I Can’t Stop Writing!

Hi, my name is Marshall, and I’m an addict. No I am not a drug addict or an alcoholic. I am a writing addict. I realized it this week when I was getting ready to promote my newest book on this blog, on Facebook, and on the Sandwich Board (a Yahoo group for residents of our town). It felt like I had just done this recently. So I looked up the publication dates of my last four books and saw that I have published four books in the last six months.

That’s a lot of books in a short time! In my defense, one of them was written back in 1979, and I just updated and published it. There I go making excuses! Rationalizing my behavior. That is what addicts do. Even three books written in six months is a lot of books. I published four more in 2017. Apparently I have been busy since I retired in 2016. And there were more books before that - 17 in all. Whew!

That doesn’t count my blog, newsletters, and newspaper articles. I even tried writing poetry for a year in 2012. (Fortunately for the world all my poems were lost when my laptop crashed.) I can’t stop writing. The good part is that I am never bored. Researching and writing takes a lot of time. I wake up early and start writing before my wife is out of bed. I wake up during the night and scribble ideas on a pad of paper that I keep on the bedside table.

I can’t stop writing. The truth is I don’t want to stop writing. I love it. I can communicate to a larger and more diverse audience than I did when I was preaching. These days I normally sell between 300 and 400 books a month. That won’t put my titles on any bestseller lists, but it is a larger audience than I had when I was preaching.

For forty years I preached every Sunday. I loved preaching, and still do it on occasion. But writing for the public is very different than preaching to the faithful. I voice all those unspoken, controversial and half-crazy ideas which weren’t appropriate for a Sunday homily.

Most of my life I have teetered on the edge of controversy. Several times I fell over the edge and got myself into trouble in my churches, my denomination and the community for my ethical and theological stances. I won’t go into details. (You will have to read my books for those!)

My ministry has always been an uncomfortable fit with Christians who measure faithfulness by the well-worn ruts of orthodoxy. I have always seen spirituality more of an adventure than an apologetic for traditional Christian religion.

Anyway, now I write. I write a lot. More than I realized.  I get caught up in the frenzy of clicking a keyboard and lose track of time. Then I wake up six months later and discover I have finished four books. My most recent book is entitled “Christianity Without Beliefs.” The preface to the book starts off with these words:

Once upon a time there was a gospel without doctrines. There was time when Christianity did not have beliefs. It did not require its adherents to accept a set of dogmas or Scriptures. There were no creeds, confessions of faith or doctrinal statements. There were no clergy, priests, or pastors. No vestments or sacraments.…

In the beginning Christianity did not even have a name. It was not a religion distinguished from all other religions. It was just a way of life. The early followers of Jesus simply called it “the Way.”  The early church was not an institution or an organization. It was a community of pilgrims traveling a spiritual path. That is the way it used to be. It can be that way again….

As you can see, I am not going to receive any accolades from traditionalists for this book. If you are interested in reading something nontraditional, you can find this book on Amazon. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K6R6ZM2/

No More Prayers

Susan Orfanos’ 27 year-old son, Telemachus, survived the Las Vegas mass shooting last year. He did not survive the shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 7. His mother’s emotional words, spoken before a television camera the next day, were powerful. She said she does not want people praying for her. Here are her exact words:

“My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends, and he came home. He didn’t come home last night, and I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me any more prayers. I want gun control. No more guns!”

I agree with her. I am sick of people sending “thoughts and prayers” as their sole response to mass shootings. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not against prayer … or thinking. I pray. But I am tired of people using prayer as a substitute for action. Prayers are nice, but they are only genuine when they are backed up by an intention to change the situation. 

Actions speak louder than words, even words spoken in prayer. To paraphrase the apostle James, prayer without works is dead. If praying people really care about dying people, they would do something to stop people killing people. As Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.”

Also I am REALLY sick of slogans. They are too often used as an excuse to do nothing. Especially the slogan “Guns don’t kill people ― people kill people!” Everyone knows that is not true. Guns do kill people! Guns do not kill people by themselves, of course, except in those tragic cases of accidental discharge. But people with guns kill people. Take away the guns and you eliminate most of the killing.

Sure, people without guns will still kill people, but far fewer will die. There are other ways to murder, but they are much less efficient. What if that ex-Marine had come into the bar with a knife instead of a .45 caliber Glock with a high-capacity magazine? Sure, he might have killed people, but not many people. He probably would not have gotten past the armed security guard.

So let’s stop the hypocritical prayers and the senseless slogans and work to find a viable solution. I wish I knew what the solution is. I don’t. But doing nothing is not a solution. It is surrender. It seems to me that any solution to the mass shooting epidemic must be multi-faceted. It must include campaign finance reform, gun control legislation, better security in public places, education of the public, and mental healthcare. 

I live in New Hampshire, which has the state motto “Live Free or Die” - with an emphasis on the latter option. Our state legislature routinely rejects any gun control legislation but proposes no alternative solutions. Unfortunately the state motto is becoming a fulfilled prophecy on the national level. Innocent people are dying on the altar of the Second Amendment in order to protect the right of mentally ill and morally depraved people to purchase firearms.

Something more must be done than maintain the status quo and pray. So – paradoxically - I offer this prayer. I pray I will do more than write a blog post. I pray I will act. I pray you will act. I pray that legislatures will act. I pray that people will balance their right to bear arms with the right of others to live free without fear. That is my prayer. Do I hear an “Amen”?

I Did Not Speak Out

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis during the Second World War. His famous untitled poem, which begins, “First They Came for the Socialists…”, is engraved in granite at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

His poem immediately came to my mind after the recent shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. I lived and ministered near Pittsburgh for thirteen years, until we moved back to New Hampshire in 2011. This is my interpretation of his poem.  I have updated the words to apply to our present time and our country.

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they shot young black men, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not African American.

Then they demonized the Muslims, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the illegal immigrants, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not Hispanic.

Then they denied rights to LGBT people, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not gay.

Then they ignored women’s accounts of sexual assault, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not female.

Then they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a journalist.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me. 

What I did on my Summer Vacation

What did I do this summer? Write, write, write, write, and write. I did some other things too. We had quite a few summer visitors in our home, including our daughter and her family, and all of Jude’s siblings and their spouses. Whew! We enjoyed the lakes, mountains, and ocean. We went swimming often, saw some summer theatre, and I did some summer preaching. The typical things. It was a good summer.

In the midst of it all I worked on a book. My habit is to write nearly every day for a few hours each day. I always wake up early and write at least three hours a day. Some days many more than that. I don’t think there was a single day between Memorial Day and Labor Day that I did not write.

I love writing. I would write even if no one read what I wrote. (I suspect that is actually the case with some of my books.) My newest book is the most personal one I have written so far I get to share the joys and difficulties of being a pastor. The book is entitled, What Your Pastor Won’t Tell You (But I Can Because I am Retired). The title is meant to be humorous, but much of the material in it is very serious.

I did research for this book for months before I started writing. I also got to walk down memory lane, revisiting the painful moments of ministry as well as the wonderful times. In this book I deal with a wide range of practical, spiritual, ethical, biblical, and theological issues. I share personal experiences and moral convictions on a wide range of subjects.

If you are interested, you can get the Kindle version free for the next three days. (September 19, 20, 21) If you want the paperback, you will have to pay for it. Here’s the link to both. I just ask one thing. If you read it, please leave a brief (one or two sentence) review of the book on Amazon. In the meantime I will keep writing. I already have an idea for my next one. Time to start the research!

Christian Voting

I am writing this article after the September 11 primary and before the November 6 general election. The political signs in my front yard will remain up for another two months, although I suspect that my neighbors wish they wouldn’t. I take voting seriously. I research the candidates and vote in every election.

I see voting as a spiritual exercise as well as a civic duty. Even though church and state are separate, my voting and faith are not. That does not mean that I vote only for people who share my Christian faith. I don’t care whether a candidate is religious or not. I am just as willing to vote for an atheist, Jew, or Muslim as a Christian.

Neither do I vote by political party. I am no party loyalist. I am a member of that endangered species called “moderates.” Officially I am “undeclared.” I am equally likely to vote for a Libertarian, a Democrat, or a Republican. I have even voted for Constitution and Green Party candidates.

Furthermore I do not vote primarily on the issues. The issues are important. I have personal opinions on the major issues facing our nation. I would rather have a politician agree with me than not. But I often vote for people I disagree with on some issues.

Some Christian groups would have you believe that issues are all important. That Christians must vote for people who share their social agenda regarding the hot button issues of our day, regardless of the candidates’ other qualities. But when I look to the Bible for guidance on such issues, it is not that clear. I see support in the Scriptures for both sides of every issue. The Bible is not a Christian Voters Guide.

For me, voting as a Christian means voting for persons, not positions or policies. In this bitter political climate I am looking for people who are not ideologues, who will cooperate with people they disagree with. I vote for persons based on their character, not their politics. I believe that if we put persons of high moral character into office, then they will do the right thing when the occasion arises.

 

So I look for a person of honesty and integrity. A person who does not lie – which is harder to find the higher you go up the political food chain. I want a person of high moral character. Someone who treats other people – especially their political opponents – with respect. A person of honor who is willing to say and do the right thing even if it costs them the next election.

Those are hard to find. The last time I voted for a president who actually won was in 1976. That was Jimmy Carter. He was too honest to get a second term. Of the two campaign signs in my front yard, one is for a Republican and the other a Democrat. I know them both personally, and they are people of honor. 

That is spiritual voting. Christian voting means voting for the best person running. Honorable persons who will speak and act from a deeply held personal morality, and not according to their party leaders or what is popular at the moment. Persons who are concerned about the needs of the most vulnerable members of our society – the people Jesus cared about - not the desires of the most powerful. People who will do what is right no matter what. That is how this Christian pastor casts his vote.

What Do You Write?

I do guest speaking these days. Usually, but not always, in churches. I will often be introduced as a retired pastor and an author. The follow-up question is “What kind of books do you write?” My short answer is “religious” or “spiritual.” But I have found that those short answers do not answer the question adequately. Those words can mean almost anything these days.

In this blog post I will attempt to answer that question more fully. What do I write? My books fall into three categories. One is Biblical. I have written books on the Biblical books of Esther, the Song of Solomon, and Revelation. I wrote a book exploring the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament, entitled The Evolution of Easter. I also authored my own paraphrase of the Parables of Jesus.

A second category of books is Ministry, with a smattering of Church History thrown in. These are The Baptist Church Covenant, A People Called Baptist, and my first book, More Than a Purpose, which is an analysis of the megachurch movement.

A third category is Spirituality. These books are dearest to my heart. My best-selling book is a modern translation of Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. The second most popular is The Tao of Christ, which is a Christian version of the Chinese classic The Tao Te Ching. 

Third is my modern retelling of John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, entitled The Seeker’s Journey. I also have books on my personal spiritual practice: Experiencing God Directly and Living Presence.

A couple of books do not fit these three categories, so I will put them into a third uncategorized category. There is my exploration of the New Atheism entitled Thank God for Atheists. I also published a children’s book, which is my sole attempt at writing fiction. I wrote it decades ago, chapter by chapter, to read to my young daughter at bedtime. It is entitled The Hidden Ones.

I have a new book coming out this fall which encompasses multiple categories. It is entitled What Your Pastor Won’t Tell You (But I Can Because I’m Retired). It includes chapters on ministry, science, the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics. I get personal about the difficulties of being a pastor. I also deal with some controversial issues that most pastors avoid. Topics like abuse, LGBTQ issues, evolution, climate change, and many more. I speak uncomfortable truths to comfortable Christians.

That is my writing career in 500 words or less. So what will I reply next time I am asked what type of books I write? Probably “religious” or “spiritual.”

If you are interested in any of these books you can read more about them on my Amazon author page. Just click HERE or do a Google search for “Marshall Davis books.”

Understanding Revelation

People have a lot of different reactions to the Book of Revelation. Some are confused by it. Others are afraid of it. Some are obsessed by it. Most are ignorant of it. The average person has likely never heard their pastor preach a sermon from the Book of Revelation. Most mainline pastors have never studied it in depth, much less led their congregation in exploring the last book of the New Testament.

But I – in all my naiveté and egotism – took it upon myself to lead my first fulltime church after seminary in a weekly, verse-by-verse, study of Revelation that lasted six months. I had the confidence to attempt this because of a course I took in seminary, which was taught by a young professor (now deceased) named James Blevins.

It was an eye-opening course! When I enrolled in the class all I knew about Revelation was what I had read in Hal Lindsey’s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970. (That dates me!) The Left Behind series of books and movies that dominated the 1990’s and 2000’s were only a twinkle in the eye of Tim LaHaye.

I assumed that the only way Revelation could be interpreted was in a futurist manner, meaning that it predicted events to happen in the future – our future. Dr. Blevins showed me another way; it should be read like the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It has to do with events in the time it was written.

Most of Revelation is about the near future from the Apostle John’s point of view. The author of Revelation says this repeatedly in the prologue and epilogue of Revelation. It takes intentional blindness to miss those verses. But Christians – if nothing else – are very good at self-deception.

Blevins presented Revelation as a cosmic drama, patterned after Greek and Roman plays performed at the great theatre in his adopted hometown of Ephesus in Asia Minor (present day Turkey.) He presented this view in his book Revelation as Drama (1984). That idea was not original with him, but it certainly was new to me. It really struck home to me when I later visited the ruins of ancient Ephesus.

Revelation was intended to be heard and seen – like John heard and saw it. To demonstrate his point our large seminary class actually performed the whole book of Revelation. (I was the “mighty angel” of Revelation 18:21). I will never forget the experience. Revelation came alive for me, and I actually understood it! It was like seeing a Shakespeare play performed for the first time. Incomprehensible Elizabethan English actually makes sense when heard live on stage.

I have never forgotten what I learned in seminary, and what I taught my first church in Southern Illinois.  I have kept the notes I used back then and referred to them throughout my forty year ministry. I have preached and taught Revelation in every church I have served. Finally after many years I have published my understanding of the Book of Revelation in a new book entitled Understanding Revelation.

In short it says that Revelation is more about Christ with us now than it is about deciphering clues to the date of Christ's Second Coming. That will be disappointing to date-setters, but good news (the literal meaning of the word “gospel”) to Christians seeking to make sense of this strangest book of the Bible.

Revelation is extremely relevant to today. Not because its prophecies are being fulfilled in today’s newspaper headlines, but because Revelation teaches timeless truths applicable to every historical era, including our own. I invite you to read Revelation and my book (preferably together). I hope that as a result you will come to understand the Book of Revelation a little better.