Category: Poverty

Citizenship, Economics, Ethics, Family, Marriage, Parenting, Politics, Poverty, Selfishness, Story, Taxes3 Comments

Mama, Is That Tacky?

Gary Furr

A long time ago, I was a preacher at the First Baptist Church in Blakely, Georgia. It was a small town with many good things, but if we wanted to really go “uptown” we’d go to Dothan, Alabama, across the Chattahoochee River, all the way in the Central Time zone. And our girls especially loved going to the Wiregrass Commons Mall. One Saturday we were there shopping and came to the food court. Lo and behold, a wedding was going on. A bride and groom, groomsmen wearing tuxes and bridesmaids in pretty dresses. In the food court of the Wiregrass … Continue reading Mama, Is That Tacky?

Alabama, change, Citizenship, Culture, Disease, Ethics, Healthcare, Institutions, Leadership, Poverty, Sickness and Health, Story, Theology and Life1 Comment

Taking Care of Our Own

Gary Furr

A friend mentioned to me recently that an out of state visitor saw our Alabama state motto, WE DARE TO DEFEND OUR RIGHTS on a sign and asked if it had been put there as a prank. No, he was told, that is really our motto. If you have lived here for a long time, you understand that we resist when others challenge us, no matter how well intentioned. Determination can help us in life, but it can work against you as life changes. I’d like to add another one: WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN. Two friends and I … Continue reading Taking Care of Our Own

Anger, Citizenship, Culture, Ethics, Faith, Forgiveness, Humor, Justice, Leadership, Politics, Poverty, Race, Selfishness, Theology, Theology and Life2 Comments

Take the BOTH AND Pledge

Gary Furr

“If I spend all day reading Facebook and social media and rant mindlessly over things

about which I know almost nothing and over which I have even less control,

I will either get off Facebook so I can keep my job or seek professional help.”

After what has been pretty much a media-frenzied locust plague over the last three weeks, I began to think, “Hey, what will happen after the election? We’ve been told that if we choose wrong, the apocalypse will come, the sea will turn red and the zombie-takeover will begin. Don’t get me wrong, it matters, but a lot of nutty people have access to the media. I’m at the beach at the moment, and I try to remember that the water is only as sanitary as the least sanitary person sharing it with me. The pool is pretty polluted at the moment with Chicken Littles, convinced that they, alone, know how dire things are if we don’t think just like them. Whew.

A friend sent me a pretty good picture from Oregon. I’m guessing it was a church sign, but I don’t know. Unfortunately, my fellow preachers are all riled up at the moment, apparently having taken care of local sin and now ready to wipe it out globally. I myself resist this, since I’ve been around to watch a good bit of human foolishness. There’s plenty to take seriously, but there’s so much chaff out there that you need a microscope to find some wheat.  Well, this picture inspired me, so I created my own pledge. I decided to make a pledge for AFTER the election. When we have to carry our shame for all the stupid and ignorant things we’ve believed, forwarded, said and argued. Unfortunately, most of us will NOT get appointed to a new job or, like consultants, get a big fat contract out of it if their guy wins. We have to go back home and eat dinner with Uncle Ernie, who thinks your views are sending America straight to hell. And you yelled at him that he was a racist neanderthal and he looked wounded and looked up “neanderthal” on the web and then stopped speaking at dinner.

And people will have to get offline, and go back to work. And congresspeople will have to do whatever it is they are doing up there, or not doing. So here is a pledge for all of us. I call it the BOTH AND PLEDGE. I am the first signer. Continue reading “Take the BOTH AND Pledge”

Bluegrass, Children, Christianity, Conflict, Culture, Forgiveness, Gospel music, Holly Week, Hope, humanity, Justice, Leadership, Love, Modern Life, Politics, Poverty, Race, Theology and Life7 Comments

Standing Up for Children in Birmingham, Alabama

Gary Furr

Several years ago, Dr. Penny Marler approached me about participating in a program where pastors might become

Rev. Arthur Price
Rev. Arthur Price

friends across differences—race, age, denomination—and learn from each other.  Rev. Arthur Price and I decided to make that journey together.  He is the pastor of historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where, 50 years ago this fall, people driven by hate and fear set off a bomb that killed four little girls who had just prayed together.  The episode set off a national revulsion to the radical racists and helped put America in a new direction.

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Rev. Keith Thompson

Over the course of that few years, we became friends, Arthur much younger, a different personality, a native of the North, me a son of the South.  It was one of the richest experiences of my life, and it is documented on the website of the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence.   (For more information about the project Rev. Price and I did together, click HERE)

One of the side blessings of that friendship was connecting our churches.  We visited each others’ deacons meetings, had our congregations together for fellowship, and continued our friendship by having breakfast together regularly over the years.  Last year, we began to talk together about doing something positive that would mark this anniversary by affirming that we are in a new day and that the faith community is part of that.  We were joined by another friend, Rev. Keith Thompson of First United Methodist Church downtown.

After the massacre at Newtown in December, our sense of commitment was heightened.  Whatever strikes at our Continue reading “Standing Up for Children in Birmingham, Alabama”

Christianity, Environment, Faith, Modern Life, Politics, Poverty, Suffering, Theology, Theology and Life9 Comments

Sandy Calls

Gary Furr
Sandy bearing down on the Northeast

I had many thoughtful calls about Hurricane Sandy because I have a daughter in New York City and another in New York State.  Both, thankfully, escaped the worst of it, neither even experienced a power outage.  They had friends, of course, who did.  But inevitably, an avalanche of odd theological statements come forth.
Speculation on natural disasters are not, of course, new.  A few people said, “God is telling us something.”  Having been through a tornado that hit my church many years ago, I wince at such statements, especially since the tornado spared every part of our proposed expansion program and hit every part that we had not considered, namely the offices and the sanctuary, where it ripped a hole in the roof right over the pulpit, which a few sawdust trail preachers in town suggested was payback for our liberalism (we ordain women and are open to all races and do not marginalize divorced persons, and have practiced these ways since the 1970s).

Continue reading “Sandy Calls”