ON BEING A CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL [W, 7-29-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ON BEING A CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL [W, 7-29-26]

 

When I was growing up, conservative and liberal were both good words, at least where I lived.

Conservative meant honoring the past. Biblically, it meant keeping the fifth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother.” We sang “Faith of our fathers, holy faith…” It meant hanging on to what was good, not “…throwing the baby out with the bath water” as we made “progess.”

Liberal meant generous, as in a liberal giver. It meant broad, as in a liberal education, covering all the arts and sciences. It meant progress, which was always touted as a good thing, especially by business people.

When I was in high school, in the early 1950s, those words began to pull apart, primarily because of the issue of racial integration. Brown v Board of Ed was decided in 1954: separate but equal was neither equal nor Constitutional. Honoring the past meant hanging on to racial segregation, and many folks did want to do that. They said they were being conservative. I knew that particular conservatism was wrong.

A lot of our identity comes from what those who disagree with us call us, often in disparagement, like Methodists. That was originally a sarcastic designation for John and Charles Wesley. They were methodist [methodical] in trying to follow Jesus.

In high school, people began to call folks who believed in equal rights both nigger lover and liberal. I knew I believed in equal rights, so apparently, I was a liberal.

Especially on civil rights, equal rights, the lines were clearly drawn. You were either for or against, which meant you were either conservative or liberal. I knew which side I was on. I began to embrace being a liberal.

[I recently heard Kara Swisher, on the “We’re Back” podcast with Brian Williams, say that most liberals got that way because of the equal rights issue.]

When I was in college, I took courses in The History of Christian Thought from the most excellent Dr. D.J. Bowden, and discovered the Personalist theology of Borden Parker Bowne [1847-1910], the most liberal of liberals, even before liberalism was really a thing. I wanted to be the most liberal of liberals. Yes, I was a young contrarian.

But that did not work very well, because as the words conservative and liberal began to divide, liberal started to mean broad morally as well as theologically and socially, and I was very conservative morally.

Morality at the time was almost entirely personal habits—drinking, smoking, gambling, cheating, lying, sexual promiscuity [any sex “out of wedlock”]. Drugs, beyond alcohol, didn’t even exist in my world so were not an issue.

One reason personal morality appealed to me was that it was so clear. You knew if you “drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do.” Social morality was a lot more complicated.

I think a lot of us who were young Christians back then grew up conflicted. We were sure that the liberal stance of inclusion, especially of black folks, was right, and we wanted to be on that side. But liberal also began to mean at least accepting, if not outright practicing, alcohol, marijuana, pornography, promiscuity, profanity, etc. “Now everyone knows, anything goes.” [1] We were not comfortable with “liberal” morality; it just didn’t seem very Jesus-like. But we weren’t comfortable with conservative theology and social norms.

Now, I am older than dirt, and I remain socially liberal and personally conservative. Socially, inclusion seems to me to be the Jesus way. “Go to the highways and byways and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” [2] Personally, respect seems to me to be the Jesus way.

“Respect” in this context takes more than a sub-clause to explain. I eschew drugs and alcohol and tobacco and gluttony and lust because they alter, and thus dishonor, the body, the temple, God gave me. [3] {Yes, I know that drinking coffee makes me hypocritical. Maybe taking meds does, too.}

I eschew promiscuity and pornography for they are likewise dishonorable to the temple of the body.

“Respect” includes all temples, everybody’s bodies, not just mine.

Gambling and booze and drugs damage not just individuals but society. There really are no “victimless” sins.  

So, what does a socially liberal Christian do about including druggies and alkies and bad people, not just in the church but in society and in the heart? Don’t they need to be included, too? Don’t they need to be loved rather than judged?

Well, I already said that social morality is harder to figure out. I’ll let you know if I ever get this dilemma sorted. In the meantime, I know that I am conservative and liberal at the same time…

John Robert McFarland

1] Cole Porter’s musical was in 1934, but, even though Cole was an Indiana boy, it took Broadway morals about 30 years to get to the part of Indiana where I lived, “the Mississippi of the North.”

2] Lk 14:23, KJV

3] I Corinthians 6:19-20.

