James M. Lawson, Jr., to Preach at Worship Service Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 14, 2006
Peace through Unity is the theme of the 2007 Tennessee Annual Conference worship service honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., celebrating his life, and renewing commitment to his Vision.
The event, sponsored by the Tennessee Conference Committee on Christian Unity and Inter-religious Concerns, is to be held at Nashville’s Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church, January 14, 2007, starting at 4:00 p.m. Two biblical texts will provide the worship focus: Micah 6: 7-8 and Colossians 3: 14-15.
This is a terse announcement of what could become one of the most powerful worship experiences in conference history. To begin with, the preacher will be the Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr., a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King labeled Lawson as “the leading nonviolence theorist in the world.”
Rev. Lawson first met Martin Luther King in 1957, and they soon joined forces to realize their dream of starting a non-violent mass movement. That same year Rev. Lawson went to Nashville to teach the mechanics of nonviolence to budding civil rights activists. Lawson continued to work with King until his death but has never given up on their shared dream of racial harmony. Later he became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for 14 years, the organization founded by King to end racial segregation by nonviolent protest. More about Lawson is included below.
Children from throughout the Conference are being brought together to perform a new version of the old hymn Joyful, Joyful. They will be accompanied by Tim Hayden, Director of Music at LaVergne First United Methodist Church. Hayden is unmatched in his skill, talent and dedication to excellence. He is also an amazing composer and has written the arrangement of Joyful, Joyful that will be taught to the children. Rev. Beth Gaines, who is organizing the children’s choir, admits that Joyful, Joyful might sound a little stuffy for children but then expands on her thought: “this is a put-on-your-seatbelt-we’re-gonna-rock-the-house” kind of arrangement. “This is all about worshipping God in an amazingly fun and exciting way!”
Also part of the service will be choirs from Woodbine United Methodist Church and Primera Iglesia Metodista Hispana (Hispanic congregation at Woodbine); Tennessee Conference minister and story teller the Rev. Rosemary Brown; Mattielyn Williams, chairperson Religion and Race; Bishop Richard Wills; Rev. Nancy Neelley; and Rev. Sam Purushotam. Other individuals and choirs will also participate but have not been confirmed as this goes to press. In addition, the Rev. Michael Williams and professional video producer (and United Methodist layman) Robert Tigert, Jr., are preparing a short video segment that blends voices from the past with contemporary interviews focusing on the question, “Where is the vision today?”
Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church is located at 2334 Herman Street, Nashville, Tennessee 37208.
Rev. James M. Lawson is Welcomed back to Vanderbilt University
Excerpted from the article “Vanderbilt’s most famous expellee settles back on campus” by Jim Patterson. The article welcomes James M. Lawson back to Vanderbilt and Nashville as a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Center for the Study of Religion and Culture.
Lawson’s life – including his student years at Vanderbilt – is marked by an abiding faith in the principles of Christianity and non-violence, and a willingness to pay the price for those beliefs. He served 13 months of a three-year prison sentence for refusing the draft during the Korean War, and was expelled from Vanderbilt in 1960 because of his work in the civil rights movement in Nashville.
After a national press uproar and threats of mass faculty resignations, a compromise allowed Lawson to complete his graduate studies at Vanderbilt. He opted instead to complete his degree at Boston University.
Vanderbilt and Lawson reconciled in various ways over the years, and he returned to Vanderbilt Divinity School during a sabbatical in 1970-71. But university officials still felt like the relationship was incomplete until naming Lawson the 2005 Distinguished Alumnus and announcing his return as Distinguished University Professor for the 2006-07 academic year.
“Permanently expelled from Vanderbilt University, James Lawson would have done fine and well,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, during the January dinner announcing his return. “But Vanderbilt could not be fine or well without confronting its troubled soul. … James Lawson has progressively helped this university find its conscience – and dare I say – its soul.”
A lifelong Christian and pastor emeritus of the Holston United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Lawson holds Christianity to high standards, and his blistering criticism is hard for some to accept. He’s preparing for a spring course with the working title of Jesus Against Christianity (the title is appropriated from a book by Jack Nelson Pallmeyer) that will argue that much religion in the United States is really idolatry.
“I would like to engage in a no-bars-held conversation about authentic religion,” he said. “I am persuaded that very often the Bible is an idol in American religion, rather than a kind of conversation between God and our human scene.”
“It’s not an easy course,” Lawson notes, “You run into situations where you get expelled from a university.”
Lawson “an unusually crucial public theological and movement tactician”
In introducing James M. Lawson to the Vanderbilt Community Dennis C. Dickerson said: “The place of Martin Luther King, Jr., the eloquent and charismatic embodiment of civil rights activism, is secure, and now there is an increased appreciation of the creative theoretical contributions of Ella Baker. But, to this triumvirate of civil rights greats and grassroots activists belongs James M. Lawson. His Nashville workshops and the sit-ins they produced, his singular stand against short-sighted Vanderbilt authorities aghast at his insurgent activism, and his leadership among the striking sanitation workers in Memphis are enough to entitle him to these enviable honors and long overdue awards. Lawson, notwithstanding these acclaimed accomplishments, is an unusually crucial public theologian and movement tactician.
