obama’s road to damascus

7/30/2019 Obamas Road to Damascus

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Obamas Road to Damascusby RAOUF J. HALABY

On Sunday, August 25, 2013, First Baptist Church, Arkadelphia, Arkansaspreacher Lee McGlone delivered his morning sermon under the title The

Reluctant Witness and used the text from theBook of Acts, Chapter 9,

verses 10-22, as the centerpiece around which he wove his exemplum. In

previous chapters from the same book Saul is portrayed for what he is: a

belligerent fanatic whose zealotry earned him a reputation for harassing,

bullying, and hunting down newly converted Jews. As a Pharisee and

spiritual enforcer, Saul was an unwavering defender of the faith whose

mission in life was to deliver converts into the hands of rabbinical courts.

Armed with the sword of religious piety and zealotry in one hand and

warrants in the other, Saul embarked on his journey from Jerusalem to

Damascus to arrest Damascene converts. Somewhere on the plateau

overlooking Damascus Saul is blinded and has a life changing experience

that has been celebrated in art, literature, speeches, homilies and exempla

so much so that the phrase On the road to Damascus experience has

become an aphorism for life changing events. For me the most iconic

representation of this experience is CaravaggiosThe Conversion of St.

Paul, a composition that graces the walls of the Cerasi Chapel in the church

of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, Italy.

In the form of Devine rebuke for his zealotry, Saul is blinded. His

meandering path into Damascus leads him to the neighborhood where

Ananias, a convert living in fear of Saul, is led by grace to seek out Saul andto lay his hand on him. Not only is Sauls sight restored, but in this

metamorphosis, Paul (now his new appellation) converts to Christianity

and channels all his energies into an exemplary discipleship that has been

celebrated for two millennia. Referring to Ananias as theReluctant

Witness, and emphasizing the fact that except for this very brief appearance


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in the Holy Text, the preacher highlighted and utilized Ananias moral

fortitude to draw a parallel to a historic 1962 decision made by the

congregation of First Baptist Church Arkadelphia only one year before tens

of thousands of people converged on the D.C. Mall to participate in thehistoric 1963 Freedom March. The churchs location is some 70 miles south

of Little Rock, the site of the 1957 Little Rock Nine incident.

Even though Ive heard first hand narration of what transpired before,

during, and after the discussions and the historic 1962 vote taken by my

church, including a personal recounting of events byDaddo, my wifes

grandfather who was serving on the board of deacons at the time, I am

going to draw on historian Ray Granades narrative because of its succinct

and eloquent recounting of these events.

Some of the churchs story for the early 1960s would not fall under the

heading of business as usual. The deacons recommended showing the

Billy Graham film Shadows of the Boomerang at the end of April, 1962,

no doubt on the new 16mm sound projector the church had bought in mid-

1959. But the great story of 1962 for FBC was the churchs acceptance of

their first black members since November, 1868. Mike and Mary

Makosholo of Rhodesia had been converted to Christianity . Mike had

entered OBC, and since [missionaries associated with FBC were

instrumental in helping the Makasholos attend Ouachita Baptist

University], Mike and his wife desired to become members too.

When the church discovered the Makosholos intentions, the deacons took

up the matter. They voted twelve to eight against permitting them to join,but the issue persisted. On February 4, OBC psychology professor Kenneth

Moxey brought a recommendation from the International Students

Committee to a called Sunday morning business meeting at which the

deacon Chairman moderated. Notice had been given in a pulpit


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announcement the preceding Sunday and in letters mailed to all members

stating the purpose of the meeting: to vote on the motion That the Church

look with favor upon the application for membership of foreign negro [sic]

students of Ouachita Baptist College who are recommended by two or moreSouthern Baptist Missionaries.

Deacon O.J. Seymour requested that the church vote by signed secret

ballot, a procedure which had been used for potentially divisive issues for

over a decade. The ushers passed out ballots. At the motion of OBC

Academic Dean J.W. Cady, the church recessed until the votes were

counted. At the close of the evening service, the moderator reconvened the

meeting to hear the report. Richard Ewing, deacon secretary, reported that

606 votes had been cast, with 304 necessary to approve the

recommendation. The results were 419 for the motion, 182 against, with 1

ineligible and 4 irregular votes.

On Saturday morning before the Makosholos were expected to join, a group

of deacons asked the chairman to call a special deacons meeting. When it

convened at the church that night, a spokesman for the petitioning group

stated that if the Makosholos were truly Christians, they would not ask for

membership and cause dissension in the church. The spokesman then

requested that pastor Reeves and the deacon chairman visit the

Makosholos that night and explain to them the considerable opposition to

their joining the church, and that the positive vote had resulted only from

the presence of large numbers of OBC students.

As soon as the spokesman had finished, Reeves [the churchs minister] tookthe floor. During my entire years in the ministry, he stated, I have always

assumed that the membership of a New Testament church was its final

authority. Since the membership of this church has voted to allow these

people to join First Baptist Church, any action of this type would be nothing


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short of insurrection against a New Testament church. You may fire me on

the spot, but I will not be your messenger. Then he sat down. The meeting

adjourned. On March 11, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Makosholo joined FBC on

promise of their letter from Sanyati Baptist, Gatooma, Southern Rhodesia,Africa. (Samuel Ray Granade, An Enlarged Tent: Arkadelphia FBC, 1851-

2001, 2001, pp. 146-147.)