 

 

THE SADNESS OF A WORLD WITHOUT PONTIACS [7-27-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Curmudgeon—THE SADNESS OF A WORLD WITHOUT PONTIACS [7-27-26]

 

The main thing I hold against Ronald Reagan is the demise of the Pontiac automobile. Not directly, of course. He was four years dead when the last Pontiac came off the assembly line. But he was responsible for killing the Pontiac, the most important car of my life.

I hold many things against Reagan, even though I also have respect for him. He wasn’t a very good actor, and he wasn’t a very good president, but he was a good enough actor to act like a good president, and that’s really all that American voters require. I don’t think he was ill-intentioned. Like so many young people, he just got in with the wrong people. He wanted to be part of the “in crowd,” and the “in crowd” always makes you think you’re in, so that they can use you to their own ends. [1]

I first started riding in Pontiacs when we lived in Indianapolis, because Aunt Dorothy lived there, and she always drove Pontiacs. Whenever we got to go someplace neat, it was in Aunt Dorothy’s Pontiac. When it came time for me to take my driver’s license exam, after we had moved to the farm near Oakland City, my family had no car, so Aunt Dorothy took me in her Pontiac to get my license. When I started to college, it was Aunt Dorothy’s Pontiac that I went back to IU after weekends at home, as she drove back to Indianapolis after her weekend at home to care for her mother.

 

My high school friend, Mike Dickey, always drove Pontiacs, because his father was a Pontiac dealer. All through high school, all my double dates--which was most of my dates, since I did not have a car—were in a Pontiac.

Also, one of my main run-around friends in high school, Bob Keeton, always drove a Pontiac. I was best man at his wedding. I rode with his parents all the way from Oakland City, Indiana to Rochester, MN, for the wedding, in a Pontiac.

 

Most importantly, I went to my own wedding in a Pontiac. My roommate, Tom Cone, had a Pontiac at school our senior year, because his father was a Pontiac salesman. I had a very unreliable lemon-yellow Anglia [English Ford], and when it didn’t want to go to church on a Sunday, so that I could preach, I borrowed Tom’s Pontiac.

On the afternoon of my wedding, though, I did not borrow it. I just ran to Tom and yelled, “My car won’t start. Give me your keys.” I didn’t worry about Tom. I knew he’d find some other way to get there. He did. I never thought to ask how. Without a Pontiac, I would never have gotten married.

Oh, wait. Maybe it’s Barack Obama instead of Ronald Reagan that I should blame. When General Motors was about to go belly-up, Obama agreed to bail them out with government loans as long as they stopped making cars they couldn’t sell. They kept the Chevy and Cadillac and GMC lines and dropped Oldsmobile and Pontiac.

 

Maybe it’s just as well that the Pontiac automobile closed out. All those Pontiacs, so important to me, looked like real cars, distinctive, not like these current cars that all look alike, regardless of maker, like they are all produced on the same mimeograph machine. Chief Pontiac would be embarrassed by those final 2008 cars.

 

Well, at least I am sure that the demise of Pontiac is the fault of somebody else, even though I never bought one.

John Robert McFarland

1] I’ve told many times how I had the very last word on Reagan. When he died, the last of his several funeral services was in Tampico, IL, where he was born. I was preaching at the Tampico UMC then, a part-time appointment in retirement, and I was asked to give the benediction at that service.

EXTREME LOVE [7-25-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Poverty of An Old Reverse Snob—EXTREME LOVE [7-25-26]

 

Some friends have a twenty-something son who drives the van for his church. They go to the homeless encampments to take folks sandwiches and socks. One day, after distributing those helpful items, the van wouldn’t start, and they had to get a homeless guy, living in his car, to give them a jump start. That’s so neat. Despite wealth and poverty, love—if it’s really love--always goes both ways.

A few years ago, when I could walk long distances, I was walking home from downtown and cut through the parking lot of a city park. I saw a couple, probably in their thirties, getting dressed, rather awkwardly, in the front seat of their car. She was putting on a dress. He was struggling into what looked like mechanic’s overalls. At first I thought they had spent an illicit night together and were in the midst of a “Wake up, little Susie” moment. [An Everly Brothers song] But the back seat of the car was piled high with clothes and household items. I realized that they were living in the car. They were homeless. But also they were getting dressed to go to work, or at least go look for work.

They were homeless. But their poverty was not extreme. They had a car to live in, and jobs to go to. Yes, there is a surprisingly large part of the homeless population that works regularly.

