Feb. 14, 2021, column:

Standing in awe in front of the Creator's masterpieces

By Mike Haynes

            At about 10:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, we glimpsed a green band stretching across the sky from our perch on a wooden deck at a ski patrol building. We couldn’t stay on the deck more than a couple of minutes, because the temperature was around 30 – that’s minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind chill factor was estimated at up to 60 below.

When it’s that cold, even if you’re dressed in four layers of clothes with your hands and head heavily covered, any skin on your face that you leave bare feels as if chilled air is seeping into your pores with an almost burning sensation.

            So Kathy and I, our tour guide and three other tourists retreated back into the small building outside Fairbanks, Alaska, where we could take off our gloves, warm up fogged-over glasses and drink hot cider or coffee.

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, streaked across the sky early
in the morning of Feb. 2 outside Fairbanks, Alaska.
(Photo by Mike Haynes)

            We trudged back and forth through the door, from warm tables to the more than freezing deck, repeatedly for almost four hours, watching for that green band to grow – and boy, was it worth it.

            All of us were there to see the northern lights, more properly called the aurora borealis. And by the time we got in the van for our young guide to take us back to our hotels, we had seen quite a show.

            Kathy and I took advantage of cheap flights for a trip to Iceland in 2015 to try to check the northern lights off Kathy’s – and by extension my – bucket list. It was cloudy all three nights we were there.

            In 2019, we traveled along the coast of Norway on a Viking ocean cruise called “In Search of the Northern Lights.” Kathy saw bits of green in the sky from our ship, and we both spotted a narrow, vertical streak while on a cold excursion on land. But those views were nothing like you see in photos and videos.

            The current ban on visiting most countries shifted our sights to Alaska. We had to be tested for COVID to enter the state, but we had people praying that everything would work out, and it certainly did.

            You wonder what ancient people thought when they first saw green, purple and red curtains undulating in the sky. Some thought it was the end of the world, and others who have lived in the far north have come up with creative explanations.

            Scholars speculate that Chinese dragon images originated with the aurora. The Cree tribes in North America believed the lights were the spirits of departed loved ones. Inuits in Alaska and Canada expanded on that theory, saying the colors in the sky were spirits of the dead playing a game with a walrus skull as the ball. One of our guides told us another group reversed that version, imagining walruses playing with skulls of people.

            In Norse mythology, the aurora was seen as reflections from the shields of the Valkyrie, the female warriors who carried Vikings who died in battle to Valhalla, the Norse version of heaven.

            Some thought it bad luck to look at the lights, and others thought it was a good omen.

Mike and Kathy Haynes pose in front of a green sky in Alaska this month
as the northern lights performed behind them. (Provided photo)

            Scientifically, the aurora is caused by charged particles from the sun colliding with gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. The lights occur at both magnetic poles, but more people see them emanating from the Arctic region than from the Antarctic. Scientists make daily forecasts of the likelihood of seeing the lights in certain locations based on weather, solar activity and other factors.

            On the night of Feb. 1-2, the forecast was good at Fairbanks. After we saw that initial green band, the lights gradually grew into taller and wider curtains until they covered most of the northern sky. We saw dashes of red, which isn’t common. Kathy was saying, “Wow, wow,” and we knew we could check the lights off our bucket list.

            The aurora stayed in sight for much of those four hours, sometimes just a streak and sometimes dancing and swaying. Once, only Kathy and I were outside on the deck with our guide, all three of us staring up together. As I remember it, the young man commented that the Lord was painting the sky, and he quoted part of Psalm 19:

            “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

            People of old invented elaborate stories about the lights, but we just felt simple awe that brought tears as we realized how blessed we were to get to see another of the Creator’s masterpieces.

 Jan. 17, 2021, column:

In turbulent world, love each other while we wait for our true home

By Mike Haynes

            The political and social chaos going on in the United States – on top of a year of dealing with a pandemic – has much of the population anxious entering 2021. And more than 74 million Americans who didn’t vote for the next White House resident worry what policies will emerge from Washington.

            For some of us, even with millions already getting a virus vaccine, it’s a scary time.

