{"id":54736,"date":"2021-05-14T16:19:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T20:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=54736"},"modified":"2021-05-14T16:19:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T20:19:13","slug":"the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flying Baptist and other stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2022 Robyn Pennacchia brings us the story of yet another would-be insurrectionist getting arrested after bragging about it on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This guy \u2014 a Florida man \u2014 posted quite a bit about the race riot in the Capitol. Some of his posts condemn the lying media for describing the January 6 riot as violent, arguing instead that everyone there was a peaceful patriotic Trump supporter and that he didn\u2019t see any violence. Some of his posts condemn the lying media for saying that the insurrection involved Trump supporters, arguing instead that he was one of only a few MAGAs in a sea of violent antifa leftists.<\/p>\n

He seems to be practicing the art of \u201cbelieving\u201d both of those contradictory statements to be true. This is a trick required by his need to believe one or the other at different times, depending on which of them allows him to tell himself that he is \u2014 in this as in all things \u2014 innocent. When reality crashes through for a guy like that, it\u2019s gonna be devastating<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 This is a wild story: \u201cFirst Baptist of Fort Lauderdale splinters over money, power and concerns for church\u2019s real estate riches<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the \u201980s, my dad was hired as an attorney by the former trustees of a small nondenominational Pentecostal<\/a> church. They\u2019d been fired by the church\u2019s pastor after they\u2019d tried to fire that pastor and he had, subsequently, moved into and locked himself inside their church building. Dad helped convince them all into working out a settlement without going to court through the shrewd legal strategy of shaming them all into realizing what this sort of thing did to their Christian witness. (This worked, in part, because the ex-pastor hadn\u2019t brought enough food for a prolonged siege.)<\/p>\n

This Fort Lauderdale story seems even twistier and nastier than that one, if only because there\u2019s so much more money involved. (\u201cIn their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Of I\u2019d come across this sooner, I\u2019d have included it with those Twilight Zone<\/em> writing-prompt items the other day<\/a>. Behold:\u00a0The Ezekiel Airship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The picture above is a replica, based on the original plans, on display at the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center:<\/p>\n

The airship was inspired by the prophet Ezekiel\u2019s encounter with a flying entity resembling, \u201c\u2026a wheel within a wheel.\u201d Reverend Burrell Cannon first designed the craft around 1884, and built a proof of concept in 1900. After relocating to Pittsburg, Cannon convinced the townsfolk to help him form the Ezekiel Airship Manufacturing Company. They sold stock and raised $20,000\u2014equivalent to over $600,000 in today\u2019s dollars.<\/p>\n

Assembly of the machine took place at a local foundry and the airship was said to have flown in a nearby field in the late spring or summer of 1902. If accurate, that would mean the Ezekiel Airship took to the air before Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved powered flight on December 3, 1903. But a question remains: Did the Ezekiel Airship actually fly?<\/p>\n

No one can say with certainty. Some in Pittsburg still tell of those who passed down stories of witnessing the airship lifting off and making a brief, wobbly flight across an empty field. Three years later, Reverend Cannon loaded the airship on a flat rail car bound for the\u00a0St. Louis\u00a0World\u2019s Fair. The exhibition had a concourse for anyone who built and successfully flew a \u201cone-seater self-propelled flying machine.\u201d Flyers could compete for a $100,000 prize offered by the U.S. government. But Cannon never made it to the competition. Somewhere near Texarkana, a storm blew the Ezekiel Airship off the rail car and shattered it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d like to see the Rev. Cannon\u2019s airship make an appearance in some alternate history sci-fi stories, but the entire story \u2014 perhaps slightly<\/em> tweaked at the ending \u2014 would also make for a great old-school Rogers & Hammerstein-style musical.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, please keep this story in mind whenever you encounter right-wing white Christian nationalist Baptist preachers. Since they never listen anyway, feel free to respond to them by saying, \u201cI miss the good old days in America, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships, as God intended<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Speaking of Baptist pastors \u2026 Beth Allison Barr responds to Al Mohler\u2019s claim that women preachers are unprecedented<\/a> in Baptist churches. (Never tell a historian that something is unprecedented unless you\u2019re prepared to have them come back with a long list of precedents.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019d add Calista Vinton<\/a> to Barr\u2019s list. She was a preacher commissioned as a Baptist missionary in 1834 \u2014 before the Southern Baptists splintered off in defense of slavery. Her husband Justus was ordained. She was not. But she did most of the preaching while he focused on translation work. The Mohlers of her time expressed their \u201cconcerns\u201d about that but she responded that 1) God had commanded her to preach in the Great Commission, and so their permission was not required, and 2) She was obviously very good at it, so maybe they should just sit down and get out of her way (which they begrudgingly did because, well, she was<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Barr also mentions, briefly, that a Baptist battle over ordination is odd because \u201cno ordination theology exists for Baptists.\u201d I\u2019d put that differently, Baptist\/Anabaptist \u201cordination theology\u201d holds that baptism is ordination<\/em>. Which is to say that it makes no sense, in terms of Baptist\/Anabaptist theology, to restrict women to being laity because the category of laity isn\u2019t supposed to exist.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,103],"class_list":["post-54736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church","tag-sbc"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Flying Baptist and other stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Flying Baptist and other stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2021\/05\/SteampunkProphet.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/\",\"name\":\"The Flying Baptist and other stories\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"\\\"I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships.\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Flying Baptist and other stories\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Flying Baptist and other stories","description":"\"I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Flying Baptist and other stories","og_description":"\"I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2021\/05\/SteampunkProphet.jpg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/","name":"The Flying Baptist and other stories","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-14T20:19:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"\"I miss the good old days, when instead of meddling in politics, Baptist pastors just built factories for prototype airships.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/14\/the-flying-baptist-and-other-stories\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Flying Baptist and other stories"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}