I found the Inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be an inspiring event. The call for unity and reconciliation, the appeal to the better angels of our nature, and the sincere effort to reach across the aisle and focus on the great values we all share as Americans should speak to all of us, regardless of our political alliances. Whichever way you voted in the election, you would be hard-pressed to find fault with what we all heard and saw on January 20.
But it didn’t take long for the big lie to surface. Not long after Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice-president in our nation’s history, social media was buzzing with the accusation that she refused to place her hand on a Bible. A picture clearly showed that there is an object between a large brown Bible and her hand. This plays into the myth that she is anti-religious and anti-church. But none of that is true . . . it is part of the big lie.
I know all about the big lie because I have experienced it firsthand. In 1979, the year I graduated from seminary, a very well-organized group of Baptist fundamentalists started to take control of our national denomination. In order to gain popular support for their movement, they had to create a common enemy. Since most Baptists are good, decent people who love a fried chicken dinner, they had to come up with something big to make us look bad.
They did, they came up with a big lie. They claimed that there were many preachers, primarily coming out of the seminaries, who did not believe the Bible. They were on a crusade to purge our denomination of these non-Bible believing preachers which included me.
Now, for those friends of mine who are not Baptist, you have to understand a little about my people. If there is one thing a Baptist loves more than fried chicken, it’s the Bible. To say a Baptist doesn’t believe the Bible is like saying a fish doesn’t believe in water. Indeed, one of the foundational truths of being Baptist is that our authority is the Bible itself.
Because we believe that our authority is the Bible, we do not have an official creed, or interpretation of the Bible. Therefore, we know that people may interpret different parts of the Bible in different ways. But that’s okay, because we also have this belief called the “Priesthood of the Believer.” Spiritual authority does not come from ecclesiastical hierarchy, but is found in every believer’s right to interpret the Bible as he or she feels led by the Spirit. Even though we may disagree over a certain interpretation, we continue to respect each other as valued members of the family of faith.
The biggest problem these people had was that they didn’t like the way many of us interpreted the Bible because it wasn’t the way they interpreted the Bible. For example, I believe in absolute equality between men and women. They don’t. I believe that God can call a woman into ministry, just as surely as he calls men. They have a different view.
We respected their right to differ, but they decided not to respect ours . . . so they created a big lie—that we did not believe the Bible. The big lie served them well.
In the 1980s I was serving on the Board of Directors for our Baptist State newspaper, the Biblical Recorder. Denominational newspapers served a much larger role in the days before the internet and social media. Because our state paper refuted the big lie and told the truth, we were constantly under attack by the fundamentalists.
There was a Baptist pastor in Morganton who started printing a hate-filled, spiteful paper that was full of innuendos, baseless accusations, and falsehoods. Its sole purpose was to perpetuate the big lie.
We were preparing for our presentation at the annual state convention which would be attended by several thousand people. The Board asked me if I would give a historical monologue and portray our paper’s founder, Thomas Meredith. Meredith, in the early 19th century, was fighting some of the same battles over ignorance and dogmatism that we were facing. You probably recognize the name because Thomas Meredith was an advocate for the education of women, a truly revolutionary concept in his day. That is where Meredith College gets its name.
I carefully crafted the monologue to use as much of Thomas Meredith’s own words as possible. The finished product was 85% verbatim Thomas Meredith. I found a period costume that made me look the part, memorized the monologue, and practiced it so much that I started speaking in 19th century English.
The monologue was well received at the convention and many people told me how enlightening it was. But it didn’t take long for the big lie to raise its ugly head. When the paper from Morganton came out, my monologue was the lead story. They accused the Biblical Recorder of hiring a professional actor to spew lies and disparage their cause.
I guess I should have been flattered that they thought I was a professional actor. I sent a letter to the editor of the paper demanding that they print a retraction so that people would know that I was true, certified, bona fide, card-carrying Baptist preacher, not an actor. And as far as the content, they were hearing the very words of one of our Baptist founders.
I never heard from the editor and there was never a retraction. I was not surprised. When you create a big lie you keep it alive; you never retreat. You don’t want to challenge the big lie with the facts. All of this came back to me last week when I read the accusation that Kamala Harris refused to place her hand on the Bible.
People have been operating under the big lie that the election was stolen. Even though 86 different judges across the political spectrum and the US Supreme Court all rejected the baseless claims, people continue to hold on to the big lie that plays out in ways large and small.
The “object” that was between the Vice President’s hand and the big brown Bible was actually another Bible. The large Bible belonged to the late Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court and Harris’s political hero. The smaller Bible belonged to a dear neighbor, Regina Shelton, who was like a second mother to her. Harris told the story of going to church as a child with Mrs. Shelton and sitting beside her as she opened her Bible. She said that it was in the pages of that Bible that she learned the stories of faith. It was in that Bible that she learned about love, about forgiveness, about faith, about righteousness and justice.
If you hear that Kamala Harris refused to place her hand on the Bible, it is part of the big lie. The truth is that she placed her hand on not one, but two Bibles. And as far as Harris being anti-religious and anti-church. Her mother was Hindu. Her husband is Jewish. And Kamala Harris is . . . a Baptist!
And that is the truth!