            Actress Patricia Heaton, known primarily as Debra in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and as Frankie in “The Middle,” concisely reminded believers in Christ that they shouldn’t worry. On Jan. 8, she tweeted:

            "If you’re a common sense person, you probably don’t feel you have a home in this world right now. If you’re a Christian, you know you were never meant to."

            Heaton’s reasoning stems from Bible verses such as Philippians 3:20, which says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (New RSV)

            Someone disagreed, tweeting that this world certainly is his home, and Heaton responded:

            "Respectfully, this world is only temporary. I love many things here too, and yes, we are called to love our neighbor and be good stewards. But this ain’t it."

            She later added, “We are meant to serve Christ while we are here.”

            My friend Mark in Florida keeps reminding me that whatever our politics, God is in control, including of how things will turn out in the end. That belief reminds me of some Bible verses I learned long ago as part of a memory system created by the Navigators, a Christian ministry. Maybe some of these that show God’s attributes and his expectations will be comforting and/or encouraging. They are in the Revised Standard Version, the Bible I was using at the time:

            His strength:

            “Fear not, for I am with you,  be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,  I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

            His faithfulness:

            “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

“God is not man, that he should lie,  or a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?” (Numbers 23:19)

            His peace:

            “Thou dost keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3)

“Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7

His provision:

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Romans 8:32)

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

Another verse that supports the idea that Christians should be different from society is Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Other passages indicate that believers are not to sit around dreaming of the afterlife. Although good works don’t save us, God does want us to do them:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

“And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” (Galatians 6:9)

Finally, there’s a word that we toss around every day, but from recent events, you wouldn’t know it’s important. Jesus used it in his two greatest commandments in regard to our relationship to God and to others. And in John 13:34-35, he said:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love is something we can give to every person we encounter in this world while we wait for our true home.

Dec. 20, 2020, column:

Focus on the REAL reason for the season: the birth of Christ

By Mike Haynes

            Kathy and I watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” the other night on Panhandle PBS. It’s been around since 1965, and nothing has changed about the commercialization of the holiday that helps send Charlie Brown into a gloomy funk.

            Near the end, Linus reminds us that the birth of Jesus is what Christmas is all about.

            Today, I’m looking at some comments about Christmas from three of my “heroes of the faith” who saw Christ as “the reason for the season” before somebody coined that catch phrase.

Let’s go in chronological order:

          

John Wesley

  John Wesley (1703-1791)

            United Methodist Professor David Watson wrote in 2016 that while many  Christmas sermons focus on the Golden Rule, giving and being kind – our relationships with others – Methodist founder John Wesley stressed the transformation that Christ’s coming to Earth made possible in each life.

            Watson wrote, “This transformation – receiving the capacity to serve God faithfully – was made possible through the Incarnation.” He quoted Wesley’s notes on John 1:14:

            “In order to raise us to this dignity and happiness, the eternal Word, by a most amazing condescension, was made flesh, united Himself to our miserable nature, with all its innocent infirmities….” Wesley continued that Jesus’ coming to Earth accomplished change in men and women that the Law of Moses could not do.

            Wesley’s brother Charles expressed Christ’s gift of potential change in his hymn, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” according to Watson, in lines such as “peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled,” and “Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.”

            “So for Wesley, the coming of Christ means that we can be changed,” Watson wrote. “We no longer stand in guilt before God, and we are no longer compelled to sin by the power of original sin. We have peace, happiness, and an abundance of divine goodwill and favor.”

            By the end of Charles Schultz’s story, Charlie Brown was closer to those gifts of God.

         

C.S. Lewis

   C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

            Another Brit, writer and professor C.S. Lewis, would have said “amen” to Lucy’s declaration, “Look, Charlie, let’s face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket.”

            Lewis was no less blunt when in 1957 he wrote in “What Christmas Means To Me:”

            “Can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers?” In fact, Lewis even called it a “commercial racket” eight years before Lucy did. “The idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers,” Lewis wrote.

            Jennifer Graham and Lois Collins listed in the Deseret News several of Lewis’ comments about Christmas, including that he thought it “important and obligatory” but that in a letter, he said, “I send no cards and give no presents except to children.” In another letter, he wrote to friends, “Is it still possible amid this ghastly racket of ‘Xmas’ to exchange greetings for the Feast of the Nativity? If so, mine, very warm, to both of you.”

