That flamboyant fundamentalist preacher J. Frank Norris shaped my early life.
Yes, I was born in 1950, and he died in 1952; but before that my dad, Tom Moody, graduated from Daviess County High School (in Kentucky) in 1940 and moved to Detroit for work. There he was drawn to the preaching of Rev. Norris at the Temple Baptist Church, one of two churches where Norris served as pastor. It may have been dad’s first exposure to this kind of religion, as he was only three years removed from his own baptism in the Green River.
After the War, Tom Moody went back to Detroit, reconnected with Rev. Norris, and turned down an offer from Norris to move to Ft. Worth to become a youth minister at the other church which named Norris as pastor, First Baptist Church. Instead, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, enrolled in the University, and began courting Emma Reita Redden. Before and after their marriage in 1948, they got connected to the influential Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, then the epicenter of what we now call Baptist Fundamentalism in the region.
Clarence Walker was the pastor, for fifty years. He was warm and kind six days a week but on Sunday he was a fiery preacher of the gospel of repentance and holiness (by which he meant separation from anything worldly, wasteful, or liberal). His guest revivalist preached the same, and it was on a Thursday night of one of these two-week campaigns that I walked the aisle and confessed by trust in Jesus as Savior. Pastor Walker baptized me the following Sunday, all the way under and up dripping wet. “Don’t look at the crowd,” I remember him telling me, not quite ten years old, “It will make you nervous.” I am sure there is a scripture reference to that admon2ition.
Those first ten years were full of Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and “The Trail of Blood” (a tract about their version of Christian history published at our church). This strident Fundamentalism was a counterbalance to the warm spirituality of my mom and dad, especially as we knelt for prayer each Saturday evening, after which we folded church bulletins and listened to Caywood Ledford call the basketball games of the Kentucky Wildcats.
Months after my baptism in this hotbed of Baptist Fundamentalism, we moved to Murray, where my dad was called to be Educational Director. This was years before he was ordained and promoted to Associate Pastor and also years before I was awarded a diploma from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and ordained a gospel minister. But the religious culture of First Baptist Church in Murray moderated the attitudes and antics of the Baptist Fundamentalism of my childhood. Hymns replaced gospel songs, Doctor replaced Brother, and education replaced indoctrination.
Then this happened, and it changed the course of my life.
I read the novel, In His Steps. I don’t recall why or who put it in my hands. But I do remember saying privately to the man who came to lead our summer youth Bible study, “I just finished reading the book that asks the question, “What would Jesus do?” That man was Dr. Jim Bergman, dean of students at Georgetown College. How my dad knew who he was and why he invited him halfway across the state to instruct us young people, I do not know and never asked. All I know is that Dr. Bergman showed up with another book in his hand, The Cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoffer was the brilliant Lutheran pastor and scholar from Germany who participated in the resistance to Adolph Hitler in the years prior to the War. He was arrested, incarcerated in Flossenburg concentration camp, and hanged on April 9, 1945. He was 39 years old. It was two weeks before the U. S. Army liberated the camp. This story struck me deeply, and the two books mentioned above were a double-barrel blow to salvation scheme at the heart of my religious history. Here was the dramatic story of the public and social side of following Jesus, and it opened my soul to all that was to come.
What followed, for a long while, was a lot of Billy Graham and not much of Martin Luther King, Jr. As white Christians, we idolized the former and feared the latter. We traveled to crusades to hear the white preacher but stared at the television to keep our distance from the black one. That is the way this chapter in my intellectual and spiritual journey unfolded, but by the time it was over—and I write at the age of 74—it has been Dr. King who took me by the hand and led me toward the promise land.
While still under the influence of Graham, I entered Georgetown College and declared a major in religion. I continued my identity as a preacher boy, spending weekends on revival teams and weekdays pushing back against the intellectual study of the Bible. Dr. Joe Lewis, scholar of the Hebrew Bible, was my advisor, my teacher, and my friend. His gentle demeanor pulled me kindly into this new world of the Bible. I did not go gently! Or quietly. Nevertheless…
Then came Israel and all the world-shattering episodes of that fateful year.