Our city has a large homeless population. Like most of America, we also have an affordable housing crisis.

I used to think that I grew up in extreme poverty. Not so. To be able to claim extreme poverty for your backstory, to show that you have achieved in spite of your background, you have to be homeless, at least part of the time, and be hungry, hungry enough that you eat at a soup kitchen or ask for handouts on the street. It also helps if you had to steal stuff to keep from going hungry.

There goes my achievement story. I grew up in primitive conditions—no water in the house, etc, but I was never homeless. I wasn’t even hungry, except once in a while. Occasionally we had only rice soup, that was mostly water, maybe with a carrot or two chopped up in it, but sometimes we ate better than most folks, things we raised ourselves-fried chicken and sweet corn. Besides I could not have eaten at a soup kitchen because we lived in the country without a car. And I never stole stuff to eat. Living in the country without a car is a good way to avoid a life of a crime.

Please understand. I am not disrespecting homeless folks. Even in college, I sent money to a lighthouse mission place in Chicago. I thought the folks in extreme poverty were in the big cities, homeless and hungry.

Yes, I know there’s a double narrative going on here. I’m able to brag about achieving, despite growing up poor, by pointing out that my extreme poverty was not really extreme.

It bothers me that I’m in a growing group of reverse-snobs. There is way too much “I’m better than you because I started out poor. Even better, I was homeless.” Throw in “Also, I was a drunk and an addict and…” Well, then you’ve got the winning trifecta.

We think we are better than folks who started out with privileged lives because we started out with limited lives and still achieved… what?

Nobody chooses the life they have as children. The only worthwhile achievement is being a kind and merciful and loving person, regardless of whether you start out poor or rich. Anybody can be hateful, and anyone can be lovefull.

You are poor and homeless only if you are without love, and that can be whether you are rich or poor. You are wealthy only if you love.

John Robert McFarland

 

HIT BY A BUS [R, 7-23-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Original Sayings of An Old Man—HIT BY A BUS [R, 7-23-26]

 

Well, I said it first. “I could get hit by a bus.”

Comedian Ryan Hamilton actually did get hit by a bus. In 2025. So it was reasonable for him to say it in his recent Netflix appearance.

 

Then he went on: “I know everybody anymore says that you ought to enjoy life right now, because you could get hit by a bus…”

Hold on there! What do you mean, “Everybody says it?”

So I looked it up on Google. Yes, several people have said it. Even wrote songs about it. But every reference for someone else saying it is in the 21^st century. I said it way back in 1990. And again in 1995, when Now That I have Cance I Am Whole was published. So I have to assume all these 21^st century people who are assuming they might get hit by buses got the idea from me and are ignoring my copyright!

It came about this way…

The pale oncologist didn’t actually say I was going to die in a year or two, but he certainly implied it. I was 53 years old. At the time, I figured that was old enough to die. Barely. But after a brief flirtation with the idea that death would clear my schedule so neatly, I had decided I didn’t want to die, even though continuing with life meant I would still have to go to committee meetings.

So, I was in the midst of trying to recover from surgery, and undergoing a year of debilitating chemotherapy, and working fulltime, with a congregation that was not universally cooperative, and feeling sorry for myself, when I looked out our front window and saw one of those huge tour buses bumping along on our brick street.

 

Tour buses were a regular sight in Arcola, IL. We were in Amish country. People with cameras got on big buses and rode for miles so they could take photos of people who don’t know what a camera is. Then they went downtown, right past our house, to get lunch at The Dutch Kitchen.

Our parsonage was across the street from the church building. I made my way across the street several times each day, right in the pathway of that bus. I was barely able to move in those days. If that bus didn’t see me…

I was thinking I would die soon from cancer. Then I realized: I might not die from cancer at all; I could get hit by that bus!

It was such a great feeling of relief. There were so many ways I could die. Death from cancer was not inevitable. Saved by getting hit by the bus!

So, if you are down in the dumps one day, and worried that you might die from some dread disease, just remind yourself: I could get hit by a bus.

And remember who to thank for the idea…and it’s not Ryan Hamilton.

 

John Robert McFarland

A reminder in case you think I stay up too late or get up too early: The posting time listed on these columns is California time, because that is where Blogspot, my gracious host, is located. I live in the Eastern time zone, so if Blogspot says I’m posting at 2:30 in the morning, it’s 5:30 where I am.

