What would it have been like to be the pastor in Crete in the time of St. Paul? In the Epistle of Titus, we are told Paul left the young preacher, Titus, in Crete. His mission was to put everything in order. The description of Crete makes it a less-than-desirable appointment for Titus: “There are also many rebellious people, idle talkers, and deceivers … they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach. It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, ‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons’ … Their very minds and consciences are corrupted. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.” And Paul speaks of church members. Imagine the rest of the Cretan population.
Rodney Kennedy
The text does not say how effective Titus was in Crete, but he was a faithful pastor and preacher to the people so let’s hold that dramatic trope in our minds — a pastor proclaiming the gospel among a people of liars, drunkards, and gluttons who are detestable. This story of Titus in Crete is the best metaphor I have found for what has happened in America since Donald Trump was elected again. We are at war over values and have a plate full of disputed social issues disorienting us.
My thoughts since the inauguration have been overwhelmed by what I can possibly do in dissent of the Age of Trump. Each nominee Trump has made for his cabinet has filled me with fear and trembling; no more so than Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. When Vice President JD Vance cast the deciding vote to confirm Hegseth, I felt despair. Never in our history has a candidate been so obviously unqualified and now he is our nation’s top defense official. In his Senate hearings, he promised to stop drinking if they would give him the Pentagon job. That did not fill me with encouragement.
Should we in the clergy proclaim our warnings from our pulpits? Should we use our pastoral letters and epistles to inject satire, emotional appeals, historical analogies, and biblical truths we glean from our studies? Many progressive preachers pick up our Bibles and do what we can. I don’t believe the Bible points directly to any issue in our postmodern culture, but I do believe biblical texts can tilt and evoke our imagination in ways that align with God’s purposes for the universe. This analogical imagination does not make direct moves from the Bible to contemporary issues, but offers us multiple sources of argument, debate, and deliberation.
We tell the stories of the Bible for the edification of our people. For example, the story of Solomon becoming king through deception, aided by the court preacher and violence is a stark reminder of how truth and power often collide in Scripture and our politics. Read enough of the Bible and you can believe again, “We shall overcome.” We turn to Isaiah for his stunning insights, “he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.” We love St. Paul’s cry for an fabulously open, infinite democratic spirit: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Absorb enough of the teachings of Jesus and you can believe the “social” nature of the gospel is our greatest hope. We may yet be the nation willing to feed the hungry instead of cutting food stamp benefits, welcoming immigrants rather than deporting them, providing “Good Samaritan” health care to everyone including immigrants instead of attempting to destroy the Affordable Health Care Act, and restructuring our prison system so that so many young African Americans are not incarcerated for misdemeanors for twenty years.
I believe progressives have not been aggressive enough in responding to the false messages of evangelicals over the last forty years. Whether reluctance, reticence, or genuine humility, I can’t tell, but too many among us have said too little in response to the abusive rhetoric of evangelicals aimed at demonizing progressive pastors. The metaphor of Crete and the instructions of St. Paul to Titus seemed an appropriate place for me to turn for guidance in what to say and do. Accepting the Bible as my guide to life, I find reasons for hope in an America transformed into Crete.
The lighthouse of the Venetian harbor of Rethymno in Crete. (Photo by manos koutras on Unsplash)
“Teach what is consistent with sound doctrine.” Here we have a thornbush of contention. “Sound doctrine” for progressives is “heresy” for evangelicals. Rather than engage in endless, unwinnable debates with a group of Southern Baptist neo-Calvinists, I concentrate on the “sound doctrine” I have learned from the Catholic fathers and mothers, from Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Rauschenbusch, and an array of Baptist mentors. The false doctrines of MAGA evangelicals have to be fought with good gospel teaching and good information. More importantly, progressives must fight with politics, community organizing, and when necessary, our bodies in nonviolent protest to unjust laws.
Even if it makes progressives uncomfortable, this war must happen in politics and in pulpits. The old rhetorical saw, “I just want everyone to get along” is dead and buried in disgrace. But Paul’s advice holds for all kinds of preachers: “Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured. let people learn to devote themselves to good works in order to meet urgent needs, so that they may not be unproductive. Be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one. Devote yourself to every good work.”
What sounds like reasonable advice for all Christians is also a bone of contention. Evangelicals seem to reduce the faith to opposing abortion and transgender rights. Progressives interpret “good works” as attempting to prevent the deportation of 11,000,000 immigrants. We see good works as a partnership with the government to increase our nation’s investment in the social safety net. Caring for the poor is a major area of good works for progressives.
There are passages in Titus I admittedly don’t follow. For example, the texts about women and slaves no longer have standing in our context. And the exhortation to “be subject to rulers and authorities” has an evangelical interpretation I can’t accept. I believe dissent to unjust laws and to bad authorities is built into the DNA of Christianity. Still, I am grateful to the book of Titus being my textbook and guide for life in the next four years and beyond. Let us all practice hospitality to strangers, give ourselves to the faithful work of the gospel, and refute what needs refuting with courage and boldness. That is a great way to live in any quadrennium.
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio — which is an American Baptist Church — for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, New York. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, is out now from Cascade Books.
