Ten Freedoms

Steve Somebody

Steve posted on my Facebook page last week after I shared the video of The Piedmont Raging Grannies. They were playing ukuleles and singing a political protest song set to the tune of “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Somewhere in the song, they sang, “They can’t take our rights away. We’re not going back.” This prompted Steve, an acquaintance from another state, to write, on Facebook, with his full name and picture presented:

“Please enumerate for me the freedoms you have lost here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

That is a fair question, and because I encourage my readers and listeners to write me when they have comments, I wrote back to him (in public, on my Facebook page):  “I will address it on Sunday in the House this week, June 7.”

Which, of course, was last Sunday, so you can watch and/or listen to my full reply to Steve. It is a 12 minute response, providing my Top Ten freedoms at risk in the United States. It begins at the 12 minute mark, on my YouTube channel, here.

The most surprising reaction to my broadcast came from two longtime friends, Susan wrote from Kentucky, certain that the “Steve” to whom I referred was her classmate at Murray High School, Murray, Kentucky, back in the years of my freshman and sophomore years in Murray; that would be 1965 and 1966.

Before I could respond to her, Doug wrote from Florida to speculate that “Steve” was a member of our core group at Florissant Valley Baptist Church and Hazelwood High School, St. Louis.  That would be our junior and senior years, 1967 and 1968.  We graduated in 1968, in a big ceremony in Keil Auditorium in downtown St. Louis.  It was the largest senior class in the state of Missouri, such shy of 900 students. The only thing I remember about that was five words spoken to me afterwards, “That was one helluva prayer.”  I tell that story in my 2006 book On the Other Side of Oddville. 

Back to Steve.

I had not anticipated this kind of speculation about Steve’s identity. I had omitted Steve’s last name in order to divert attention from him to the question he raises, even though he had revealed himself on my Facebook page and thus to more people than typically join in our broadcast community. In other words, Steve had identified himself publicly, and therefore it would have legitimate and appropriate for me to identify him fully in my broadcast talk.

Or now. He is Steve Gilbert, of Owensboro, Kentucky. His family was very active in Third Baptist Church, of which I was pastor from 1991 to 1997. His father, Carl Gilbert, sang in our church choir and taught the Sunday morning Bible class at the Daviess County Detention Center. Which conspired to evoke the most unforgettable sentence spoken to me during my six years of ministry there. But I would need permission from two other people to print that story, so it will have to wait.

Back to Steve, again.

On Tuesday, he posted on my Facebook page a 1,000+ word response to my 12-minute broadcast commentary  It was intelligent, articulate, and thoughtful, and I appreciate the spirit and substance of his response. It was, however, dominated by one concern: non-citizen residents of the United States. He is afraid they are here illegally, are voting unlawfully, and are not assimilating into broader American society. He expressed no concern for ICE treatment of people nor of the erosion of rights and opportunities for citizens of color, women, and LGBTQ folk.

You can read his entire response along with my broadcast commentary that launched the whole thing here.

The bottom line is this: I write and speak commentary as part of my long-standing commitment to “conversations on religion and American life.” This has been one conversation, and it may not be finished. I welcome this sort of dialogue as I think it is crucial to the flourishing of both American democracy and Christian community.

Cheers to all.

Dwight A. Moody