 

THE 20 YEAR RULE [7-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Lufe for the Years of Winter—THE 20 YEAR RULE [7-21-26]

 

I knew a plumber who said, “The first seventeen years, I thought I had the best job in the world. I didn’t mind the yucky parts of plumbing because I enjoyed so much diagnosing problems and fixing them. But then there were no new problems, only old ones, ones I’d seen before. It wasn’t satisfying anymore.”

He had run up against the 20 year rule…just a bit early.

I was once chatting with a middle-aged, second-career Episcopal priest. When he was being ordained, he told his bishop that his only regret was that he spent so many years as a business man before going to seminary and becoming a priest. “How many years will you be a priest before retirement?” the bishop asked him. “Only twenty.” “My God, man, that’s plenty!”

Social research has concluded that the Episcopal bishop was right. Twenty years is plenty for any job. Actually, these days, if you can get twenty in before technology or culture eliminates your job, you are doing pretty well.

I have a pastor friend who just retired. He’s earned it. He is 70 but looks 80. He put in 44 years all together, so that’s twice enough.

Rapid cultural change causes many problems, because the basic needs of humans remain the same, even though the means of fulfilling them change. One of those basic needs is satisfying work, work that at least comes close to being a vocation, a calling.

When I felt the call to preach, the ministry was referred to as “the high calling.” I think the title was called high so that we wouldn’t notice that the pay was low.

Calling, though--the feeling that you are doing what you are supposed to do--does not necessarily go with job title. The job might be called high, but if you don’t fit in it, your life is low. I have known homemakers and teachers and farmers and bus drivers and cooks and gardeners and carpenters and so many others who experienced their lives as a calling, even if they didn’t use that language. They fit their job.

Even then, though, you probably need some sort of renewal. And these days, that twenty-year rule seems to apply. So how do you get renewal?

Well, you’re right. What can someone my age know about this? I haven’t worked in a long time. Even more, since this column is for old people, why bother? We don’t have jobs to get tired of.

I had the same job for a long time. As I look back on it, I see that although my job didn’t change every 20 years, my life, my calling, did.

You don’t have a calling unless someone calls you. Looking back, I realize that each time I hit the end of my calling, I went back to God and asked for another one. To others, it might have looked like I was still doing the same stuff, but it was renewal to me.

I don’t really like to give advice or “helpful hints for happy living.” I’d rather just tell my little stories and let God speak from within them. But I’ll actually give advice this time: If you find yourself getting close to the end of your 20 years, it would be better to ask God for another call, instead of asking the world for a different job.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE DEMISE OF THE 1950 CHURCH [7-19-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THE DEMISE OF THE 1950 CHURCH [7-19-26]

 

When I was in seminary, our homiletics professor, Merrill Abbey, had us listen to a sermon by J. Wallace Hamilton, the preacher at Pasadena Community Methodist Church [PCMC] in St. Petersburg, FL. The sermon was on a long-play vinyl record, the best available technology at that time. I was so impressed that I bought a copy of that record for myself. I wanted to be a good preacher, and I wondered, “How did he get to be such a good preacher?”

Prof. Abbey said that Hamilton’s church was a new, struggling start in 1929, only four years old, when Hamilton was appointed there. He had just been ordained as a probationer. He wasn’t fully ordained until two years later.

Some of the lay people recognized that he had a special gift for preaching. “We have a chance to grow here. You concentrate on preaching. We’ll do the rest of the work the preacher usually does so that you’ll have time for it. You preach, and we’ll bring the people in to hear you.”

By the time I was in seminary in the 1960s, PCMC had become one of the first megachurches, over seven thousand people on some Sundays, even though the sanctuary, built during Hamilton’s tenure, seated “only” two thousand. Others listened to speakers in their cars in the parking lot, drive-in movie style.

 

PCMC had three different pastors in its first four years. That was fairly standard for Methodist churches in those days. Many appointments were for only one year, especially for a small church like PCMC. Preachers were eager to “move up the ladder” to bigger churches with bigger salaries. What was definitely not standard was for a Methodist preacher to stay in his first appointment for his entire lifetime, for 39 years, from the time when he wasn’t even fully ordained yet, until his death. J. Wallace Hamilton did that. [1]

 

He was a preacher in The 1950 Church.

