Visit to the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel

This is completely off-topic, but I wanted to share.

Today, my bride attended a girlfriend's bachelorette brunch in Annapolis, MD.  This gave me a great opportunity for a daddy-daughter date with 10 month-old Amelia.  Reminiscent (to me, anyway) of Southern cities like Savannah and Charleston, Annapolis is a very old (colonial-era), picturesque American city.  While strolling through the streets, we walked onto the campus of the U.S. Naval Academy (alma mater of President Jimmy Carter, a well-known Baptist of the pre-Takeover variety).

The academy has an absolutely beautiful chapel, which Amelia and I toured.  (I figure I should do as much of this sightseeing as I can now, before she gets old enough to say, "Dad, this is sooo lame!")  The original structure exists under a spectacular dome.  A nave was added in the 1930s.  Along one side of the nave, 4 stained glass windows depict New Testament scenes relating to seafaring.  Four Old Testament passages are depicted on the other side.  There is a majestic 268-rank pipe organ, but unfortunately I arrived after the service had ended.

Here are some pictures:

 View from the entrance

 One of the transepts

 The vaulted dome

 Standing outside in the cold with Amelia Louise

Looking back to the nave and balcony 

 "And he bagan to teach by the seaside and there was gathered unto him a great multitude so that he entered into a ship." -Saint Mark IV:1

 "What manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?" -Saint Matthew VII:27

"Come ye after me and I will make you to become fishers of men." -Saint Mark I:17

The U.S. Naval Academy Chapel, Annapolis, MD

This visit was very meaningful to me for two reasons.

First, I had a special friend who was a Navy chaplain in World War II.  On my first Sunday working in parish ministry, I was introduced to the congregation as a graduate of Boston University School of Theology (where I attended after OBU).  As I was greeting worshippers after the service, an old man came up to me and said, "I'm Lloyd Shephard -- B.U. School of Theology class of 1937."  Though parish ministry was a tenuous fit for me (at best) for a number of reasons and I ultimately did not pursue it as a vocation, I developed a great respect for the retired clergy in our congregation.  (Being in Florida, a number of United Methodist pastors from the Northeast and Upper Midwest attended our church in retirement.)  Lloyd was my favorite.  He volunteered at our homeless shelter on cold nights well into his nineties.  He lived on his own in a mobile home until he was 96.  When his eyesight became so bad that he couldn't live alone anymore, he sold his trailer to a neighbor for $1.  Once, when I was reading my BU Theology alumni magazine, I saw Lloyd's name on the list of donors.  I was absolutely stunned at the amount he gave.  I visited him occasionally in an assisted living facility, where he was always listening to classical music or books on tape.  He was nearly blind, so he always asked me to go through his mail.  Since most of the envelopes were direct mail solicitations, I told him it was all junk.  But he asked me to read each one.  Then he asked me to help him write checks to organizations he said he felt his Christian conscience compelling him to support, among them the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

On one visit, Lloyd gave me a silver paten and chalice he used as a Navy chaplain.  After Pearl Harbor, Lloyd took a train from upstate New York to Washington, where he enlisted in the chaplain corps.  The naval officer who did his intake said, "You're not one of those pacifist ministers, are you, Reverend?"  To which Lloyd replied, "Actually, I am.  But these men need a chaplain and I'm here to serve."  I recently found those silver Communion implements (which I never used) and look forward to shipping them to Boston University School of Theology along with a write-up about Lloyd's life and ministry.  Hopefully Lloyd's story will live on through a young seminarian preparing for ministry as a Navy chaplain at his almat mater.  The Rev. Dr. Lloyd F. Shephard died in 2008 at age 99.

The other reason I was particularly glad to visit the Naval Academy Chapel today is that the Navy Hymn ("Eternal Father, Strong to Save") is one of my favorites.  I have sung it as a lullaby to my daughter many times.  I suspect that hymn has been sung by thousands of midshipmen in that chapel over the years.

Thank you for indulging a somewhat more personal story today.  Tomorrow we begin a series on the recent goings-on at Cedarville University, a Baptist-affiliated college in Ohio.  I'll leave you with a recording of the Navy Hymn.

Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea! O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard And hushed their raging at Thy word, Who walkedst on the foaming deep, And calm amidst its rage didst sleep; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea! Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood Upon the chaos dark and rude, And bid its angry tumult cease, And give, for wild confusion, peace; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea! O Trinity of love and power! Our brethren shield in danger's hour; From rock and tempest, fire and foe, Protect them wheresoe'er they go; Thus evermore shall rise to Thee Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

What Book(s) Changed Your Life at OBU?

We've hit pretty hard lately. Our post on the religion/ministry dean's unilateral search for a fundamentalist Bible prof is already the most-viewed post in Save OBU's history.  We've revealed President Whitlock's departure from the rigid orthodoxy of SBC elites on women deacons and the Baptist World Alliance.  I'm sure his boss, Dr. Jordan, and his friend, Dr. Norman, have corrected his liberal heresies by now.

Time for a softball question -- one that I hope many of you will answer.  In Friday's post on OBU's new Women in Ministry course, an anonymous commenter noted that his/her life was changed after reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.  I received several emails to the same effect.  (Let's see how long it takes for Provost Norman to ban the book from OBU's curriculum...)

It got me thinking... What books changed my life at OBU?  And I want to ask: What books changed yours?

