Fifteenth anniversary of the churchin in Collinsville Alabama

  May 28 , 2021 is the fifteenth anniversary of the churchin of Stephen Fox at the Collinsville Baptist church, Collinsville, Alabama. I was ousted off the property by a vote of 32 20 in a special called business meeting of the church after the regular sunday morning services that morning. I had to lobby to have a chance to speak but was given seven minutes. Several people in the congregation that morning said they were unaware anything like voting a member out of the congregation was in the works and they were given about seven minutes to decide on a very serious matter.

     I have contended all along it was a matter of vision for the church between me and about six or seven mostly women who didnt like some of my comments at baptistlife.com and some in my Sunday school class who were unsettled because I would express myself with conviction against the pastor and his wife views on the politics of abortion. Both of them were in my class of then thirty somethings and myself, almost all with college degrees.

     And everybody in town knew that I didnt over time get along with Jennifer Wilkins the town librarian. She was able with an innercircle of friends to make me the issue taking focus off my sporadic attempts to nudge the church toward the cooperative Baptist fellowship and a better vision for baptist life. At one point the deacon who they got to handle the "fox problem" said why don't you and Jennifer work this out. That was my point, at no point did the deacons call for these women to meet with me and them. That woulda been the right way to do it. Instead they had a little sewing circle monitor my comments at Baptist life which only about ten folks in the congregation ever took time to read. But my opponents made sure two or three deacons did.

    I have only been able to enter the church doors on one occasion and that was in Nov of 2017 for a wedding of a good friend. On another occasion I was going to a community wide Thanksgiving event as the guests of a family of another church, but the deacons said NO

    My version of events, the bigger picture has been published in a UTenn book The Exiled Generation, a collection of essays of Baptists of my generation in the aftermath of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. I think there is a copy in the Ft Payne Library. I don't think anybody has read it, maybe Martha and Thomas Barksdale.

    Ms Wilkins made sure about seven members of her family were there for the vote. I think Nessa were absent as was the newly wedded John and Susan Weaver Morgan. They woulda voted for me which woulda given me 22 votes which woulda meant I woulda only needed to flip five instead of seven. One fellow changed his vote cause he didnt like the way I took communion that morning, my last in that congregation.

    It wasnt pretty. It was pretty much a bogus affair. I made some mistakes, apologized to some folks along the way as I was frustrated on some matters of Sunday School literature, integrity on some political issues that now have become key element in the Trump base, etc.

   Lot of good people in the church, some who voted against me as in a popularity contest between me and the pastor and his wife, they made a tough call. Ms Wilkins has been part of the Auburn University Democracy Project for eight years and counting now raising her poker cards in the states library system

   Mark Wilson created that progressive force for the state. He is good friend at Auburn of Wayne Flynt, the historian and conscience of the state, Flynt a great friend of Harper Lee.  Wilson  was chair of the pulpit committee at FBC Auburn to bring in their latest pastor. I am convinced had he been a member of the Collinsville Baptist church on May 28, 2006, he woulda voted against Jennifer Wilkins and her faction in the congregation, and I would still be a member. 

   And Harper Lee and her sister Alice, who once moved for the previous question woulda voted for me too, which with John and Susan Morgan woulda got me to 26 with just three votes to flip. 

     So Close !!!

     

Definitive Billy Graham documentary on PBS and how some Baptists CBF folks just dont get it.

      Monday May 17 PBS aired a pivotal American Experience documentary on Billy Graham most folks who shoulda watched, for some reason or another didn't. And in the aftermath I had an exchange with the daughter of Nixon's southern strategist Harry Dent who far as I can tell hasnt watched but has a conviction Billy did no harm during the Civil Rights era. Well there are some nuances to that with tremendous implications. Sadly her former Pastor if I have the dots connected correctly comes down with her; and that saddens me as he is a progressive, or passes as a progressive in South Carolina with some considerable influence.

     If you cant convince a Baptist progressive in SC to see the lights on the legacy of Billy Graham, what are the chances you can bring anybody to the table to talk about congressman Jeff Duncan and the venality of the gun Lobby; or have any numbers ralley against Nikki Haley on her sophomoric, if not putrid thoughts on critical race theory and the 1619 project.

     You can watch the doc online. in its aftermath Anthea Butler and others have paneled to talk about Billy, Nixon and bussing, a very interesting conversation. the Doc points out Billy made seg ads for Nixon, likely at the behest of Ginny's Dad.

    Ginny is good friend of Trey Gowdy and has held several influential board Posts and other leadership positions in the new fundy SBC.

    Like other blogs this is a work in progress. Hoping to get reports from others as they view the blog, so come back later. 