The event, sponsored by the Tennessee Conference Committee on Christian Unity and Inter-religious Concerns, is to be held at Nashville’s Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church, January 14, 2007, starting at 4:00 p.m. Two biblical texts will provide the worship focus: Micah 6: 7-8 and Colossians 3: 14-15.
This is a terse announcement of what could become one of the most powerful worship experiences in conference history. To begin with, the preacher will be the Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr., a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King labeled Lawson as “the leading nonviolence theorist in the world.”
Rev. Lawson first met Martin Luther King in 1957, and they soon joined forces to realize their dream of starting a non-violent mass movement. That same year Rev. Lawson went to Nashville to teach the mechanics of nonviolence to budding civil rights activists. Lawson continued to work with King until his death but has never given up on their shared dream of racial harmony. Later he became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for 14 years, the organization founded by King to end racial segregation by nonviolent protest. More about Lawson is included below.
Children from throughout the Conference are being brought together to perform a new version of the old hymn Joyful, Joyful. They will be accompanied by Tim Hayden, Director of Music at LaVergne First United Methodist Church. Hayden is unmatched in his skill, talent and dedication to excellence. He is also an amazing composer and has written the arrangement of Joyful, Joyful that will be taught to the children. Rev. Beth Gaines, who is organizing the children’s choir, admits that Joyful, Joyful might sound a little stuffy for children but then expands on her thought: “this is a put-on-your-seatbelt-we’re-gonna-rock-the-house” kind of arrangement. “This is all about worshipping God in an amazingly fun and exciting way!”
Also part of the service will be choirs from Woodbine United Methodist Church and Primera Iglesia Metodista Hispana (Hispanic congregation at Woodbine); Tennessee Conference minister and story teller the Rev. Rosemary Brown; Mattielyn Williams, chairperson Religion and Race; Bishop Richard Wills; Rev. Nancy Neelley; and Rev. Sam Purushotam. Other individuals and choirs will also participate but have not been confirmed as this goes to press. In addition, the Rev. Michael Williams and professional video producer (and United Methodist layman) Robert Tigert, Jr., are preparing a short video segment that blends voices from the past with contemporary interviews focusing on the question, “Where is the vision today?”
Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church is located at 2334 Herman Street, Nashville, Tennessee 37208.
Rev. James M. Lawson is Welcomed back to Vanderbilt University
Excerpted from the article “Vanderbilt’s most famous expellee settles back on campus” by Jim Patterson. The article welcomes James M. Lawson back to Vanderbilt and Nashville as a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Center for the Study of Religion and Culture.
Lawson’s life – including his student years at Vanderbilt – is marked by an abiding faith in the principles of Christianity and non-violence, and a willingness to pay the price for those beliefs. He served 13 months of a three-year prison sentence for refusing the draft during the Korean War, and was expelled from Vanderbilt in 1960 because of his work in the civil rights movement in Nashville.
After a national press uproar and threats of mass faculty resignations, a compromise allowed Lawson to complete his graduate studies at Vanderbilt. He opted instead to complete his degree at Boston University.
Vanderbilt and Lawson reconciled in various ways over the years, and he returned to Vanderbilt Divinity School during a sabbatical in 1970-71. But university officials still felt like the relationship was incomplete until naming Lawson the 2005 Distinguished Alumnus and announcing his return as Distinguished University Professor for the 2006-07 academic year.
“Permanently expelled from Vanderbilt University, James Lawson would have done fine and well,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, during the January dinner announcing his return. “But Vanderbilt could not be fine or well without confronting its troubled soul. … James Lawson has progressively helped this university find its conscience – and dare I say – its soul.”
A lifelong Christian and pastor emeritus of the Holston United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Lawson holds Christianity to high standards, and his blistering criticism is hard for some to accept. He’s preparing for a spring course with the working title of Jesus Against Christianity (the title is appropriated from a book by Jack Nelson Pallmeyer) that will argue that much religion in the United States is really idolatry.
“I would like to engage in a no-bars-held conversation about authentic religion,” he said. “I am persuaded that very often the Bible is an idol in American religion, rather than a kind of conversation between God and our human scene.”
“It’s not an easy course,” Lawson notes, “You run into situations where you get expelled from a university.”
Lawson “an unusually crucial public theological and movement tactician”
In introducing James M. Lawson to the Vanderbilt Community Dennis C. Dickerson said: “The place of Martin Luther King, Jr., the eloquent and charismatic embodiment of civil rights activism, is secure, and now there is an increased appreciation of the creative theoretical contributions of Ella Baker. But, to this triumvirate of civil rights greats and grassroots activists belongs James M. Lawson. His Nashville workshops and the sit-ins they produced, his singular stand against short-sighted Vanderbilt authorities aghast at his insurgent activism, and his leadership among the striking sanitation workers in Memphis are enough to entitle him to these enviable honors and long overdue awards. Lawson, notwithstanding these acclaimed accomplishments, is an unusually crucial public theologian and movement tactician.