To me, it seems overly dramatic to describe reading a book as life-changing.  (Maybe I just haven't read the right books?)  Maybe the problem is that I tend not to read many novels.  Since college, I've probably only read 8 or 10.  It's hard for books on sociology or politics to change your life!  But one book from Western Civ has loomed large in my mind and imagination over the years.  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is a beautifully-told story of a young man who struggles to reconcile the desires of his heart with the expectations and obligations of his family and community.  It's one of the few books I've read multiple times.  For many emotionally difficult years of my life, I resonated with the angst of the protagonist, a young lawyer named Newland Archer.  Ultimately, I hope to find the right balance between reason and passion, monotony and adventure, responsibility and excitement -- all themes the novel explores.  Also, though there is no sex, the story oozes with sexual tension.  Kind of like Bison Hill, haha!

It sounds cliche, but the most life-changing book was and is the Bible.  I had read it a lot over my 18 years, but usually only a sentence or two at a time.  At OBU, I really read the Bible.  OBU encouraged me to read the text seriously rather than literally, and I guess you could say my life was never the same after that.  I also read books about the Bible that helped me synthesize my new knowledge with a theology that I could believe honestly and with integrity.

While on a date with my girlfriend at Zio's in Bricktown, we met a waiter who mentioned that his pastor was preaching a series of sermons about a new book, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity.  The book made sense of what I was learning and what I had experienced.  It argues that the divide in American religious life is between legalistic and compassionate religion --- between the "Church of Law" and the "Church of Love."  I eventually ended up accepting this stranger's invitation to attend his church, where I worshipped regularly during the later part of my time in Oklahoma.  Though I am unknown to him, I count the church's minister, the Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers, as the pastor who influenced most greatly and most positively.

Around the same time, I came across the writings of the Rt. Rev. Jack Spong.  On a summer road trip to Alaska in 2001 with my best friend from back home, I read Spong's book, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture.  In this book and a dozen others, Spong lays out a vision for what theology might look like if we take the Bible seriously rather than literally.  Of course, few of my classmates affirmed this kind of thinking or believing, and none of our professors would have endorsed it.  But for me personally, as I was struggling to reconcile what I was learning about the Bible with what I believed about God, salvation, ethics, and the church, Spong was tremendously helpful to me.  On page 24 of this book, Spong writes,  "A literal Bible presents me with far more problems than assets.  It offers me a God I cannot respect, much less worship; a deity whose needs and prejudices are at least as large as my own.  I meet in the literal understanding of Scripture a God who is simply not viable, and what the mind cannot believe, the heart can never finally adore."

So, that's my story.  Now I'd like to hear from you.  Please share in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter, what book(s) changed your life at OBU!

9/11/01: In Memoriam

In the fall of 2011, I was in my third and last year at OBU.  I had just returned from a 6-week road trip to Alaska with my best friend.  I had bought an engagement ring for my college girlfriend.  I was enjoying my studies in religion, and surviving my minor in business administration.  On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up for a business management class.  I saw the news of the first attack online in my dorm room.  It didn't really sink in.  I wasn't even sure it was real.

On my way to breakfast, I noticed that a crowd had gathered around a big-screen TV in the lower level of the Geiger Center.  This was around the time the second plane crashed into the tower.  My management class was in the Bailey Business Center, which had a large projector on which we watched the news reports in stunned silence.  When news broke of the Pentagon crash, my professor immediately left the room to call his daughter, who at the time worked for the Defense Department in counterterrorism (she was unharmed).

Later that morning, I had an hourlong ministry seminar.  The other students were all freshmen, and I didn't know any of them.  (I changed my major to religion halfway through my second year, so I hadn't taken Intro to Ministry as a freshman.)  The professor, Rev. Dr. Tom Wilks, convened a prayer session in Stubblefield Chapel.  This was the only time I ever went into that building.

Later in the day, I had a Bible class (maybe Pentateuch? maybe Exegesis of Acts?).  I do remember the professor deliberating about whether we should have class that afternoon.  There was nothing we could do, after all.  The attacks were intended to incite terror.  If we abandoned our studies, would the terrorists win?  Anyway, we went on with the lecture and discussion.  It seemed the right thing to do.

That night, I remember watching President Bush give a comforting address to the nation on TV, quoting the 23rd Psalm.  The next day, OBU President Mark Brister spoke to the university community in chapel.  I don't remember which Oklahoma Baptist minister was scheduled to give the sermon that day, but he knew that OBU needed to hear from its leader in that moment.  I thought that was pretty classy.

I had become more interested in politics in the previous year.  My study of the Bible was helping me form values that had serious political implications, challenging some of them and crystallizing others. I had been following the national debates over stem cell research and tax cuts.  I had also become interested in the sociology of religion, and particularly how people of the same religious faith could arrive at such vastly different social and political views.  A few months after 9/11, I sat in the library and read an essay in The Atlantic by David Brooks, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible."  Looking back, it's amazing how 9/11 ushered in a moment of national unity.  Yet in the years that followed, our response to 9/11 accelerated an already palpable polarization.

In the 11 years that have come and gone since then, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on those issues. I'm eternally grateful for OBU.  The experience, knowledge, and wisdom I gained there have been invaluable as I've grappled with moral, ethical, theological, and political issues in my personal and professional life.  Like everyone, I've made mistakes and poor judgments.  But when I've been at my best, OBU's influence on my life has been most profound.

For my generation, 9/11 was a tragic part of our coming-of-age.  Over the years I've met many people who were personally affected in much more dramatic ways than I was as a 20 year old college senior in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  But on reflection, I do see how greatly that day affected the unfolding of my own life.

Yet today I remember my countrymen, the loved and lost.  In all that we do, let us seek to honor their memory.