My college pastor Rev. Walter K Price said to me one day: “Dwight, you need to go to Israel and study at the American Institute of Holy Land Studies. I have taken an offering to support you and when you are ready, it is yours.” Prompted by this, I started the study of modern Hebrew at the local synagogue, then took a course in Arabic at nearby Asbury Seminary. On the way to take the midterm exam, I had a terrible car accident. I took the insurance settlement and bought two round trip tickets to Israel. It was spring of 1973 and I had been married almost a year.
The next year was full of cultural, intellectual, and spiritual drama. We lived on Mount Zion, traveled on our own Vespa, and attended classes in Hebrew, geography, history, and archeology. We made friends with people from every continent, every religion, every culture. We endured the Yom Kippur War, burning candles and listening to the BBC. We traveled over every square inch of Israel and the West Bank. We attended church on Narkis Street where Dr. Dale Moody, on sabbatical, was teaching through the Acts of the Apostles. More than once, he looked at me, winked, and said, “I am saving you a seat in my theology class.”
Ironically, I never had a seat in his theology lectures, except as a doctoral student preparing and grading exams. But I had a better seat around a smaller table with a score of students who shared my ambition to be scholars as well as ministers. It was an exhilarating time, shaped by pastoral work in Indiana, parental care for three small children, and denominational strife that would bring to an end any deviation from the Baptist Fundamentalism I had gradually left behind.
Pastoral tenures in Pittsburgh and then in Owensboro were followed by 11 years teaching at Georgetown College. There, I launched The Meetinghouse, a radio program dedicated to civil conversations on religion and American life. There was not much of that on the airways in those days, before the shock of 9-11, the rise of Christian Nationalism, and the decline of church affiliation in the United States. Now it is everywhere, and my media work has brought me into contact with a wide spectrum of people: authors, activists, atheists, and converts of every kind. The work now is primarily a weekly newsletter and a supporting website, both of which keep me engaged with the world and contemplating the very narrow slice of human life I have been privileged to know.
Two things have sustained this drift away from Fundamentalism into what I experience as a more authentic, more transformative relationship with Jesus the Risen Lord.
First, with the help of the Lilly Endowment and a handful of benefactors, I launched and led for ten years the Academy of Preachers. This brought me into regular contact with the widest assortment of professing Christians: Evangelical, Orthodox, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Protestant…. plus, not a few Fundamentalists. I have written an entire book on this decade of my life (and hope to have it published soon).
But chief among its impact on my once-narrow perceptions of human life and Christian faith was my introduction to Rev. Dr. Lawrence Carter, founding dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. He and his steady stream of outstanding student scholars and ministers brought into my life, finally, the sustained influence of the famous preacher who was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Today, my Facebook feed is full of greetings and graduations, employments and publications, and marriages and more of this impressive and influential subset of gospel scholars; and it continues to make a difference in my life.
Second, the broadening and humanizing of my life and work was impacted by the life journeys of my three adult children: the angel, the artist, and the actor. Their journeys, so unexpected, took all of us along and introduced me to things I did not know. Those are big stories and worthy of their own book (or movie)—but subject to their own telling. This I can say: I am proud to be their father and their friend, even while I am stunned at how all of that reshaped the way I experience and explain my life in Christ and also my life on earth.
Then came retirement, pandemic, and finally, Providence, what I call “the smallest church in North Carolina.” They needed me and I needed them, and together we have survived and thrived, carried along by a surprising gift of God—a strong cohort of LGBTQ folk who, like me, are intent of living as Christians and flourishing as people. In 2022, I preached through Paul’s letter to the Philippians, then self-published the sermons in a book: Living with Hope: Navigating Political Divisions, Global Pandemics, and Personal Problems. I spoke and wrote from the heart, having traveled a long way from the Baptist Fundamentalism of my childhood.
Through it all, and in it all, I say “thanks be to God” for the people who modeled for me a life free from the restraints of Fundamentalism yet open to the goodness and grace of God in all the places and people where it shines. I pray I can model for others that same openness to the world woven around a deep affection for the things of God.
Help me, Jesus!
subscribe to Dr. Moody’s free, weekly newsletter on religion and American life at the link below.
That flamboyant fundamentalist preacher J. Frank Norris shaped my early life.
Yes, I was born in 1950, and he died in 1952; but before that my dad, Tom Moody, graduated from Daviess County High School (in Kentucky) in 1940 and moved to Detroit for work. There he was drawn to the preaching of Rev. Norris at the Temple Baptist Church, one of two churches where Norris served as pastor. It may have been dad’s first exposure to this kind of religion, as he was only three years removed from his own baptism in the Green River.
After the War, Tom Moody went back to Detroit, reconnected with Rev. Norris, and turned down an offer from Norris to move to Ft. Worth to become a youth minister at the other church which named Norris as pastor, First Baptist Church. Instead, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, enrolled in the University, and began courting Emma Reita Redden. Before and after their marriage in 1948, they got connected to the influential Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, then the epicenter of what we now call Baptist Fundamentalism in the region.
Clarence Walker was the pastor, for fifty years. He was warm and kind six days a week but on Sunday he was a fiery preacher of the gospel of repentance and holiness (by which he meant separation from anything worldly, wasteful, or liberal). His guest revivalist preached the same, and it was on a Thursday night of one of these two-week campaigns that I walked the aisle and confessed by trust in Jesus as Savior. Pastor Walker baptized me the following Sunday, all the way under and up dripping wet. “Don’t look at the crowd,” I remember him telling me, not quite ten years old, “It will make you nervous.” I am sure there is a scripture reference to that admon2ition.
Those first ten years were full of Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and “The Trail of Blood” (a tract about their version of Christian history published at our church). This strident Fundamentalism was a counterbalance to the warm spirituality of my mom and dad, especially as we knelt for prayer each Saturday evening, after which we folded church bulletins and listened to Caywood Ledford call the basketball games of the Kentucky Wildcats.
Months after my baptism in this hotbed of Baptist Fundamentalism, we moved to Murray, where my dad was called to be Educational Director. This was years before he was ordained and promoted to Associate Pastor and also years before I was awarded a diploma from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and ordained a gospel minister. But the religious culture of First Baptist Church in Murray moderated the attitudes and antics of the Baptist Fundamentalism of my childhood. Hymns replaced gospel songs, Doctor replaced Brother, and education replaced indoctrination.
Then this happened, and it changed the course of my life.
I read the novel, In His Steps. I don’t recall why or who put it in my hands. But I do remember saying privately to the man who came to lead our summer youth Bible study, “I just finished reading the book that asks the question, “What would Jesus do?” That man was Dr. Jim Bergman, dean of students at Georgetown College. How my dad knew who he was and why he invited him halfway across the state to instruct us young people, I do not know and never asked. All I know is that Dr. Bergman showed up with another book in his hand, The Cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoffer was the brilliant Lutheran pastor and scholar from Germany who participated in the resistance to Adolph Hitler in the years prior to the War. He was arrested, incarcerated in Flossenburg concentration camp, and hanged on April 9, 1945. He was 39 years old. It was two weeks before the U. S. Army liberated the camp. This story struck me deeply, and the two books mentioned above were a double-barrel blow to salvation scheme at the heart of my religious history. Here was the dramatic story of the public and social side of following Jesus, and it opened my soul to all that was to come.
What followed, for a long while, was a lot of Billy Graham and not much of Martin Luther King, Jr. As white Christians, we idolized the former and feared the latter. We traveled to crusades to hear the white preacher but stared at the television to keep our distance from the black one. That is the way this chapter in my intellectual and spiritual journey unfolded, but by the time it was over—and I write at the age of 74—it has been Dr. King who took me by the hand and led me toward the promise land.
While still under the influence of Graham, I entered Georgetown College and declared a major in religion. I continued my identity as a preacher boy, spending weekends on revival teams and weekdays pushing back against the intellectual study of the Bible. Dr. Joe Lewis, scholar of the Hebrew Bible, was my advisor, my teacher, and my friend. His gentle demeanor pulled me kindly into this new world of the Bible. I did not go gently! Or quietly. Nevertheless…
Then came Israel and all the world-shattering episodes of that fateful year.
My college pastor Rev. Walter K Price said to me one day: “Dwight, you need to go to Israel and study at the American Institute of Holy Land Studies. I have taken an offering to support you and when you are ready, it is yours.” Prompted by this, I started the study of modern Hebrew at the local synagogue, then took a course in Arabic at nearby Asbury Seminary. On the way to take the midterm exam, I had a terrible car accident. I took the insurance settlement and bought two round trip tickets to Israel. It was spring of 1973 and I had been married almost a year.
The next year was full of cultural, intellectual, and spiritual drama. We lived on Mount Zion, traveled on our own Vespa, and attended classes in Hebrew, geography, history, and archeology. We made friends with people from every continent, every religion, every culture. We endured the Yom Kippur War, burning candles and listening to the BBC. We traveled over every square inch of Israel and the West Bank. We attended church on Narkis Street where Dr. Dale Moody, on sabbatical, was teaching through the Acts of the Apostles. More than once, he looked at me, winked, and said, “I am saving you a seat in my theology class.”
Ironically, I never had a seat in his theology lectures, except as a doctoral student preparing and grading exams. But I had a better seat around a smaller table with a score of students who shared my ambition to be scholars as well as ministers. It was an exhilarating time, shaped by pastoral work in Indiana, parental care for three small children, and denominational strife that would bring to an end any deviation from the Baptist Fundamentalism I had gradually left behind.
Pastoral tenures in Pittsburgh and then in Owensboro were followed by 11 years teaching at Georgetown College. There, I launched The Meetinghouse, a radio program dedicated to civil conversations on religion and American life. There was not much of that on the airways in those days, before the shock of 9-11, the rise of Christian Nationalism, and the decline of church affiliation in the United States. Now it is everywhere, and my media work has brought me into contact with a wide spectrum of people: authors, activists, atheists, and converts of every kind. The work now is primarily a weekly newsletter and a supporting website, both of which keep me engaged with the world and contemplating the very narrow slice of human life I have been privileged to know.
Two things have sustained this drift away from Fundamentalism into what I experience as a more authentic, more transformative relationship with Jesus the Risen Lord.
First, with the help of the Lilly Endowment and a handful of benefactors, I launched and led for ten years the Academy of Preachers. This brought me into regular contact with the widest assortment of professing Christians: Evangelical, Orthodox, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Protestant…. plus, not a few Fundamentalists. I have written an entire book on this decade of my life (and hope to have it published soon).
But chief among its impact on my once-narrow perceptions of human life and Christian faith was my introduction to Rev. Dr. Lawrence Carter, founding dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. He and his steady stream of outstanding student scholars and ministers brought into my life, finally, the sustained influence of the famous preacher who was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Today, my Facebook feed is full of greetings and graduations, employments and publications, and marriages and more of this impressive and influential subset of gospel scholars; and it continues to make a difference in my life.
Second, the broadening and humanizing of my life and work was impacted by the life journeys of my three adult children: the angel, the artist, and the actor. Their journeys, so unexpected, took all of us along and introduced me to things I did not know. Those are big stories and worthy of their own book (or movie)—but subject to their own telling. This I can say: I am proud to be their father and their friend, even while I am stunned at how all of that reshaped the way I experience and explain my life in Christ and also my life on earth.
Then came retirement, pandemic, and finally, Providence, what I call “the smallest church in North Carolina.” They needed me and I needed them, and together we have survived and thrived, carried along by a surprising gift of God—a strong cohort of LGBTQ folk who, like me, are intent of living as Christians and flourishing as people. In 2022, I preached through Paul’s letter to the Philippians, then self-published the sermons in a book: Living with Hope: Navigating Political Divisions, Global Pandemics, and Personal Problems. I spoke and wrote from the heart, having traveled a long way from the Baptist Fundamentalism of my childhood.
Through it all, and in it all, I say “thanks be to God” for the people who modeled for me a life free from the restraints of Fundamentalism yet open to the goodness and grace of God in all the places and people where it shines. I pray I can model for others that same openness to the world woven around a deep affection for the things of God.
Help me, Jesus!
subscribe to Dr. Moody’s free, weekly newsletter on religion and American life at the link below.
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