Still savoring my last jellybean, I realize the Easter bunny is talking to me. How embarrassing! After spending an hour at the grocery store, I’ve become so distracted by the opportunity to receive a handful of free jellybeans, from the Easter bunny, that I’ve left a buggy overflowing with groceries at the check-out counter with the over-sized, talking rodent. I bet that was the best deal he’d gotten all day.

Eight months later, I am in the same parking lot when I'm approached in a very different manner. I'm clearing out a space in my mini-van to accommodate groceries I'm determined to remember on my own. Once again, I hear a voice addressing me.

“Ma’am, I don’t usually ask people for money, but could I please have a quarter to make a phone call?”

Looking up, I see a shabbily dressed woman with a bruised, tear-stained face. Her hair is a mess, reflective of her emotions at the moment. I'm caught off-guard, and my initial response is an attempt to appraise the situation. I am apprehensive about opening my pocketbook around a stranger asking for a hand-out, though I seldom have more than a couple of dollars with me. Without giving her an answer, I just look at her. I suspect my eyes are questioning.

 “I was on my way to Florida to spend Christmas with my mother,” she explains. “It was late last night when I got to Savannah. While I was waiting on my bus to Florida, I was beaten up and robbed.” She begins sobbing. “I just want a quarter so I can call my mother to wire some money to me so I can get out of this place.”

I ask the woman to wait while I check to see if I have any money with me. I find a five dollar bill.
 
“Oh, I don’t need this much,” the woman says when I hand the money to her.

"You look like you could use something to eat," I respond. "At least a cup of coffee."

Then, right there in the middle of the parking lot filled with Christmas shoppers, the battered woman throws her arms around my neck and hugs me. I hug her back. Her tears begin flowing all over again, and I start feeling teary, too.
 

The American Bar Journal recently announced the renaming of a North Miami Beach law firm. The firm’s primary partner became a born-again Christian nine years ago, and he wanted to let the world know that he had been “washed in the blood of Jesus.” So, like Vernon Howell (no offense, Mr. Soap), the sanitized attorney took on a symbolic new surname (Soap) and renamed his law firm the “Jesus Loves You Law Firm.” Each to his own, but I really don’t think such methods are expected of those of us attempting to maintain a Christian work ethic while living out our faith. I guess I should be glad I was given a cleansing name at birth. Though my name (Maxine) is French in origin, it was the name of a bar of American complexion soap in the 30’s.
 
Am I being cynical? You betcha! Off-beat religion and people who always try projecting squeaky cleanliness, incongruent with their behavior, send me to the top of a mega-soap box. It’s sometimes hard for me to come down once I get up there. 

I recently heard about a local pastor arrogantly proclaiming that it's easier to get into heaven than it is to get into his church, where a prerequisite for membership includes passing the pastor’s “purity test” (preceded by required attendance at a special class, private counseling sessions, and rigid examinations---a church where Mendelssohn’s Wedding March  is dubbed “pagan” and considered unacceptable at wedding ceremonies held in its sanctuary. Of course, this type of exclusivity for membership is also a subtle method of weeding out individuals who are not willing to subject themselves to a system of blind obedience. Anyone willing to submit to another human being’s “Big P” (puritan or pagan) test would be “Big P” (putty) in the hands of an unhealthy leader. Perhaps David Koresh is not the only spiritual leader who is having an identity crisis shrouded with illusions of omnipotence and omniscience. A political leader of Germany once shared a similar obsession with purity and the breeding of a superior people. Mendelssohn’t music was also banned by him.

It seems I’m not the only one concerned about today’s frightening pervasiveness of unhealthy religion. During the past couple of months I have seen the issue addressed everywhere from the cartoon “Kudzu” to “Dear Abby.” When Kudzu’s preacher receives a letter from a pilgrim asking for advice concerning the pilgrim’s decision to join a religious cult or sect, the preacher responds with a warning: “If you’re going to practice religion, remember, practice safe sects!” In a recent column, Abby addresses the issue in a more serious manner with her inclusion of the following message by the Rev. Milton R. Schemm of Fresno, California.
 

Like many cards, and letters sent to me by Jerry since she and her husband left Savannah, her message was filled with expressions of love, encouragement, and support for my family and me. Yet, between the lines, I perceived that something was worse than her slight mention that her husband was “not doing well.”

