Dale Moss’s column in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal is “devotionaled” to the forthcoming merger of separate Christian Academy campuses at Graceland Baptist and Northside Christian.
The soon-to-open Christian Academy system building currently is under construction just west of Grant Line Road on a 60-acre site adjacent to Sam Peden Community Park, and probably less than a mile as the crow flies from the Public House.
Christian Academy is a Louisville-area school system, described thusly in Graceland’s web site:
“Christian Academy educators are state-licensed and they teach to transform lives and thus our culture with a goal of imparting wisdom, knowledge and a biblical worldview that will be evidenced in the lives of students and expressed by a lifestyle of character, leadership, service, stewardship, and worship. Both schools have endeavored to honor Christ in their educational efforts by maintaining the traditions that have been the guiding principles of both schools since they were founded. The mission of Christian Academy is to provide a Christ-centered environment based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, where the Christian Academy family is challenged to strive for personal growth, academic excellence, and spiritual maturity. Students at Christian Academy are encouraged to develop a Heart for God, a Mind for Truth, Friends for Life and to participate in Service for Eternity.”
Graceland started its K-12 school at least two decades ago, while Northside Christian’s K-5 began somewhat more recently. When Graceland first fielded high school sports teams, the church’s reigning minister was the late Elvis Marcum, prompting me to suggest in a letter to the Tribune that the school’s nickname should be the Charging Elvi – which I innocently thought would be replete with acceptable allegorical connections with the Crusades.
Some readers disagreed, and shortly thereafter, an anonymous letter writer consigned me to eternal damnation. It was neither the first, nor will it be the last …
In an oft-told story, Northside Christian was founded in an unfinished garage as the creation of the relentlessly self-promotional Garmon family, one-time founders of Key Communications, and subsidizers of the formidable Phyllis Garmon’s quixotic and occasionally bizarre local political career.
When one considers Northside’s new 50-acre worship complex located in the epicenter of the faceless exurb taking shape north of I-265 on Charlestown Road, Graceland’s sprawling network of older buildings on Kamer-Miller Road (connecting Charlestown Road and Grant Line Road), and the sparkling new Christian Academy campus, it would seem that the entire north side of New Albany has been given over to Protestantism and its historical ancillary, Capitalism.
Fortunately, a degree of ecumenical balance has been provided by the Christian Academy’s contractor, Koetter Construction. Surely the Pope would approve of this reaching across the doctrinal aisle.
At the same time, free thinkers, libertarians and believers in the veracity of church-state separation – all of whom actually do exist here in Greater New Albania – have other reasons for cocking our eyebrows at the ongoing flowering of that old time religion on the city’s north side.
In a previous article this year, Moss noted that Northside Christian (3,500 membership) has been described as a “smaller version” of Louisville’s Southeast Christian (21,000 members and a $78 million church.)
The 800-lb Southeast gorilla phenomenon – for Bible scholars a leviathan, perhaps? – increasingly manifests itself by vocal interference in politics, particularly with regard to anything and everything that the depressingly Falwellian Reverend Bob Russell can conveniently demonize as anti-family or smacking of the so-called homosexual agenda.
Based on the testimony of close friends, I don’t believe that this is a trait shared by New Albany’s growing Northside congregation, and yet Northside’s senior pastor George Ross was quoted in the Moss article as saying that such a comparison to Southeast is a “tremendous honor.”
Southeast Christian’s enthusiastic waving of the religious culture wars banner is not something for New Albanians to emulate. It is, however, a violation of conditions that preface tax-exempt status for churches, and a reminder that we should pay attention.
Further reading:
Dale Moss on Christian Academy: “A hope grounded in faith and backed by undeniable momentum.”
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/12/26in/B1-moss1226-8219.html
Moss again, on Northside’s growth: “From sewing classes to golf outings to mission trips to Bible-based weight loss guidance, Northside offers something every day.”
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/05/30in/B1-moss0530-8129.html
Church web sites:
http://www.gracelandbaptist.org/
http://www.nsider.org/
http://www.southeastchristian.org/
Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and leading Louisville area arch-reactionary, discusses the Kroger Company’s imbroglio with the Southeast Outlook, tabloid purveyor of Bob Russell’s clerical fascism (Father Tiso, where have you gone?):
http://www.nycradio.com/weblogs/mohler/date05212004.aspx
Metro Louisville & Southern Indiana should pick for their "as a city we read book" - The History of God By Karen Armstrong.
ReplyDeleteHow about Jefferson & Madison on Separation of Church and State, edited by Lenni Brenner? Or American Jesus, by Stephen Prothero? Or Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby?
ReplyDeleteI'm a Baptist, although I now call myself a Historical Baptist after watching my church be taken over by a highly-politicized elite. Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't classify itself as a religious denomination? That, historically at least, the highest level of control of a Baptist church was the single congregation? Did you know that the Southern Baptist Convention filed a friend of the court brief alongside Madelyn Murray O'Hair to prevent group prayer in schools?
And please refrain from putting into print Mr. Mohler's name. What he has done over the last 20 years brings tears to my eyes and sorrow in my heart. An always submerged anti-intellectualism has been let loose under Mohler and those powers who control him. America is poorer for it, too.