            In a 1954 essay, “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus,” Lewis created a fictional country that celebrated two festivals: Exmas, involving excessive gift-giving, and Crissmas, a quiet observance of the birth of a child.

             Of course, Lewis wrote eloquently and sometimes wittily about the meaning of Christmas. In “Mere Christianity”: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God,” and “The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.”

In “Miracles”: “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.”

In an interview, Lewis said, “The birth of Christ is the central event in the history of earth – the very thing the whole story has been about.”

And showing his wit again, he wrote in a letter, “My brother (Warren Lewis) heard of a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a crib outside it … ‘They bring religion into everything. Look, they’re dragging it even into Christmas now.’”

         

Billy Graham

   Billy Graham (1918-2018)

            American evangelist Billy Graham echoed both Wesley and Lewis. In sermons and books, he pointed out the secularization and commercialization of Christmas, and like Wesley, he believed that the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ birth was to change people.

            “That baby who was born to Mary was more than just another man – He was God in human flesh,” Graham said. “He came into the world for one reason: to make it possible for our sins to be forgiven so we could become part of God’s family forever.”

            He preached, “He loves you and wants to transform your life.”

            Another Graham message certainly is fitting in 2020: “This Christmas season, when the world seems to be in turmoil – wars are breaking out in different places, crime is rampant, many things are happening that are great sins in the sight of God – but in that crib is the Person who would grow up to save us, and He did.”

            As Linus recited on stage, “For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” 

 Nov. 22, 2020, column:

Mayflower Compact filled with statements indicating allegiance to God

By Mike Haynes

The date of Veterans Day is easy for me to remember. It’s Nov. 11, which also is when I was born. I tell people, “Yeah, they fly the flags on my birthday.”

The flags actually go up that day because World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1918. It also is the date my great-grandparents got married in a field near Willow, Oklahoma, in 1903, according to the family story.

                Years and dates we were taught in school tend to stay in my memory, too, such as 1066, 1215; 1620; 1776; 1836; Dec. 7, 1941; and June 6, 1944; and some in our experience, including Nov. 22, 1963, and Sept. 11, 2001.

                But about that year 1620: Of course I knew that’s when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. Until a few months ago, though, I had no idea it was on Nov. 11.

                I learned that from an email ad promoting the sale of a facsimile Bible. To mark the 400^th anniversary of those Mayflower travelers landing in America, a company is selling exact copies of the 1560 Geneva Bible.

For many, the best guess of what Bible version the English Separatists carried with them on the ship would be the King James Bible, first printed in 1611. And while the Mayflower’s captain probably had a copy of the Church of England’s King James Version, historians agree that the Bible used by those Puritans seeking religious freedom was the Geneva, an English Bible first printed in Switzerland because it wasn’t approved by the king of England.

                 The 1560 first edition being sold in facsimile form may not have been the edition read on the Mayflower, but almost certainly, those believers were reading some edition of the Geneva. It was the most popular Bible version in England at the time and the one most quoted by Shakespeare.

                The main objection King James I and the Church of England had to the Geneva Bible was its plentiful marginal notes, which were slanted toward the Puritan point of view and showed negativity toward the monarchy.

 

               Fleeing James’ unfriendly government, they had left England for the Netherlands in 1608, the same time that translation committees were working on the KJV. Eventually they decided they would be more comfortable in the New World, negotiated with a London stock company to finance the journey and sailed on the Mayflower.

                Only 35 of the 102 colonists on the ship were members of the English Separatist Church, which Encyclopaedia Britannica calls “a radical faction of Puritanism.” Most of the others were connected to the firm that paid for the trip.

                The first settlers were called “Old Comers” and later “the Forefathers,” says Britannica. The colony’s governor, William Bradford, referred to the “saints” who had left the Netherlands as “pilgrimes,” and the term wasn’t commonly used until Daniel Webster used the phrase “Pilgrim Fathers” in an 1820 speech.

                Whatever we call them, before leaving the ship on Nov. 11, 1620, 41 male passengers signed a 200-word document later called the Mayflower Compact, which set out a plan for a government, laws and regulations of the colony.

