Looking Deeper Before We Judge

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

John 8:7

She was an African American born in 1902 who grew up in southern Mississippi. Throughout her youth she endured segregation, learning where she could go and what she could say. It was a tough life that required her to be vigilant so as to not offend the white folks. As she approached her teen years she started to think about her future. She saw the jobs the older African American women had: most were wash maids, servants, or wives of sharecroppers. She saw them struggle to make a life. It was not the kind of life she wanted for herself.

At the age of eighteen, she gathered up what few belongings she had and walked twenty-eight miles north to the town of Natchez. It was bigger than her small, rural town—perhaps here she could fulfill her dream of a better life. She quickly found out that not much was different for an African American woman in Natchez.

The only job she could find that paid well was as a prostitute in a section of town called, “Under the Hill.” It was a tough place filled with brothels and bars and a place where people would sometimes disappear.

It was especially dangerous for a prostitute.

She learned her craft well and squirreled away a large amount of money. She also developed a clientele that included the powerful men of Natchez and the surrounding communities. By the age of twenty-three, she’d saved enough money to buy a house on Rankin street in an upper middle-class part of town.

Here she continued her trade, safe from the dangers of working on the riverfront. Over a few years, many came to the screen door in the back of her house, and she hired other workers of the night.

By 1930 she had a full-blown brothel operating in the heart of town. She would run the brothel for another sixty years.

She was clever in how she ran her business. She kept a black book containing the names of the powerful men who visited her. On Christmas, she delivered expensive liquor to the mayor, police chief, and local sheriff.

All promised to leave her alone.

She would not let black men into her brothel for fear of reprisal. Every day she had southern comfort food for her clients. She sold beer and kept a cheery house. Not only did the locals visit, but soon she became Mississippi’s most famous madam. There was an Army base nearby, and on Saturday nights, the young serviceman would line up for blocks, waiting their turn.

But there was another side to this successful and tough businessperson. She and her girls made food for the local orphanage and delivered it secretly to the back door. She gave generously to the local Catholic church.

She paid for neighborhood improvements. If a neighbor needed money for repairs, she gave it to them.

During the civil rights era, when many local blacks were arrested for peacefully protesting, she used her pull with local officials and had them released.

The FBI would visit her house early in the morning to get information about the Ku Klux Klan. Despite the danger, she told them all that she knew and was instrumental in eliminating the Klan from her community.

She had one rule that she never broke.

After one of her girls was murdered by a drunken client, she refused to serve anyone who’d been drinking. It was a rule that would ultimately cost her her life.

On July 4th of 1990, a young man appeared at her back door, belligerent and drunk. She refused him entry. He left and went to the local gas station where he filled up a canister with gasoline and then went back to her house.

This time, she came to the door with a pistol she kept for protection. The man threw gasoline on her through the screen door and lit a match. Not only did she catch on fire, but her assailant did too.

As he ran away, he looked like a running fireball.

The house caught on fire, and she stumbled to her bedroom where she collapsed with severe burns on 80 percent of her body. A young female firefighter who responded to the scene comforted her while rescue vehicles arrived. Barely alive and breathing heavily, her last moments were lived in agony.

She and her assailant both died the next day. Pastor O’Connor, the priest from the nearby Catholic church offered to arrange her funeral. It was the same church that she had helped many times over the previous sixty years.

During the next week, some of the parishioners complained bitterly about their church being used for a madam’s funeral. Despite this, the following Sunday, Pastor O’Connor delivered a fire and brimstone sermon about judging others. He quoted the above verse from John 8:7. It is the story of a woman who was stoned for leading a life as a prostitute. When Jesus arrived, he asked the crowd to only cast a stone if they had never sinned. As we all know, the crowd disbanded.

The woman’s name was Nellie Jackson, and you won’t find a Wikipedia page about her. But if you google her name, you can read her story from newspaper accounts, and in 2017, a local produced a documentary called Mississippi Madam.

If you watch it, you will discover that she attended many World Series—the last one in 1984 in Detroit. Her tickets were given to her by Bill Harrah—yes, the man who started the Harrah casinos.

Nellie was befriended and beloved by many.

Not because she ran a brothel but because she gave to her community. She was a person who listened to those that needed comfort. Those who worked for her loved her, and so did her clients.