In August of 1965 I joined First Baptist Church and, upon being welcomed

into the church membership by Sam Reeves, he put his arm around me and

stated the following: Young man, my wife and I would love to have you

join us for lunch. The southern style fried chicken, mashed potatoes,

green beans, and peach cobbler I had that day were the first real taste of

southern cuisine.

In the post 1963 March on Washington people from all walks of life came

face to face with the ghosts of the past and joined the march for a better and

more equal American society. And, because of their own experiences with

anti-Semitism in America, many voices of conscience in the American

Jewish community locked arms with and joined in the march and ensuing

struggle for civil rights and human dignity. While some might argue that

self-preservation might have been a motive for these Jewish voices to be in

the vanguard of the civil rights movement, I believe that because of the

ancient and rich Talmudic injunctions and admonishments for and about

justice that are part of the fabric of Jewish lore, many American Jews

committed themselves to this just cause. As testimony to this struggle, fifty

years later a black man resides in the White House.

And, while fifty years ago this month America was a segregated society and

life for African Americans, especially in the south, was fraught with

challenges and the scourge of racism was a way of life, in 1963 life for

Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza was better than it was for


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their African American counterparts. In a reversal of social, economic and

political conditions, fifty years later life for Palestinians is a living hell on an

even greater scale than that of 1963 life for African Americans.

Whether it is to attend school, go to work, market or seek medical

treatment, on a daily basis the Palestinians experience indignities that

include check points where they are herded like cattle through narrow

metal guards and have to stand in long lines for hours to go just a few miles

from one part of the West Bank to the other. Interrogations and strip

searches are routine practice. Mass arrests at all times of the day, especially

under the cover of dark, are the norm. Children as young as 5 have been

arrested, and a revolving door of arrests and releases are the practice de

jure. Live ammunition is used on peaceful demonstrators (see the Oscar-

nominated documentaryFive Broken Cameras by Imad Burnat), and just

this week three residents of the Qalandia Refugee camp were shot dead

under the cover of dark by Israeli soldiers. Churches and mosques are

vandalized and torched by settlers with one church having its faade

defaced with graffiti that read Jesus is a monkey. The expropriation of

lands and demolishing of houses on a weekly, if not daily basis is routine.Some forty thousand Bedouins are in the process of being ethnically

cleansed from their tribal lands in the Negev so as to build a new Jews-only

city. Jews-only busses and highways crisscross the West Bank; housing

policies and legislation that deny Palestinians access to housing in Jewish

neighborhoods have been enacted, and marriage laws forbidding Arabs and

Jews from marrying across national, ethnic, or religious lines have been

sanctioned as unlawful by rabbinical courts and are currently debated inparliament. I wonder why it is that mainstream American media has not

reported on the recently instituted policy of segregating pre-school Tel Aviv

children in separate schools. Turns out that by the color of their skins

Sudanese, Eritrean and other Sub Sahara African children are forced to

attend pre-schools designated for dark skinned Africans. For those


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interested in the latter, read Lisa Goldmans 8/23/2013 report in theDaily

Beastunder the title IsraelsMost Liberal City Introduces Racially

Segregated Kindergartens.

Some of the most rabid racist sentiments were expressed in 2010 by

Sephardic high rabbi Ovadia Yosef who stated that Goyim were born to

serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the

People of Israel. Why are gentiles needed? They will work for us, they will

plow, they will reap. (Mary Oster, JTA, 10/18/2010,Sephardic Leader

Yosef: Non-Jews Exist to Serve Jews). Equally rabid are the statements of

Colonel Eyal Qarim, IDFs military rabbi, who told Israeli soldiers that

during war it was o.k. to rape gentile girls.Do these utterances sound

familiar?

It gives me great pride to know thatDaddo voted his conscience, and I

distinctly remember his comments: This was the right thing to do, the only

right thing to do. And Sam Reeves decision to put his job on the line was

an act of moral fortitude at its very best.

In like manner, there are many voices of conscience in the American

Jewish community and Israeli society that include Noam Chomsky, Barbara

Lubin, Elmer Berger, Norman Finkelstein, Adam Shapiro, Anna Balzer,

Amira Haas, Gideon Levy, Mati Peled, Jeff Halper, and Uri Avnery, to

name but just a few, who have taken a principled stand on Israeli policies

and the myriad violations of human rights, policies of apartheid, and the

continued dehumanization and abuse of Palestinians.

It is ironic that on August 28, 2013, Barack Obama waxed platitudes about

the 1963 historic march and on the tremendous impact the Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King had on setting America on the right course and the

right side of history using peaceful and non-violent means, while at the

same time he and his European cohorts have been drawing up plans to


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bomb yet another Arab country in which innocent civilians will suffer the

most. That Syria is ruled by a dictator is a given, that Arab and Israeli

dictators (the latter vis. a vis. Palestinians) to whom America has cozied

up during the past 50 years rule from Morocco to Saudi Arabia is also agiven. That, to do Israels bidding and use Syria and its people as a

launching pad on the way to Iran is also a given. That Obamas legacy is

going to be one of continuous wars, I hope, will not be a given.

It appears that in his rush to judgment Barak Obama is no different from

his predecessor and from Saul. Armed with drones and cruise missiles in

one hand and the egging and backing of the military industrial complex in

the other, Obama is poised on the plateau that overlooks Damascus. It

behooves Barak Obama to take note of Paulson the road to

Damascusexperience. And it behooves members of the clergy, people of

conscience from all walks of life, and especially the complicit media that

has gone AWOL, to become Reluctant Witnesses, witnesses that will

layhands on the trigger happy leaders of the so-called free world.

obama’s road to damascus

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