                The Geneva Bible facsimile sold by the Bible Museum Inc. at greatsite.com includes a photographic reproduction of Bradford’s handwritten copy of the Mayflower Compact showing its 41 signatures. The agreement is filled with statements indicating allegiance to God – it begins “In the name of God Amen” – and even shows deference to the king – it ends by referring to “our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland.” It was a historic beginning. But reality fell short of the Separatists’ vision.

            “Bradford's dream of a large community of sincere Protestant Christian Separatist Pilgrims creating a New Zion in the New World never really came to pass during his lifetime,” writes the Bible Museum Inc. “Bradford notes with disappointment that the newly arriving settlers were mostly adventurers seeking their fortune in the New World, and only a minority of them were Christians seeking to worship God freely.

“Nevertheless, the following generations of American settlers did establish a community of thriving Christians who were at last out from under the fist of England's kings and the government's Anglican Church.”

The pilgrims’ preference for the Geneva Bible certainly meshed with the early American ideal of protection of the church from the state.

                About that date: Bradford’s handwriting on the Compact does say “11 of November.” And “Nov. 11, 1620,” is printed on the cover of the new facsimile Geneva Bible. But that was under the Old Style calendar. Using our modern calendar, the signing was on Nov. 21, meaning yesterday was the 400^th anniversary.

                But I’m sticking with Nov. 11.

(By the way, the Bible Museum Inc. that's mentioned is not the Museum of the Bible that Kathy and I have visited in Washington, D.C. They're two different organizations.)

 Oct. 25, 2020, column:

Prayer March 2020 a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Amarillo couple

By Mike Haynes

                A man sitting in front of Chris and Kelly Caldwell as they flew back from Washington, D.C., to Amarillo Sept. 28 had on a familiar mask. They recognized it from the free packet they had received in the mail before attending the Sept. 26 Washington Prayer March 2020.

                Kelly asked their fellow passenger whether he had attended the Franklin Graham-organized event on the National Mall.

                “That made him almost light up,” she recalled. “It made us friends instantly. We had the same goal in mind. You could tell if someone would take off work and spend that money to go, that they love our country and they love God even beyond the country.”

 

Kelly and Chris Caldwell at the
Washington Prayer March
on Sept. 26, 2020

               Their new friend was a truck driver from Lubbock. “This is typical of the kind of people who went to the event,” Chris said. “He went by himself, and he had just the best time, he said, and he just really wanted to be there to pray with everybody.”

                The march attracted between 55,000 and 60,000 people who walked from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol, stopping at seven stations to address various topics in prayer – similar to the practice at Amarillo’s annual prayer breakfast. For example, at the Lincoln Memorial, the prayer focus was “Humbling ourselves, repentance and healing of our land.” At the National Museum of African American History and Culture, it was “National reconciliation.” At the World War II Memorial, the focus was “Military, police and law enforcement and their families – and peace in our nation.” And at the Capitol, it was “Congress and other leaders at all levels across America, Supreme Court, judges.”

                Those attending had been asked not to display political messages or show support for one candidate or party. “Franklin Graham said over and over that this is not political,” Chris said. “But of course, since we were praying about our country, there were political issues.”

                Politics had to be on many minds when, as the event was starting, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, strolled onto the stage at the Lincoln Memorial. “That wasn’t even a planned thing,” Kelly said. “He just showed up, and of course they let him. They were thrilled.”

Pence spoke for a few minutes, urging those present – and an estimated 3.8 million watching online – to “pray with confidence.” He said George Washington often had prayed for leaders and the states with “an earnest prayer,” and that Abraham Lincoln had been driven to his knees in prayer.

                “When the president and I travel around the country,” Pence said, “the sweetest words we ever hear, and we hear them a lot, is when people reach out and simply say, ‘I’m praying for you.’”

                Among many well-known faces were former Major League Baseball star Darryl Strawberry and Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At Stop 5 at the African American History and Culture museum, Strawberry prayed for compassion, kindness and racial reconciliation. King, director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, prayed, “We have sinned and misunderstood or just on purpose thought that we were separate races. We are one human race. Acts 17:26 says, ‘one blood.’ … We are not color blind … We’re going to recognize ethnicity and all the beauty that you gave us, Lord.”

                Franklin Graham’s son, Edward, prayed for first responders: “Lord, an ugliness, a great sin and a lie has turned toward them. Lord, we ask for your hand of protection.”

                Country music star John Rich, an Amarillo native and writer of the song, “Earth to God,” took his two young sons to the march and was interviewed afterward. “I think throughout our country, there is an effort to desensitize our kids to the fact that God is real – and the fact of how great our country is and the fact that our country allows us to worship him like we want to,” Rich said. “And I wanted them to come to something like this prayer march to see tens of thousands of their fellow Americans praying for their country.”

                Along the 1.8-mile route, the Caldwells prayed out loud with each other. But Kelly said one magical moment happened near the beginning, when Graham asked everyone to pray out loud.

                “You’re talking close to 60,000 people,” Kelly said. “To hear what that sounded like – there’s not words to describe it. It was almost like a magical melody, just so cool to hear. And it made us both just cry, it was such a beautiful thing, and I told Chris: If it touched us and made us cry like that, just imagine what that sounded like to God.”

                “It just really felt like heaven,” Chris said, “because there were so many different kinds of people everywhere.” “And everybody was just happy, and they would smile and wave at you, and it was almost like a family reunion,” Kelly said. “We were all like-minded – different faiths, different representation, but we were all there for one reason, to pray for our country, and we were all united as one body in Christ.”

                The Caldwells, both involved in ministry, viewed attending the half-day event as once-in-a-lifetime.

                “I had just noticed a lot of things in the news that were troubling,” said Chris, a BSA Health System chaplain. “I had talked to Kelly about it and prayed about it. So when the prayer march opportunity came out, Kelly suggested that we go.”

                Kelly, assistant to the senior pastor and office administrator at Trinity Baptist Church, said she had seen Graham promoting the event online. “He said, ‘Folks, our country’s in trouble, and the only person who can fix it is God. We are in need of everyone who believes to come together in unity and pray.’ And that just really convicted me.

                “For me, it was just getting to be with my husband in a setting that was just, like he says, you think that’s what heaven is going to be like.”

                Because of the virus pandemic, much of Washington was shut down that weekend. “We were surprised there were that many people who came,” Chris said. “People just felt like it was that important.

                “We just think it’s one of these events that keeps on blessing people.”

* * *

Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Videos and stories from Washington Prayer March 2020 can be found at prayermarch2020.com.

 

Sept. 27, 2020, column:

A fan of the man, not the character he plays

By Mike Haynes
            I never was a fan of Alice Cooper.
            I am now.
            The “Godfather of Shock Rock” personified a gory Halloween starting in the late 1960s with his dark, shaggy, shoulder-length hair, black-circled eyes and leather outfits with skulls on the buttons. Peaking in the mid-1970s, his concerts featured headless baby dolls, a guillotine and fake blood. The pythons he caressed on stage weren’t the “Monty” kind.

Alice Cooper

            Alice Cooper’s lyrics included, “I’ll bite your face off,” and “Love hurts good on a bed of nails.”
            No, none of that appealed to me. These days, I do recognize songs such as “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” but until looking them up, I couldn’t have told you who sang them.
            The past couple of decades, what I knew about Alice Cooper was that he lived in Arizona and played golf.
            Then a friend told me about his interview with California evangelical preacher Greg Laurie. That’s what made me a fan of the real man, not the character he plays. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GW7JL0-0k&t=2s)
            Around the beginning of 1964, 15-year-old Vincent Furnier was listening to the radio while painting a house in Phoenix. “It was always the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown,” he told Laurie last year. “And all of a sudden I heard, ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and I went, ‘What?’ About an hour later I heard, ‘I want to hold your hand…’ and I went, ‘What?’ There were four songs that I heard. And I went, ‘Who are these guys?’
            Like many musicians of his generation, the Beatles had ignited a fire in Furnier, who recruited follow cross country runners and others to form a band. Then he saw the energy and wildness of Pete Townsend and the Who and decided to go a step further with theatrics to back up the music.
     