I don’t write this to support brothels or to glamorize prostitution. I write it to tell a story about a woman who did the best she could when society tried to keep her in a box. Could she have become a doctor and saved lives? Could she have become a great stateswoman and fought for democracy? Maybe, but given her background it’s unlikely.

Jesus defended the prostitute because he knew one thing—we all fail. Ours is not to judge but to pray for understanding. Ours is not to hate, but to love. We are all made in the image of God.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Wanda: a Story of a Faithfully Lived Life

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians [3:14]

At our after-church Bible study, I went up to a woman and thanked her for giving us a wonderful testimony of a life lived fully with faith. Each Sunday after church, one hundred or so people gather for this Bible study group. It is definitely the largest I have ever attended. Each Sunday, one person gives a short testimony about their life.

This particular Sunday it was Wanda’s turn.

As I greeted Wanda after the Bible study ended, I noticed how frail she was. She walked with a cane, and her skin told the story of a woman whose earthly body was wearing down. But in her eyes, I saw a humble and joyous woman. Each time I told her that I was amazed at what she had accomplished, she said, “It wasn’t me; it was our Lord working within me.” She took no credit for anything that had happened in her wonderful life.

She had been very nervous speaking to this large group.

Her mouth was still dry as she talked with me, revealing exactly how nervous she had been. She confided that up to the moment she started speaking, she was sure she would fail. With a silent prayer, she started talking and held the audience’s attention throughout her riveting talk. Again, when I told her what a marvelous speaker she was, she said, “It was God and not me.”

When Wanda had first gotten married, she and her husband decided they would devote their lives to helping others and joined a missionary group that served in the States. First, they went to Colorado Springs for one year of training and received their certificates to be missionaries. Their early life was hard, with little in the way of financial resources, yet they continued.

They went to San Diego and worked in a house that harbored the poor. Wanda was a cook, cleaning lady, and baby sitter. Her husband was a general fix-it person. To supplement their income, her husband went to work with General Dynamics.

Later, she heard of a man who also worked as a missionary whose wife had died and left him with three young children. Through prayer, she felt that God was asking her to help this man with his children. She talked with her husband who, coincidently, had the same thing on his heart. So they approached the leaders of their missionary organization and mentioned they were willing to help him. They replied, “Thanks, but he is going to have a nurse help him.”

But Wanda had felt, through prayer, that God wanted her and her husband to help this man. She also felt that God had told her that she and her husband would have a child after they were done. By that time, Wanda and her husband had been married for seven years and had no children.

It looked bleak for them to be able to raise a family.

A couple of weeks later, the mission group called to say that the man could use their help after all. Wanda and her husband moved in at the mission where the widower was staying. For a couple of years, Wanda took care of the children while her husband and the widower worked in the mission.

When her assignment was over, she got a call that a young sixteen-year-old was about to have a baby and wanted to give the child up for adoption. They asked Wanda if she would care for the infant until adoptive parents could be found. She said yes. They took the baby, and her husband went back to work at General Dynamics. She applied to adopt the baby herself, and the mission she had been working for provided the money for legal help. After a few months, she and her husband became the child’s adoptive parents.

Later, another adopted child arrived.

Wanda now had the family she’d always wanted. Her husband got promoted and was transferred to Fort Worth, Texas, where he continued his climb up the corporate ladder. They lived there, raising their two children for thirty-four years.

Their children grew up and had kids of their own. Both ended up in the mountains of western North Carolina. When Wanda’s husband retired, they moved to Asheville to be with her children and grandchildren.

Today, Wanda has been married for sixty-six years and has grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has never stopped helping others. Through her church, she worked on many missions. Even today, at nearly ninety years old, she stills works for the Lord.

Wanda is frail today and slowing down, but her eyes are still bright. She will only thank God for the wonderful life she has led. While younger versions speed around and build their own lives, Wanda stays in the fortress of the life she built with God.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill / Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Thurgood Marshall: an Effective Advocate for Civil Rights

I recently watched the movie, Marshall, and became interested in Thurgood Marshall, so I did some research to discover more about him. The movie portrayed him as a bit of a rabble-rouser, but like all movies that are “based on true events,” it was a bit off the mark. I found him to be a more enlightened individual than the movie portrayed. Skillful in pushing change, he used the Constitution and the word of law to enact his agenda of universal rights for all.

