Faith Works 8-8-2025
Jeff Gill
When the Bible Belt comes unbuckled
___
"Is this a no-sin zone?"
That was the question Rev. Dr. Lee H. Butler Jr. asked at a conference I just attended in Memphis, in the shadow of the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid, next to the American Nile.
Dr. Butler is a seminary president, recently dean, with wide ranging ecumenical credentials as well as his academic work in history, psychology, and pastoral theology. With all of that background, he was asking us on a hot July day alongside the Mississippi River to consider the images of ancient empires, such as Egypt, and the social context we are called to preach to and minister in today.
"We are in the heart of the Bible Belt here, almost at the very buckle of its embrace," Dr. Butler said. Especially in the early years of Memphis and the Mississippi valley, across the legendary Delta bottomlands extending south from here towards New Orleans, Christianity was pre-eminent. Christian teaching was dominant, the (Protestant) Bible at the center of the culture, ministers and congregations the heart of civil affairs, and well past the Civil War into the modern era it has been Christian teachings which stood to the fore of the schoolhouse, the courthouse, even in the storehouse and into the jail house.
Yet it is also an area where infidelity and illegitimate birth, abortion and poverty, robbery and murder along with illiteracy and illness are present at record levels. What's wrong here, asked Dr. Butler? If the Christian church is allowed to be a dominant influence, as it has been in so many ways over the last two centuries, shouldn't this be a no-sin zone? "Is this a no-sin zone?" he asked, piercingly?
So what went wrong? Dr. Butler suggested there was a flaw in our theology. It could be, he allowed, that Christianity if practiced might not reduce sin, but he did not believe that was true. Faith in God and trust in Christ should reduce, if not completely eliminate sin. If the church was largely in control of a culture, and sin abounded, there is a flaw, even a heresy at work. He called his primary suspect "theological narcissism."
Theological narcissism, Dr. Butler said, is an assumption that one's own self is closer to God than someone different than one's self. And I trust I do no violence to his thesis to fill in from a theologian of a century ago but just two hundred miles to the east, in Nashville.
In my religious tradition's history, there are few figures more amazing in range and scope of their work and thought than Preston Taylor (1849-1931). As a leader among African American churches in the Restoration Movement, he served in the Civil War, had success in constructing railroads, and founded a funeral home and cemetery in Nashville, having served as an elder and preacher in his church from age 20. He formed the National Christian Missionary Convention for African American Disciples of Christ churches and preachers in 1917.
In his inaugural address to the convention, which he served as President for fourteen years, he proclaimed to the wider church "…if the white brother can include in his religious theory and practice the colored people as real brothers, he will have avoided the heresy of all heresies."
The heresy of all heresies. I thought of Rev. Taylor in 1917 Nashville as I listened to Dr. Butler in 2025 Memphis, and about the theological narcissism he warned us about. It was this blindness, this lack of fellow feeling, this absence of basic justice, this heresy of all heresies, which explained why the Bible Belt failed to become a no-sin zone.
Our faith can change human hearts and transform the world, but our cultural barriers and exclusions can block how that faith flows and moves people. By the banks of the mighty Mississippi, I found myself thinking about how we divert the flow of grace, and let sin flourish.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's interested in avoiding heresy and promoting justice. Tell him what flows through your gardens at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
When the Bible Belt comes unbuckled
___
"Is this a no-sin zone?"
That was the question Rev. Dr. Lee H. Butler Jr. asked at a conference I just attended in Memphis, in the shadow of the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid, next to the American Nile.
Dr. Butler is a seminary president, recently dean, with wide ranging ecumenical credentials as well as his academic work in history, psychology, and pastoral theology. With all of that background, he was asking us on a hot July day alongside the Mississippi River to consider the images of ancient empires, such as Egypt, and the social context we are called to preach to and minister in today.
"We are in the heart of the Bible Belt here, almost at the very buckle of its embrace," Dr. Butler said. Especially in the early years of Memphis and the Mississippi valley, across the legendary Delta bottomlands extending south from here towards New Orleans, Christianity was pre-eminent. Christian teaching was dominant, the (Protestant) Bible at the center of the culture, ministers and congregations the heart of civil affairs, and well past the Civil War into the modern era it has been Christian teachings which stood to the fore of the schoolhouse, the courthouse, even in the storehouse and into the jail house.
Yet it is also an area where infidelity and illegitimate birth, abortion and poverty, robbery and murder along with illiteracy and illness are present at record levels. What's wrong here, asked Dr. Butler? If the Christian church is allowed to be a dominant influence, as it has been in so many ways over the last two centuries, shouldn't this be a no-sin zone? "Is this a no-sin zone?" he asked, piercingly?
So what went wrong? Dr. Butler suggested there was a flaw in our theology. It could be, he allowed, that Christianity if practiced might not reduce sin, but he did not believe that was true. Faith in God and trust in Christ should reduce, if not completely eliminate sin. If the church was largely in control of a culture, and sin abounded, there is a flaw, even a heresy at work. He called his primary suspect "theological narcissism."
Theological narcissism, Dr. Butler said, is an assumption that one's own self is closer to God than someone different than one's self. And I trust I do no violence to his thesis to fill in from a theologian of a century ago but just two hundred miles to the east, in Nashville.
In my religious tradition's history, there are few figures more amazing in range and scope of their work and thought than Preston Taylor (1849-1931). As a leader among African American churches in the Restoration Movement, he served in the Civil War, had success in constructing railroads, and founded a funeral home and cemetery in Nashville, having served as an elder and preacher in his church from age 20. He formed the National Christian Missionary Convention for African American Disciples of Christ churches and preachers in 1917.
In his inaugural address to the convention, which he served as President for fourteen years, he proclaimed to the wider church "…if the white brother can include in his religious theory and practice the colored people as real brothers, he will have avoided the heresy of all heresies."
The heresy of all heresies. I thought of Rev. Taylor in 1917 Nashville as I listened to Dr. Butler in 2025 Memphis, and about the theological narcissism he warned us about. It was this blindness, this lack of fellow feeling, this absence of basic justice, this heresy of all heresies, which explained why the Bible Belt failed to become a no-sin zone.
Our faith can change human hearts and transform the world, but our cultural barriers and exclusions can block how that faith flows and moves people. By the banks of the mighty Mississippi, I found myself thinking about how we divert the flow of grace, and let sin flourish.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's interested in avoiding heresy and promoting justice. Tell him what flows through your gardens at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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