Alice Cooper, left, and Greg Laurie

       After playing as the Earwigs and the Spiders, the young band members picked “Alice Cooper” as their name. Furnier wanted something like “Betty Crocker” that was the opposite of their untamed stage antics. At the time, he thought, “It’s going to irritate every parent in America.”
            Alice Cooper eventually became Furnier’s own legal name, and by the time “School’s Out” was a Top 10 hit in 1972, the band had made it big – and Furnier, now Alice Cooper, had started a slide into drug and alcohol addiction.
            But a backup dancer in the show, Sheryl Goddard, married Alice in 1976 and helped steer him to sobriety – and back to church.
            Both were PKs – preacher’s kids – and Alice now compares his rebellious years to the Prodigal Son. After he threw his drugs away, he said, “I’m done,” and Sheryl replied, “Prove it.” They started attending a Baptist church in Phoenix.
            “A lot of people say, ‘I came to Christ because of my love of Jesus,’ Alice told Greg Laurie. “I came to Christ because of my fear of God. I totally understood that hell was not getting high with Jim Morrison. Hell was going to be the worst place ever.
“In fear, I came back to the Lord. But I went to another church, and that pastor preached the love of Christ. And you put the two together, and it was exactly right.”
            Alice wondered whether he should drop his macabre stage act, but his pastor told him God may have made him Alice Cooper. “He said, ‘He put you in the exact camp of the Philistines, and you were basically the leader. So now, what if you’re Alice Cooper, but what if you’re now following Christ? And you’re a rock star, but you don’t live the rock star life? Your lifestyle is now your testimony.’”
            The restored Christian did remain Alice Cooper but with a more tongue-in-cheek, humorous slant. His new songs began pointing to Christ with lyrics such as “Mercy please, I’m on my knees, You’re my temptation, Go way in Heaven’s name,” and “What about peace, What about love, What about faith in God above.”
            And Alice started a teen center in Phoenix called Solid Rock. It offers 12- to 20-year-olds free music lessons, and more important, a place to go.

Pastor Greg Laurie, left, interviews Alice Cooper at the Solid Rock
youth center in Phoenix. (Photos from Greg Laurie YouTube channel) 

            “It’s an alternative to what’s on the street,” he said. “I watched a couple of 16-year-old kids do a drug deal on the corner, and I went, ‘How does that kid not know he might be a great guitar player? Or that the other kid might be a drummer? And it just struck me right then: Why don’t we open that, give them that alternative to go there?”
            Solid Rock has a spiritual foundation, starting with Alice and his partners. “We’re all Christian guys, and the Lord told us to do it,” he said. “So we just obeyed; that’s all.”
            Alice Cooper still tours occasionally, but he spends more time on the golf course – six days a week, in fact. The Arizona resident told Laurie that hitting a great golf shot is the same as the high of heroin. “Golf is like the crack of sports,” he said.
            But he said his top priority is God. “If you were going to put what’s important in my life, Alice Cooper would be somewhere around fifth or sixth place,” he said. “Your relationship with God, relationship with your wife, certainly, your kids, and now, Solid Rock is a very big part of my life.
            “If you become a Christian, what you’re saying is, ‘I’m not God anymore.’ Everybody wants to be God. A lot of guys think, ‘Oh, just another religion.’ And the last thing you want is religion in your life. What you want is Christ in your life.”
            Alice chuckled when he mentioned a Christian TV show: “They used to tear my albums up on ‘The 700 Club.’ They’d say, ‘This is the worst person …’ – and now, he’s an agent for Christ. What a miracle that is. And I’m still Alice Cooper. I’m still playing this dark character, but he’s an agent of Christ. Very weird.”  
* * *
Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.

 Aug. 30, 2020, column:

Mission of Promise Keepers stems from the Bible

By Mike Haynes

            One reason Promise Keepers inspired me in the 1990s was the unity it brought to men of multiple Christian denominations, varied backgrounds and different races.

            Back then, the national parachurch organization started by University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney drew media attention in part because of the enormous crowds that packed arenas and football stadiums across the country.

            And who would have predicted that hundreds of thousands – some confidently said a million – men would converge on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1997 for the purpose of honoring Jesus Christ and urging men to follow him?