Thurgood knew how to beat a bully

It isn’t through emotional outbursts or loudly spoken demands. Instead, it is by carefully and coolly using the weapons at hand—in this case, the law. And much of what Thurgood accomplished was through making allies and not enemies.

For instance, he didn’t apply to the University of Maryland Law school, his local school. In the early part of the last century, African Americans couldn’t attend the University of Maryland School of Law, which Thurgood knew. Instead, he went to Howard University to get his degree. After some strong mentoring by the new dean of Howard University’s law school, he went into law to protect the oppressed. Once he had his own law practice, he met another young African American who actually had applied to the University of Maryland law school and was denied acceptance. While representing Donald Gaines Murray, Marshall eventually prevailed in getting Murray accepted to the school, winning his case before the State of Maryland Supreme Court. He had won the battle against the school to which he had once known he would be denied attendance only when he had the tools at his disposal to fight.

Fighting for what is right

Thurgood strongly believed in fighting hard for what was right and knew the law would follow. He was one of our country’s strongest constitutional attorneys. Thirty-two times he represented people not getting a fair break in front of the United States Supreme Court. He won all but three of those cases. He won his first case at the Supreme Court at the age of thirty-two.

His most famous case was Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. He successfully argued that “separate was not equal,” setting the stage for other public schools to accept people of all races. This landmark case broke apart the barriers that had prevented African American students from going to the schools of their choice.

Thurgood founded the NAACP legal arm and served in that post for twenty-five years. During that time, he created much of the legal legwork to support the later civil rights movement.

While other civil rights activists worked against J. Edgar Hoover, Marshall found a way to make Hoover an ally. He pushed President Kennedy on civil rights and encouraged him to appoint more African American judges. In turn, he was appointed to the federal appellate court as a judge and later was appointed, by Kennedy, as the country’s Solicitor General.

When Lyndon Johnson became President, he appointed Thurgood as the first African American Supreme Court justice. It was post he filled for twenty-four years. His service as a federal appellate judge had provided him with the necessary training to serve on our nation’s highest court.

Many may not know the deeper history of this wonderful American.

His story isn’t just about what he accomplished, but more about how he accomplished his goals. He was certainly liberal in his views, but not blindly so. He didn’t vote strictly on party lines but on what he believed was right. The most conservative judges respected him because he fought for his causes based on what he believed was right. He didn’t push for change until he had the right tools and information.

Thurgood knew that getting into wars of words with bullies was a dead-end street. He needed facts and the law to support his causes. He avoided celebrity to focus on the truth. As with his battle with the University of Maryland, he didn’t forget; instead, he returned to fight when he was prepared as a lawyer and used the Constitution to win his case.

Jesus tells us to stand up for the weak and to fight for the downtrodden. But Jesus also told us to be wise and kind as doves. This was Thurgood’s approach. In a very Christian manner, he pushed hard but not at the expense of civility.

Finding support

While others will squawk about what’s unfair, they forget to make allies. In their haste to get what they want, they forget about the barriers that angry discourse creates. Thurgood knew that any cause that is just will attract honorable people while name-calling attracts the wrong supporters.

While Martin Luther King felt that civil disobedience without violence was the right way, Thurgood believed it was through the legal system. Despite their difference, King driven by the Bible and Marshall by the law, they respected each other. When Marshall received harsh criticism by the more militant of the civil rights leaders, he stood his ground. He had been toughened up many years earlier in southern courtrooms while fighting for civil rights. He was there when they were young. Their criticism was nowhere near the violence he had faced many years earlier, like the time he’d had shotguns pointed at him on a train platform.

Rights for all

Thurgood Marshall is not the most visibly famous of the advocates for the universal rights for all people. But he is certainly the one who most changed the course of civil rights in America. Martin Luther King knew this, and despite their differences in approach, wrote to both President Kennedy and Johnson asking that Thurgood being made a Justice.

They complied.

Wrong is wrong and always needs to be corrected. There is always a need for immediacy to all change. Importantly, change needs two things: allies and intellect. Thurgood was a model for others to follow in affecting change. Angry rhetoric will not move the angry bear called injustice, calmness will. Power isn’t given up by clanging cymbals together but through genuine intellect. Those who seek to push back injustices while obtaining celebrity will not succeed. Those who seek to remove injustice with compassion in their heart will succeed.

