CRAWFORD, Texas \u2014 Don Elrod was spending another hard day on another production line when one of his buddies threw up his hands and keeled over, killed by a heart attack.<\/p>\n\n
As a farm hand turned teacher turned carpenter turned asphalt expert, Elrod didn\u2019t know the proper theological lingo to describe what happened in his own heart that day. But this layman knew that something changed. Before long, he became a Methodist preacher.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cAt some point in life everybody faces a bad situation, some kind of really big mountain, and there\u2019s no way around it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s when we have to decide whether we\u2019re going to turn to God or not. \u2026 It may be getting sick, or losing your job, or it may be the bottle. But it\u2019s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s like that night on Aldersgate Street, when John Wesley \u2014 racked by doubt and despair \u2014 took a leap of faith and felt his heart was \u201cstrangely warmed.\u201d That experience on May 24, 1738, led to the Methodist movement that spread piety, evangelism and social reform throughout England and the world.<\/p>\n\n
Find a flock of true Methodists and you\u2019ll find people who believe changed hearts can change the world. That\u2019s what Elrod was thinking after he stepped into his pulpit at First United Methodist in Crawford and faced a flock that included his neighbor, President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n
Elrod thinks he knows a Methodist when he sees one.<\/p>\n\n
So he wasn\u2019t surprised when he heard Bush had been named Layman of the Year by Good News, a network of United Methodist evangelicals based in Wilmore, Ky. While this honor will raise eyebrows in United Methodist sanctuaries in the Rust Belt and the West, it will draw respectful \u201camens\u201d in heartland towns like Crawford, the capital of Bush country in Central Texas.<\/p>\n\n
To find Elrod\u2019s church, you drive past Covered Wagon Trail, past Cattle Drive Road, over the railroad tracks, through the blinking traffic light, past the town\u2019s now famous restaurant\/gas station and turn left at the First Baptist Church sign that says \u201cLet\u2019s Roll.\u201d The Methodists are on the next corner.<\/p>\n\n
In these parts, said Elrod, people even think it\u2019s fitting that Bush says God helped him win his showdown with alcohol. After all, there was a time when Methodists were known for asking rowdy people to repent of the sins of the flesh.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI think President Bush knows what that\u2019s all about,\u201d said Elrod. \u201cHe got to the point with his drinking where it was life or death and, you know, the Lord isn\u2019t going to wait forever on you to make up your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Good News magazine cited several reasons for the award, including Bush\u2019s defense of all religious believers, including \u201cpeace-loving Muslims and Arab-Americans,\u201d after Sept. 11. Most of all, the editorial said he \u201cunderstands the great chasm between right and wrong and has been unflinching in calling evildoers by their proper name. He has relentlessly used this historic nightmare as an ethical tutorial for generations raised on a steady diet of moral relativism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Some of the president\u2019s terrorism speeches have even veered into language that sounds like Wesley\u2019s sermons condemning slavery and child-labor abuses, said Good News editor Steve Beard. There is a dash of Methodist fire in Bush phrases such as: \u201cFreedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war. And we know that God is not neutral between them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Meanwhile, the United Methodist hierarchy has consistently advocated diplomacy over Bush\u2019s military strategy. It\u2019s Board of Church and Society condemned terrorism, but opposed any \u201cuse of indiscriminate military force.\u201d Bishop C. Joseph Sprague said he doubted the Afghanistan campaign could accurately be called a \u201cjust war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cBishops have to say things like that,\u201d said Elrod. \u201cNow your common man reads the Bible and he sees that even Jesus felt righteous anger when he went in there and cleaned out the temple. You can take it and take it and take it, but there comes a time when you have to stand up to the bully. Sometimes you have to act.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI think old Joe Blow and his wife Jane out here understand that. They know what President Bush is talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CRAWFORD, Texas \u2014 Don Elrod was spending another hard day on another production line when one of his buddies threw up his hands and keeled over, killed by a heart attack. As a farm hand turned teacher turned carpenter turned asphalt expert, Elrod didn\u2019t know the proper theological lingo to describe what happened in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,148,552],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-36","tag-bush","tag-methodist"],"yoast_head":"\n