            Like many movements – and it was a strong movement for several years – PK slowed down and ran into financial troubles. Some observers claimed it lost momentum because it focused too much on racial reconciliation. From the beginning, its lineup of speakers included many African-Americans, such as E.V. Hill and Tony Evans. And African-American churches were well-represented in the several PK events I attended, from Amarillo’s Cal Farley Coliseum to that 1997 “Stand in the Gap” gathering in D.C.

 

Tony Evans is an author and pastor of Oak Cliff Bible
Fellowship in Dallas and founder of the Urban
Alternative ministry. (Promise Keepers photo)

           But Ken Harrison, PK’s unpaid CEO since 2018, told Christianity Today magazine last month he disagrees that a focus on racial unity contributed to PK’s decline. And even in 1998, local PK leader Greg Canada told me that although the group supported the Amarillo Area Racial Reconciliation Ministries, the PK focus was broader.

“We do not look at it as a black and white issue,” Canada said in my column that March. “We look at it as a sin issue, and that’s not unique to any one race or culture or denomination.”

PK certainly had an impact in this region. It was the impetus for my wife’s longtime friend, Bob, becoming an active Christian. Men’s accountability groups sprang up all over. Ken Plunk of Paramount Terrace (now Hillside) Christian Church arranged for 173 men from various congregations to fly to the D.C. event in a Boeing 727 and estimated then that 500 to 700 area men would make it to the Mall.

And so early in 2020, the slogans of the reinvigorated PK were “building on the Past to Redefine the Future” and “A Movement Reignited to Reach the Next Generation.” The big 2020 event was scheduled for July 31-Aug. 1, when 80,000 men were expected to converge on Arlington’s AT&T Stadium.

Because of COVID-19, PK had to move its first mass assembly online and postpone the stadium gathering to July 16-17, 2021. Harrison said 500 churches hosted simulcasts of the free online event a month ago and that it was seen in at least 65 countries. Speakers and musicians included former Dallas Cowboys Charles Haley and Chad Hennings, Luis and Andrew Palau, Steve Arterburn, Jimmy Evans of Amarillo and Dallas, Michael W. Smith, Jonathan Evans and Tony Evans.

Jonathan Evans, son of Tony and chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys, started the virtual messages with a rap-like performance: ““The gospel of Jesus Christ is certainly for real men … It’s for men who are willing to stand firm like Daniel did in his lion’s den … Come on, man, you’ve got an ‘S’ on your chest. Convey it. Display it. It’s time for men to soar with the gospel. Obey it. And be a real man, because the gospel is some real tough stuff. … The culture’s being slain by sin and has the audacity to look down on us.”

His father followed with a more traditional talk that alluded to the current social struggles but focused on the need for individual men to serve God. Tony Evans compared Christians to NFL football officials who don’t take sides in the game but make calls on the field based on the rulebook – “not based on how they feel or what they want, not even based on what the crowd thinks.

“They know sometimes they’re going to be cheered; they know sometimes they’re going to be booed. But that’s irrelevant, because they’re there to rule by the book, on the field, in the middle of the chaos.

“You and I are in a chaotic world today. We’re in racial chaos, social chaos, political chaos, class chaos, policing and community chaos. But God is looking for a group of men, his officiating crew, who will be in the mess but not a part of the mess, who will bring the response of the kingdom up there to the chaos down here.”

“It’s not because there’s wickedness out there,” Evans said, then pointed to his heart. “It’s because there’s weakness in here.”

The longtime Dallas pastor said many young people have no ethical compass, which should be provided by fathers rather than by the culture. Quoting Psalm 89:14, he said our foundation should be righteousness and justice but that today’s culture often stresses one or the other.

“Your children need to know to judge people justly by the content of their character, not the color of their skin,” Evans said. “They need to know righteous standards of moral integrity, and Daddy is to teach them both. If we would ever get the men to take this responsibility, then we could quell the chaos and confusion in the culture.

“This is not a time for delay, because the hour is too late. If this keeps going like it’s going, you will not have a country worth living in.”

Promise Keepers won’t solve society’s problems by itself. But its mission is simply that of the Bible, and if let loose, that’s a powerful force.