Thurgood Marshall was a great American, and he knew our Constitution well. He may not be the most famous civil rights advocate, but he was certainly one of its most effective.

Dr. Bruce L Hartman, Christian Author and Story Teller. A former Fortune 500 CFO who left the corporate world to engage in a ministry of “Connecting The Lessons of the Gospels to the Modern Life.”  His life mission is “Helping People Walk into a Brighter Future.”

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

John Wycliffe, the First Protestant Reformer

The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

Isaiah 40:8

In the summer of 1348, the black plague hit the shores of England. For nearly two years, it ravaged the British Isles, and forty percent of its inhabitants lost their lives, throwing society into upheaval with food shortages and economic disarray. All tried to discern what has caused the death and destruction.

During that time, John Wycliffe was a resident teacher and theologian at the University of Oxford. Prior to the arrival of the Black Death, Wycliffe had observed the rise of what he termed “the Royalty of Clergy.” Wycliffe had long wondered about the contradiction of the existing priests’ lavish lifestyles with the teachings of Christ.

Wycliffe also noticed that the existing clergy had a higher death rate from the plague than the non-clerical population and made the unscientific observation that must have been related to their contradictory lifestyle.

At the same time of the Black Death, the nobility of England had begun to resent papal influence in running their empire. Local nobles saw this conflict as competition for resources from  far away rulers.

As Wycliffe formed his theories and began to go public, he gained political support and encouragement from the noble class. He called the clergy “a pest on society.” The more vocal Wycliffe became, the more support he gained from the nobles who also resented clergy holding political office.

One strong supporter of Wycliffe was John of Gaunt.

He was the third of the five surviving sons of King Edward III. Through his birthright, advantageous marriages, and significant land grants, he was one of England’s richest men.

Initially, Wycliffe benefited from John of Gaunt’s protection. A strange confluence of events had formulated his ideas regarding the Black Death and the rise of English nobility. His early writings and speeches centered around the question: what right does the papacy have to meddle in English affairs?

He was the grandfather of the idea that the Bible and only the Bible was the central authority in spiritual matters. He believed that local populations should be able to hear and read the word of God in their native languages. While Luther would later famously call the pope the Anti-Christ, Wycliffe actually used this phrase almost two centuries earlier.

Wycliffe also believed in the theory of pre-destination. In other words, God selects those who will go to heaven. As such, why was there a need for the existing church to intercede?

All of this coincidently tied in with the rise of the noble class.

While Luther is credited with the first translation of the Bible into the vernacular or native language, it was once again Wycliffe who accomplished this first. He is credited with personally translating sections of the four Gospels and supervising the translation of other parts of the Bible. In fact, 150 completed or partially completed manuscripts still exist today.

In his later years, Wycliff’s writings became directed at all authority and not just the Catholic church. This included English nobility. Though still protected by the noble class in his later years, he faced a period of temporary imprisonment. Though never formally abandoned by his native people, his last years were complicated.

Wycliffe died in 1384 at the age of sixty-four.

He was still attacked posthumously. In the early part of the 1400’s, his body was exhumed and burned at the stake. All likenesses of him were burned as well. The paintings we have of him today are from a much later period.

So, while Luther is often credited as being the originator of the Protestant Reformation, much of what Wycliffe did came first. He is the grandfather of the movement.

But like all periods in history, there is more to the story. Certainly, Wycliffe was sincere in his beliefs. But other factors were necessary for his voice to be heard. This is true of all future reformers like Hus, Luther, and Calvin.

Wycliffe was influenced by the horrible scourge of the black death.

It affected his gloomy view of the clergy and the world. In fact, Wycliffe believed the whole human race would be gone by 1400 AD. He correlated the high death rate amongst clergy with their contrary lifestyle.

Like other parts of the Reformation, the support of nobility was instrumental in creating the strength of the movement. This is not to say that Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, and Calvin were not sincere, but they were greatly aided by an aligned group of native elite who protected them. Protection that they gave quickly to benefit themselves.

