No Jokes from the Pulpit, Please

It is often said that to maintain cordial relations with most people, two topics should be avoided: religion and politics. Alas, this story has some of both.

In 1978, while living in Durham, North Carolina I frequently attended services at a prominent Presbyterian church. What I most clearly remember is the pastor. Tall and somewhat gregarious, he had the habit of telling jokes and funny stories during his sermons. This seemed to go over well, as laughter rocked the joint. The guy wanted belly laughs, and he got them.

I was back in Texas the next year, residing in Denton. The red-brick church I usually attended was St. Andrew Presbyterian. Every Sunday morning, the pastor, desiring to loosen up his congregation (did he think we were bored or about to doze off?), made a few quips. Most of the people were willing to laugh, and so they did. It was sort of a Pavlov's dog thing: quip, laugh, quip, laugh.

In the 1990s and the first seven years of the present century, I often went to St. David’s Episcopal Church in the heart of downtown Austin. It, too, was a large and historic house of worship. The main pastor then, David Boyd, could not resist the temptation of using levity. Again, my fellow attendees did the old yuk-yuk. That David, what a comedian!

I hate to sound like a dour person who lacks a sense of humor (or an arch-conservative, for that matter), but there is a time and place for everything. If these pastors in Durham, Denton and Austin wanted to do stand-up comedy, they should have gone out on the circuit with Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and Robin Williams. After all, why masquerade as a man of the cloth if what you really want to do is tell jokes? I wonder whether they learned such stuff in theology school; maybe Comedy 101 was part of the curriculum.

Now—please forgive the disjointed chronology—let’s jump back to the 1960s. I was an elementary and junior high school boy who followed my parents' directives. Members of Casa Linda Presbyterian Church in Dallas, every week we went to Sunday School followed by the actual church services.

(Before proceeding with the main story, I have to recollect baseball at Casa Linda. It was part of the White Rock Churches Athletic Association, essentially a league for church baseball teams in that area. My guess is that there were 20 members. We wore heavy flannel uniforms and played at Norbuck, Winfrey Point, McCree and other diamonds in east Dallas. Teammates I remember well are Charles Harrell, Buddy Van Dusen and his brother Dennis [their father, Charles, coached us], Kevin Nietmann and Mike Gregory.)

At that time, I had not heard of the terms “high church” and “low church.” The latter is somewhat pejorative, connoting less attention to matters of doctrine, ritual and other accoutrements of Christianity. The Casa Linda of those days had to be considered high church. When the congregation stood and recited the Apostles’ Creed (“We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence, He will come to judge the quick and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”), it was serious stuff. I have no memory of the pastor, Billy Tom McDaniel, ever cracking wise.

Who were those Sunday School teachers at Casa Linda, and what motivated them? If I could go back in time, I would thank every single one. Due mostly to them, I got a decent grounding in the Christian faith. Then came the time, around eighth grade, when we were informed that we would have to take a series of classes culminating in a confirmation ceremony, not unlike what the Catholics did. There was no snickering  or grumbling. All of us seemed to understand that it was not a frivolous matter. None refused or dropped out, as I recall.

I was not informed of the reasons for my family’s departure from Casa Linda circa 1968, but suddenly our membership had been changed to St. Mark Presbyterian—adjacent to Bryan Adams High School. Only much later did I learn of a major schism that had taken place at Casa Linda. It was a 15-year battle that pertained to matters of style as well as substance—a variation of the old high-church/low-church theme. Since I was not there, I will not pretend to know the details. The story was played out in the newspapers and in the courts, and the “liberal” group  finally prevailed. About 120 members, including the Penningtons, switched to St. Mark, and another, more fundamental group, created New Covenant Presbyterian Church in the same area.

St. Mark was a bit more informal than our old church. I think we continued to recite the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday, but the place had a relaxed air. Should there have been stronger emphasis on sin, damnation and the fires of hell? Some people like that stuff. As for our old church, the buildings still exist, but things are quite different. The name has been changed to White Rock Community Church, and its 700-member congregation consists primarily of gays and lesbians.