That’s what sociologists call it, The 1950 Church, because it hit its zenith in the 1950s. It continued, though, while declining almost imperceptibly, for most of the 20^th century. It was pulpit centered and denominationally identified and growth oriented. It was perfect for J. Wallace Hamilton.

It was perfect for me, too, starting in 1956, since I thought the main job of a minister was preaching. But The 1950 Church was already starting its decline in the 1950s. That’s how we name things, according to my sociology professor friend, Paul J. Baker. “If you cut down all the shady oaks in building a sub-division, you name it Shady Oaks.” It’s called The 1950 Church because that’s when it began to decline.

That decline wasn’t statistical. Church membership and attendance kept going up until 1964. In some ways, 1950 is an arbitrary date. But the culture had started to change in subtle ways then, especially the advent of television, that was going to have effects we could hardly imagine.

So, don’t be too sorry for The 1950 Church. It had a good 70 years after it started to die. That’s better than most of us.

John Robert McFarland

1] Another who did it was Ralph Washington Sockman, generally considered to be the best Protestant preacher in the country from about 1940 to 1960, when he was the regular preacher on The Protestant Hour radio show as well as the pastor at Christ Church Methodist in NYC. His first appointment was to Madison Ave. Methodist Episcopal Church, which became Christ Church Methodist, which was second in Protestant fame only to Harry Emerson Fosdick’s Riverside Church. [Interdenominational]. One of his colleagues said, “Poor Ralph. The only preacher in Methodism who never got a promotion.”

 

 

PUBERTY FUN [F, 7-17-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Man—PUBERTY FUN [F, 7-17-26]

 

This may sound strange, but I really enjoyed puberty. 75 years ago, puberty didn’t mean you were starting a life of lust and angst. It meant you were grown up and could stay out until the root beer stand closed, at ten o’clock.

75 years ago, puberty didn’t mean that you were starting a dangerous life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and 15 years of living in your parents’ basement because your degree in AI was just obviated by the new AJ system. No, it meant that you were grown up. You could learn to type, and that was all you needed to get a good job.

For me, it meant I was suddenly a foot taller than everybody else—except for Don Falls. When I hit puberty, it seemed that I was just the right height—tall enough to see the parade, but not so tall that I was the first target for pooping birds. Most doors, I could get through without ducking. [1]

Oh, sure, there was worry, wondering if Jeanette would think I was a nerd, or afraid I would turn red if Carolyn’s arm brushed against mine when we passed in the hall, but all the other guys were just as yearnful as I. Puberty was a whole new life, and exciting. And I had the blood on my face to prove it, because…

…shaving was the most noticable rite of passage for puberty. The double-bladed Gilettes of the day were designed to test both dexterity and courage. There was certainly no choice about using razors; no one was allowed a beard! Or hairy legs, if you were required to wear a skirt!

Of course, it would be considered gauche [had we known that word] to tell people you had started shaving, so you counted on the gashes on your face to let that news be known. If a guy wasn’t sure he was getting the information across, he would come to school with little pieces of bloody toilet paper stuck to his face. Also, if a girl had little pieces of toilet paper stuck to her legs…well, you knew she was grown up, too.

I feel sorry for kids these days. Puberty is all about the worries without any of the fun. Yes, fun. In our era, the awful days of puberty were fun, because the great restrictions we lived with gave us a chance to enjoy puberty, not just agonize our way through it and spend the rest of our life in therapy.

I’m not being judgy. Kids today haven’t chosen this onerous form of puberty. It’s been thrust upon them by a society that is intent on treating things as people and people as things, where being grown up only means meaningless sex and credit card debt.

Kids, if you get disgusted with how the oppressive money economy wants to use you today, come around and I’ll tell you how exciting it was to sit at the sofa fountain and dream of getting to hold hands.

 

And don’t bother to tell me that I’m only remembering the good stuff. I know.

John Robert McFarland

1] When I started preaching, I learned that recent [1950] research showed that I was exactly the right dimensions for a preacher. Congregations, we learned, wanted a preacher who was tall enough to command attention, but not so tall as to be intimidating. Deep voiced enough to be masculine, but not enough to star in a horror film. And goodlooking enough to avoid scaring little children, but not so handsome that men had to worry about their wives. No wonder God called me to be a preacher.