I do not believe we should view the Protestant Reformation as a win but as the creation of another way to worship. The early Protestant reformers were external to the Catholic church. Internally, the Catholic church has also had reformers. The confluence of these two types of reformers have led to a strengthened Christianity. The church—both Catholic and Protestant—have many who believe in reformation and improvement.

We should always remember, we are all Christians first!

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

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Julian of Norwich: A Different View of Life

All shall be well, and all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.

Julian of Norwich lived most of her life sealed inside a room and yet held a very positive and upbeat Christian view of life. Julian was the author of Revelations of Divine Love, the first English-language book written by a woman. Yes, she was the first woman to write a book in English!

Julian lived a large part of her life as an Anchoress in a secluded room in a church in Norwich, England. The church she lived in is now called St. Julian’s church and is still in existence today. An Anchoress (or Anchorite) committed their lives to serve Jesus and agreed to be sealed in a room attached to a church for the balance of their lives. In theory, their only human contact would be as they received, food, water, and other items through a small opening. Their rooms would have windows so they could see the outside world. Their only companion would be a cat—this was a practical necessity to keep small rodents away.

Julian’s view of life came from a small window.

While anchorites were confined to a life of seclusion, in reality, they ministered and were connected to their local community through these windows. They offered prayers to those needing comfort or advice to those who were troubled. Locally, they were an important part of town. A common saying in these towns was: “if you want to know the latest news, you either speak to the local barkeep or the town’s Anchorite.”

Norwich, during Julian’s time, was second only to London in terms of commerce and religious activity. Julian wasn’t alone in her life as an Anchoress. Of the sixty-three churches in Norwich, thirty-six had an Anchorite in residence. Julian became the most famous.

Her book, Revelations of Divine Love, written late in the 14th century, did not receive much fame until 1670 when it was finally published. It continued to be reintroduced over the next few centuries and can still be bought today on Amazon.

Because there are no references to her in the local priory, Julian is believed to have been a young, widowed mother and not a nun. Little else exists that gives much background about her.

Much of what we know comes from her writings.

Prior to writing Revelations of Divine Love, and perhaps after the death of her family, she prayed that she could experience the same pain that Jesus had on the cross. Later, she became deathly ill for seven days. During this period, she had sixteen visions from God. The most famous is called the walnut vision. From these visions, she wrote her book.

Her theology of a loving God and the condition of humankind is often used in theological schools as an alternate view of the essence of God and humankind. Her most famous quote: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be exceedingly well, reflects this condition of a loving God.

Julian believed that sin would always be overcome and that, while humankind would be tempted and travailed, God would never let us become overtaken by sin. She believed that sin itself was worse than hell but that it’s value eventually led to an acceptance of God and a certainty of God’s love.

She also saw God similar to a parent. She even referred to Jesus’s role as part of the trinity as the mother who is loving, merciful, and wise.

Julian contended that God saw humankind’s potential as perfect and waits for the day when we mature to the point where sin and evil no longer affect us. She described this attachment by God to humankind by saying, God is nearer to us than our own soul. This is certainly a positive view of our relationship with God.

Recognition well deserved

It was only in the 20th century that Julian of Norwich became a darling of scholars and theologians. Even then, her fame seldom escaped beyond the halls of academia. We can theorize that her writings remained in her secluded room and were only discovered after her death. Any promotion of her ideas would have necessarily come later when others discovered her writing. Maybe the original document or book was put in a church warehouse and was later stumbled upon by a researcher before finally being published in 1670.

The Catholic church has not made her a saint, but she is included in the studies of the Catechism. In theological schools, she is part of Church history classes.

But there she resides in relative obscurity.

Revelations of Divine Love does not have a high Amazon ranking, partially because of Julian’s relatively small fame and because the book is very dense. It is more a book of reflection that is to be savored and not devoured. It is the kind of book where you read a paragraph and can meditate on just that paragraph for the whole day, like a companion who has given you an intriguing but difficult question.

But what if Julian’s theology is right?

That God is filled with love for humankind. That God will constantly pursue us and never give up on us. That the very essence of God is love. That God doesn’t judge or condemn, but instead provides hope and love.

It gives me hope—not only for myself—but for humankind. Reading her book can be hard, but perhaps a few of her quotes will give you a deeper understanding of Julian of Norwich. Just click this link, and you will be transported to a different and optimistic theology.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by irvin Macfarland on Unsplash