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Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Monday, March 04, 2019

What NC Congressman Mark Meadows doesn't know

    Mark Meadows dust up with the Minnesota Cogressman Tlaib last Wednesday in the Cohen hearings is weighty. A Freedom Caucus Congressman emotional over his mixed race niece and nephew in Fox News wondermoment with a woman of the Muslim faith you can't make it up.

     As myself A Son of Baptist minister who was baptized in Truett Memorial Baptist Church in 1959 Meadows district of Clay County, Hayesville, NC'  I think Truett, born 1867, a consensus greatest Baptist of the first half of the 20th Century would have serious misgivings about Meadows were he alive today. And I would suggest Tlaib is a better American on matters of Church state separation than the Babdist who now appears to be a PCA Presbyterian, Meadows, is.

   I crossed the Selma Bridge in 2012 with a Muslim friend, an exchange student from Bahrain. We talked about the Salafist, the fundamentalist strain of his faith. Mark Meadows is more of a Salafist, like his mentor Trey Gowdy, and his current colleage Jeff Duncan, possibly William Timmons than he is a Baptist in the George Truett strain.

     Two references for Meadows constituents. Do a prayerfull group reading across the district of Wuthnow's Rough Country and Jill Lepore's new History of America These Truths. In Lepore double down on the Chapter Battle Lines.

    There you will read how the politics of abortion, guns and the second amendment have been weaponized by the likes of Meadows at the expense of the Gospel he claims to hold dear; and the legacy of Truett.

      In Rough Country, read the Atwater Memo. Atwater says you can't say "Nigger" anymore so you have to adopt something new and visceral to keep the working white fellow in your corner, So you couch your politics in fundamentalism. That's where Tlaib when she understands Meadows better need to weigh in to the nitty gritty.

     In Rough Country read the chapter From Judge Lynch To Jim Crow and challenge Meadows to come clean on his fundamentalist Baptist history of the last 40 years.

    And, Meadows, like Donald Trump is a threat to liberal arts education. Vandy historian Jon Meacham says in his treatise against Trump on the Soul of America says of the Scopes Monkey Trial, another devils playground for Meadows: "One legacy of Dayton was that religion and science had joined race and ethnicity as a theater of war in the American soul."

      Do the background reading Western North Carolina and confront Meadows when he visits your town.

     Will Campbell was a great minister of the Civil Rights era. He woulda been a good friend of Congresswoman Tlaib were he with us today. He had a great phrase for folks like Meadows and Duncan and Trey Gowdy. He called them Soul Molesters.

     From my reading of Wuthnow, I'm convinced George Truett would agree with Campbell.

    In 93 I had an exchange with the former Pastor of FBC Asheville, Cecil Sherman who told me UNC Chancellor Bill Friday told him that in the 80s Jesse Helms kind of Baptists staged a coup at the Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest. They understood what the Far right could do getting into the headsets of Baptist pulpits across the state and recent elections show that.

    That is the question for Meadows District in this Trump moment. Do they really want to be remembered as Baptists like Jerry Falwell, Jr and Jesse Helms, or do they have the ingredients to understand, appreciate, honor and vote like George W. Truett

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