What's Up, Doc?

Undoubtedly most of us are now familiar with the firestorm created by the freshly minted governor, Doctor Robert Bentley, when - on his inauguration day - he gave what is tantamount to an altar call at a famous black church in Montgomery. The fact that I first came upon this news on the front page of Yahoo.com rather than the local newscast is evidence that the national media ate this thing up in a hurry, causing many residents of our state to bemoan the specter of being represented by yet another prominent state politician who not only suffers from foot-in-mouth disease, but who also wants to take advantage of valuable opportunities to cram his brand of fundamentalist mumbo-jumbo down our collective throat hole.

Could it be that Doctor is a dreaded, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian who has actually been listening to and internalizing the messages he's heard throughout his life as a churchgoer? Could he actually believe that Jesus meant it when he claimed that the only way to the Father was through the Son? In other words, that all of humanity can in fact be separated along familial lines based on faith in Jesus Christ? I dunno, maybe the Doc has read through Ephesians and actually believes that true unity comes only through Christ, not through ethnicity or culture or even bloodlines...that blood is, in fact, not thicker than the water of our unique baptism.

So the Huntsville Times had an article the other day which sought to settle the issue by asking local "faith leaders" of their opinion on the uproar. Outside of a strikingly honest assessment by the token Jewish leader, it was the familiar quotes one expects in articles such as these. You can come to your own conclusions, particularly those who might explain to me the reason Weatherly Heights Baptist Church still has anything to do with the Southern Baptist Convention.

And now, just as predictably as the reactions, here came the retraction from GDRB the other day. This is a much bigger slip-up than what he said on Monday, because now it all reeks of politics. I mean, does such an apology (which, to be fair, is one of those non-apology apologies) show that Doctor Governor is placating the media or politicizing his faith? How are we supposed to interpret all this?

I'm afraid that Bentley has learned a valuable lesson of politics which he carefully avoided throughout his peculiarly anonymous state legislative career: namely that when a person in power speaks or takes a stand of consequence, folks tend to listen. When you speak about faith, amplify that tenfold. As a man of faith I hope he'll eventually also come to this conclusion: don't apologize - never, ever! - for presenting the hope of salvation to a captive audience. There are Christians around the world who would be willing to literally give their lives for such an opportunity.