Concerned about my friend, I did what I knew she would do if the situation were reversed. I called to check on them--to see how I might help. It was at that time when Jerry shared with me her husband’s true condition. He was dying, and his doctors did not believe he would live much longer. She told me that she wanted me to talk with him, and I was pleased. It had been a year since the three of us last talked, and our three-way telephone conversation had been a lengthy one. I will never forget some of the things my former minister said to me during that time of sharing, nor will I foget important validations he provided for me.

As soon as I heard my minister friend’s voice in February, I knew it would be the last time I would hear it. I knew it would be my last opportunity to express how much he meant to my family and me--how much we appreciated and loved him. Immediately after our conversation, I made the phone calls I promised I would make to his other friends in the community. That wonderful Christian gentleman died one week later. But, during his last week, he received many tokens of love from those to whom he had ministered messages and examples of Christ-like love.

On the day “Texas Shootout Kills 6” monopolized national headlines, there was a much smaller article on a back page of The Savannah News-Press. It appeared in the obituary column. In small print, the article told about the death of someone who was no Johnny-come-lately to the ministry. Someone who proclaimed Christ-like love, not proof-texted law, for over fifty years. Someone who children felt comfortable running up to and hugging, with whom women felt comfortable talking without fear of intimidation. Someone who treated subordinates with respect and courtesy, even when he was insulted or treated with disrespect in return. Always wearing a genuine smile, this was a man of God who radiated warmth and integrity. His keen wit was enjoyed by all. No wonder listings in “Who’s Who in Religion,” “Who’s Who in America,” and “Who’s Who in the World” were among Dr. J. Fulton’s distinctions. He was a God-ordained, not a self-annointed, leader who did not have to stomp on people to rise to the top. There was no doubts about it. Wayte Fulton was a servant of God and a servant of the people to whom he ministered. He did not feel he had been sent to be served. He always exercised strong leadership, but never lordship.

Within an hour after I learned about Dr. Fulton’s death, I was contacted by a local television station covering the standoff in Texas. The newscaster wanted to interview me concerning the mindset of people who become involved in religious sects or cultic groups and my perception of the local scene. It was difficult for me to be interviewed so soon after hearing about the death of a man I deeply cared about. But I knew it was something Dr. Fulton would want me to do. He shared my concern for unhealthy religion, he promoted cult education at his last pastorate in Alabama, and he had personal knowledge about the situation which spurred my interest in bogus religion -- this is why he supported my efforts of exposing spiritual abuse and unhealthy religion so strongly.
 

                                                            Time For A Resurrection

Like my distractions with the glitzy Easter bunny at the grocery store, who offered me a “quick-fix” with a handful of multi-colored jelly beans, we sometimes become distracted with the colorful, sugar-coated promises of glitzy spiritual leaders or religious gurus. When we do, we often lose focus, become side-tracked, and end up forgetting what we go to church for in the first place. Rather than leaving a worship service with the bag of healthy spiritual food we go to receive, we may end up with something comparable to a hand full of empty-caloried jelly beans.

Just as Jesus approached the women in the garden of Easter morning, God typically comes to us quietly and in the most unanticipated manner. The lily white rodent provided me instant gratification. But I received what I needed the most that day in December from a hurting human being in the parking lot--a big hug and the feeling that I had made a difference in someone’s life, if only for a few moments. God comes to us where we are, meeting our needs in mundane, extraordinary ways.

As parents, I believe we must help our children understand that people may come out in rabbit garb at Easter time, but wolves in sheep skin lurk all year long--and the religious wackos are not restricted to Waco. They can often be found hopping about in our own backyards, and that is when we can do something before there is another "evangelism explosion."

It is my prayer that, as a result of the expose of unhealthy religion and unscrupulous spiritual leaders during recent years, healthy religion will be resurrected in the 90’s. I pray that the real Jesus will once again be revealed through real people, not programmed religious robots. I trust that through the character we exemplify as imperfect parents and impure human beings, and our children will grow up knowing who the real Jesus is - and who He is not.

Sometimes we have to be stuck with a counterfeit before we learn to recognize the real thing.

NOTES: Written by Maxine Pinson, this article was originally printed in the April 1993 edition of Savannah Parent   magazine and reprinted with permission. She is now (June 1999) a graduate student at Union Theological 
Seminary/PSCE, in Richmond, VA, where Dr. Wayte Fulton recived his doctor of Divinity). She is preparing for an inspirational and expository writing ministry. Maxine feels honored that, accompanying her application to Union, two of her personal references included Mrs. Wayte Fulton and Dr. Charles Hasty (another much loved and well-respected recipient of a doctor of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary).