On memorials, memory, and movements
I’m writing this on the train heading back from my mentor Welton Gaddy’s memorial service.
When I was in college, I kept writing the same paper over and over—variations on the dangers of the Christian Coalition. So when I wasn’t experiencing as much fulfillment in my job in Congress as I had hoped, my best friend from college said, “Hey; there’s an organization fighting the Christian Coalition. See if the Interfaith Alliance is hiring.”
That’s how I ended up working for Welton Gaddy.
If you’ve read my second book, Pre-Post-Racial America, you may remember Welton from
the chapter on defining racism. Welton came up in the Southern Baptist Church, and he eventually helped found the Alliance of Baptists, made up of the left wing of the Southern Baptists (and American Baptists) who were getting pushed out of the church they’d been raised in.
At the memorial service, people lifted up Welton’s popular radio show State of Belief, which he concluded every week in his southern drawl with “Y’all take care of each other.” People talked about his prophetic witness as someone who stood up against bullies, including Congressional bullies. They talked about what it meant to hear the voice of a white Baptist preacher from the South talking about grace, unconditional love, radical inclusion of gays and lesbians, about racial justice and religious tolerance and the urgent need for the separation of church and state.
The other thing people talked about was what a pastor he was—how he cared about people as individuals, how he extended love and support to so many people. How he flew back to his local church to preach almost every Sunday, keeping one foot in the parish and one in politics.
I mentioned on social media when Welton passed that when he couldn’t make it to my ordination, he sent his wife in his stead rather than just his apologies. Two other people I loved from the Interfaith Alliance, Ambereen Khan and Rabbi Jack Moline, participated in the service and invited me to commit my ministry to a lifetime of solidarity with people of all faiths and good will. I got to hug them both and cry during Jack’s testimony.
My fondest memories of Welton were how I knew my idea wasn’t going anywhere when in a staff meeting he’d say, “Sandhya, that dog won’t hunt,” and how my most tangential idea might get traction if instead he’d say, “well, let’s chase that rabbit for a minute.” How if he said he had a really big favor to ask me, I would say “Is this a Georgia Brown’s level favor?” so that he’d take me to my favorite restaurant for fried green tomatoes (and he’d always say yes, even when it wasn’t much of a favor at all).
I also remember when I was applying to seminaries and I was considering a famous one that had recently been taken over by some very conservative leaders, he said, “Sandhya, I know you’re always ready for a fight, but seminary isn’t when you need to be fighting.” And when I seemed entrenched, he told me if I applied there, he wouldn’t write me recommendations for any of the places I was applying. That may sound paternalistic, but he knew this was not the family business for me and I really needed his help navigating the process. And every single time I saw him after I left the Interfaith Alliance, he’d always ask, “Are you Pope yet?” Which was his way of telling me he believed in me and he believed I was made for big things.
It's funny. I’m back in school now to do something I know about mostly because of the work I got to do at the Interfaith Alliance. In many ways, when I engage my public-facing work with integrity, grace, and humor, a lot of that comes from him. And when I manage to do that and also speak hard truths, I absolutely credit him with that.
A lot of what I know about the threat the religious right poses I learned during my days at TIA and work Welton invited me into. But more importantly, at the beginning of the service, they played a clip of one of Welton’s radio shows, and he said in it, “I’m not interested in organizing against things. I’m here to work FOR things.” And I had a moment of “oh yeah---that’s what we were up to; that’s where I learned that.”
It's been a really hard week. There is so much to grieve. There’s a lot to be against. The service started just after the hospital bombing in Gaza, and in that multifaith space, there is a lot of fear and grief and anxiety. It’s a time our commitments to each other are tenuous, because we’re figuring out whether we can trust each other in times of crisis as well as when it is clear we should be united.
So I needed that reminder, that we’re working FOR something. Because, friends, the world you and I are seeking to create—it’s pretty amazing. We need to be really clear on the threats to it, but we should always re-orient ourselves to that vision.
And while we’re doing that, let’s do what Welton invited his listeners to do every week: let’s take care of each other.
With gratitude,
Sandhya
Thank you, Sandhya! Beautiful reflection. And I'm grateful for your story of Welton. He's someone I first met when I was a brand new minister and we both preached in the same service when I was still in my first years of ministry. So happy that you and I share this connection.