About 40 years ago, when personalities such as Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were dominating the religious airwaves, two men in Shreveport, La., had a vision. The longtime pastor of First United Methodist Church, the Rev. Dr. D. L. Dykes, Jr., and his close friend, R. Z. Biedenharn, dreamed of creating a state-of-the-art television studio that would broadcast by satellite religious programming based on Dr. Dykes’ interpretations of Christian faith. They saw a crucial need for a reasoned alternative to TV fundamentalists.
Mr. Biedenharn was a man of considerable means. His family had gained the first bottling and distributorship of Coca-Cola in Vicksburg, Miss. He was also a man deeply committed to the vision of Christian faith that Dr. Dykes presented every Sunday for 30 years at First UMC in Shreveport. So in 1986, Mr. Biedenharn decided he would establish and initially fund a D. L. Dykes, Jr. Foundation, “so that his friend’s progressive work and vision would continue to have influence,” says the foundation’s history on its website.
Though not as widely known as others, Dr. Dykes authentically could be considered a United Methodist progenitor of today’s progressive Christianity. His interpretations rank him with other progressive thinkers such as James Rowe Adams, Hal Taussig, Eric Elnes, Gretta Vosper. and others. Again, according to the foundation’s website:
“D. L. Dykes, Jr. opened up thinking and imagination about Christian tradition across the South. He spoke of an all-loving God who desires the well-being of all creation, all creatures and all human beings. He told audiences that human beings are created to be life-affirming and peace-making. His message was a far cry from the traditional ‘bad news’ kind of Christianity many if not most Christian Americans had been raised on.”
The Last Week
A streaming audio series, "The Last Week," offers Christians an opportunity to ponder the events around Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection. (Image Courtesy of FAITHANDREASON)
Today, as United Methodism struggles with what it will be in the future, the progressive Christian vision of Dr. Dykes and his friend Mr. Biedenharn lives on in FAITHANDREASON®, a brand for seminars, educational resources and other activities from the D. L. Dykes Jr. Foundation. I’ve known about these resources for nearly two decades and attended one of its seminars. I found them all intellectually challenging and profoundly faithful; there’s no simple, syrupy “just me and Jesus” theology here. For those of us longing for Christian tradition to sprout new shoots, reasoned study resources such as these can be a sweet balm for the harshness of religious extremism.
I found out that FAITHANDREASON® takes its name from a series of half-hour TV shows approved by Dr. Dykes and the foundation’s directors before he died in 1997. Broadcast over The Odyssey Network, a venture initially supported by United Methodist Communications, the series produced 52 half-hour programs that featured leading scholars and authors in conversations about the themes drawn from video clips of Dr. Dykes’ sermons.
“These programs aired widely over PBS and other networks throughout the nation,” said David R. Dykes, top executive of the foundation named for his late father. “Many continue to air today.”
In an email, David Dykes explained: “All FAITHANDREASON® programming is designed to promote critical thinking within church communities about Christian faith and its traditions. This kind of critical thinking about history, scripture and theology invites each student to examine her or his own faith ‘learning’ and their experience of the teachings of the church.
“We think this approach builds new, wider understanding of the roots of Christian faith and how beliefs and practices have evolved over the millennia,” he continued. “As John Dominic Crossan says in the FAITHANDREASON production, The Challenge of Jesus, ‘The matrix, that is the intersecting dynamics of culture, economics, politics and religion of the first century in which historical Jesus lived, invites us to question everything about it.’ We regard such critical thinking exercise as the rich, sumptuous diet of progressive minds.”
FAITHANDREASON® just released The Last Week, an eight-week streaming audio series that features a new dialogue with John Dominic Crossan based on his book, “The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem,” co-written with Marcus Borg.
“’The Last Week’ is part historical exploration and theology, part reflection, the series vividly brings to life the key moments leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection,” said David Dykes. “We think Dr. Crossan is a master storyteller who sets the scene for Holy Week in the context of a volatile Jerusalem, as Jesus arrives on Palm Sunday. Even if you know the story, ‘The Last Week’ creates the space to reflect on its meaning in today’s world.”
David Dykes added that the episodes match up with an 8-day Holy Week study, beginning on Palm Sunday. He said that the resource can be relevant during all of Lent and year-round.
Rohr Change
A media offering from FAITHANDREASON by Fr. Richard Rohr. (Image courtesy of FAITHANDREASON)
In addition to Dr. Crossan, FAITHANDREASON® contributors include such notables as Father Richard Rohr, OFM, whose daily devotionals are read by hundreds of United Methodists; Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, a Catholic nun whose books on spirituality are widely read; and the Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger, a United Methodist and distinguished professor of theology who serves as the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. (Full disclosure: I know Joerg Rieger personally, and even got him to speak at our Sunday school class while he was at Perkins School of Theology. If you don’t know his work on faith and economics, look it up).
After reconnecting with Dr. Dykes’ work through his spiritual successors, I wondered how he’d counsel us to respond to the white supremacist beliefs behind violent massacres that occurred last fall at a Pittsburgh synagogue and last week at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand? How would he react to the conflict, rooted in scriptural interpretation, that now threatens to tear apart The United Methodist Church? We can’t know for sure, of course, but judging by his legacy, I can surmise what he’d like to see, based on a summation on his foundation’s website:
“He would approve of our determination to provide FAITHANDREASON® activities and resources to people that would inspire in them:
- a deepening sense of the connectedness of all life;
- a growing reverence for the entire creation;
- an expanded appreciation for the faiths and practices of people from every culture, every land; a desire to see distributive justice spread out among all people;
- a determination to regard and dignify all people regardless of nationality, cultural orientation, gender, economic status, sexual lifestyle and faith persuasion;
- and a deliberate longing for peace among nations, a worldwide commonwealth that benefits the entire human family and a sustainable plan for stewardship of the planet into the future.”
If this sounds like something that would feed your mind and spirit, check out the FAITHANDREASON website.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.