    Just today Baptist Global News had a scorching piece on FBC Dallas current pastor and former pastor WA Criswell. Billy was longtime member there and he knew what his association with one of the south's best and most nefarious race baiting demagogues. Then Billy ends up at trey Gowdy's FBC Spartanburg. Lot of inflections to explore.

The pilgrimage of Trevor Lawrence as Distinct from Tebow and his Eagle Forum Momma on Finebaum

   In about the 30th minute of the Finebaum show on the SEC network on the archive audio tape I chime in on May 17. They had been talking about Tim Tebow for almost all afternoon and I cut straight to the point informed by knowledge of Tebow's pastor Jerry Vines and his John Birch Society inflections and how that effected the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention into the Trump base.

    And this chat just three hours before the PBS American Experience two hour new documentary on the life and political implications of Billy Graham.

    Some devout ignorant fellow Jason from Florida called in the next hour and made clear he didnt know his hiney from a hole in the ground and Paul indulged him. After a few minutes my call was completely distorted

    Every indication is Tebow's Mother is hard core Eagle Forum foot soldier for single issue abortion politics with all the baggage that brings. And you bring the rascal Jerry Vines into the mix and you have problems.

    Trevor lawrence on the other hand has an intellectually curious brother in his ear as well as the legacy of Chadwick Bozeman through his Clemson friend Darrien Rencher.

   That's a whole different world. You weave in some other factors and there's a New Yorker story there in a few years.

Joe Hartzog eclipses my career on PBS and Cable Television

   Friends, the family of Joe Hartzog of my Gaffney High class of 71 Tomorrow night, Thursday May 13, will eclipse my standing as a leader from Gaffney on Public television. His older sister Callie, a Gaffney Beauty of the Class of 68; her daughter Carrie Morley will begin a prime time PBS series How She Rolls based on her Callie's Hot Biscuit empire which has been up and running for ten years and more now with stores in Charleston (home base), Charlotte and Atlanta.

   Joe and Callie have a younger sister, Dr. Emily Hartzog. 

    I thought I was the Gaffney big dog on cable with my history of four statewide appearances on Bama PBS and national vignettes on Restaurant Impossible and a response to PBS Doc the Uprisin of 32 aired back in the 90s. I was on a roll myself in the nineties with a July 22, 92 live broadcast statewide from Montgomery on the troubles in the SBC and a year with several appearances and a consultant listing for the Brett Morgen doc Blessings of Liberty. Again in 2001 or so in a statewide doc on the Hispanic Influx into Collinville Alabama you can google for Coming to a Crossroad, and the latest that I can think of, Restaurant Impossible in the late winter of 2014 out of Valley Head/Hammondville Alabama. I broached the word "treacle" on that one.

    Morgen was later to gain fame as an Oscar nominee for his On the Ropes, boxing among the poor on NYC, and then a few years ago as Mick Jaggers best friend with the documentary Crossfire Hurricane. You can google Brett and Mick and the Boys on the red carpet for the London Premiere. Still hard to believe on the back porch of the farm house in Alabama end of shoot party late January 91, Brett and crew were present with a woman who at that time had been a tour manager for the Stones, and later for the Dixie Chicks.

    But this is the Hartzog/Morley show and I'm happy for them and looking forward to the series, again you can see anywhere online. Obvious comparisons will be made to Vivian Howard and her restaurant and longtime show from Eastern NC, but lot of cooking/human interest shows out there and Carrie and Callie have rich culture to plow in Charleston. Previews say one episode is going to center around Carrie's friendship with the BBQ pitmaster of the Charleston Region, as well as her parenting three girls from 11 to 17 or so. You can even see a Little of Joe in the oldest which is better than a resemblance to his friend Danny McClain. Just humoring you there buddies from way back.

    Though named Callies Biscuits, it seems to be the recipe of Callie's Mother Caroline, Bill Hartzog's wife. I always thought they were Presbyterians in Gaffney but it appears Caroline was active in the Episcopalian Congregation with the Mother of Actress Andie Macdowell and her three sisters. Callie and the Macdowell girls ran in same circles. My input into the margins of this show and conversations to follow as they intersect Gaffney is to point out to Carrie and her girls some history of the church and their Grandmother and Great Grandmother's time with the 1956 bombing on College Drive of the Dr Sanders Home. Just quarter mile up College Drive from the Church, the Doctor's wife, Claudia Thomas Sanders, a native of Charleston,  was active in the congregation with Ms Hartzog and the Macdowells. You can find the story by Duke's Tim Tyson online for Dynamite and the Silent South, also included in the collection of essays Jumpn Jim Crow.

   Looking forward to the show tomorrow night. Soon within a week or two will follow up.

   Oh, here was my episode of Restaurant Impossible, But alas I can't find any video clips out there.  Well, looks like you will have to google for Writing on the Wall, Hammondville, Restaurant Impossible.