the way we are, or the way the world is, or the way we “knit-pick” (James’ word) at the Jesus story.
Nobody perpetuated gospel irony more than James. Take Jesus’ words: “I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves.” But given the “incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs,” James taught us that when it comes to gospel justice we may need to be
RAVENOUS LAMBS, confronting the wolves head on with another way of looking at the world. I never met a more ravenous lamb than James Dunn—turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, but in your face when necessary for justice, reconciliation and compassion.
He exemplified the irony and wonder of that amazing verse in Ezekiel: “Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.” James surely hoped that his restless peace would lead to changes in church and society but, like Ezekiel, he recognized that some folks never hear. He would bear witness; follow his conscience; and let God sort out the results.
I shall never forget the day I was sitting in my office watching Dr. Dunn testify at the Senate appointment hearings for John Ashcroft to be attorney general of the USA. James’ name appeared at the bottom of the screen, along with the words “Wake Forest University.” “O God,” I said out loud, as a prayer, not an oath. Minutes later, the phone rang and a voice on the other end said, “Does this man who’s testifying against Mr. Ashcroft work at Wake Forest?” Yes, I replied. “Well,” she continued,” he’s criticizing a fine Christian. Can you stop him?” “No, ma’am,” I replied, “I’m just his colleague; you’d have to talk with Jesus if you want to stop him.” “You’re no better than he is,” she declared, and hung up. James Dunn taught us to follow Jesus’ ironic call to be “wise as serpents, innocent as doves” when justice and conscience requires.
And then there’s peace. Jesus tells those early gospel nomads, “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person. . . .” This room brims with people on whom God’s peace came to rest because of James Dunn. It wasn’t peace as tranquility, but a restless peace that pushes and presses, not for the sake of argument, although James could out argue the best of us; but the same restless peace that impelled Jesus of Nazareth to preach the gospel to the poor, recovery of sight to the sightless, to bind up the broken hearted, to set at liberty the oppressed, and declare that God’s New Day really has come near. By grace, the restless peace James carried with him everywhere he went found its way to us. Sometimes you’d hear yourself telling him “your every weakness,” as the hymn says, and some mysterious, ironic, restless sense of peace would come over you. Or you’d hear him address the world’s great injustices and, before he’d finished, you’d committed yourself beyond yourself. James was at peace, I think, but it was a peace that demanded action and effort, a gospel cause with political, social and spiritual implications.
And to the bitter end, James Dunn’s stubborn insistence that God’s New Day really had come near made him one of the freest people I have ever known. In today’s text, the disciples return, confessing that to their surprise this gospel stuff really worked, to the point that “even the worst of the demons run for the hills when we show up in your name.” James knew that kind of hope in his bones—God’s restless peace made him free and fearless from the west side of Fort Worth to Pennsylvania Avenue. Through it all, Dunn was an equal opportunity prophet, ever challenging the principalities and powers in church and state. Despising hierarchies, he wrote: “Nothing so violates the basic nature of a Baptist church as the assumption of power by a few.” He drove Christian Fundamentalists crazy right James taught us that when it comes to gospel justice we may need to be RAVENOUS LAMBS, confronting the wolves head on with another way of looking at the world.
Bill Clinton called him a “fly in the ointment” of Washington. He chastised Al Gore for supporting for private school vouchers. And when that prophetic calling kicked in, none of us could quiet him.
On July 4, 2005, our daughter Stephanie and I accompanied James to Old Salem Square to hear our colleague, the Moravian historian Dr. Craig Atwood, read the Declaration of Independence at a celebration begun there in 1786. We neglected to take chairs so leaned against the white picket fence that borders the square. Warfare in Iraq was “surging” and Afghanistan was exploding, and George Bush was president. Craig started through the Declaration’s list of grievances against the English king such as: “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount, and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people. . .” At every sentence, Dunn would make noise—“Yes he has.” “Uh huh!”
“Oh yes he has.” Some people took notice and frowned, but James was undeterred. It was the 4th of July, and he let his freedom of dissent ring. I finally said: “James, if you don’t quiet down, even the Moravians will throw us out of here.” James didn’t quiet down; and the Moravians didn’t throw us out. Oh, freedom.
On July 4 of this year, the day he died, I found a little memo pad on James’ desk on which he had written these words. Whether his or someone else’s I don’t know: “Lord, help us love like we’ve never lost—work like it’s not for money—and DANCE—like nobody’s watchin!” All right, James, you’ve gone about as far with us as you could go—carried some of us even. But by God, we’ll keep on dancing, with you and with Jesus; Dancing toward the Kingdom of God to the sweet, restless melody of peace.
World without end, amen.
Bill J. Leonard is the James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Professor of Church History at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. This homily was delivered at the Memorial Service for James Dunn—July 18, 2015 at the Knollwood Baptist Church, WinstonSalem, NC
