"Justice Sunday" at Valhalla Baptist Church ...
National attention will focus briefly there when James Dobson's Family Research Council rallies support for the administration's nominees to the federal appellate court."Justice Sunday" is billed as a challenge to"the filibuster against people of faith." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will join them by video and the Southern Baptist Seminary's president, R. Albert Mohler, will address the gathered throng. They'll be meeting at Louisville's Highview Baptist Church. I don't remember a"Highview Baptist Church" when I was growing up in Louisville, but it's one of those new mega-churches with – not one – but two" campuses," seven full-time ministers, and seven other professional staff members. You know it's big when they have a full-time Minister of Recreation to manage Jesus's volleyball teams. I shudder when Baptists start talking about their Ministry of Recreation. Sounds like a reach for all-encompassing power in a totalitarian state.
Highview Baptist Church's two" campuses" are on ground very familiar to me. Its"Fegenbusch campus" now spreads over what was the beautiful old Fegenbusch farm not more than three miles from where I grew up and its"East Campus" is just a little further away in the other direction. But if you asked someone in Louisville now where the"East Campus" is, they'd be likely to tell you that it's next to the Valhalla Golf Club. You gotta wonder what scholar named a golf club"Valhalla."
But that's more like it. The last time I talked with him, Jesus didn't have a position on whether Janice Rogers Brown should be confirmed to sit on the federal appellate court. But Odin would and Valhalla's where he'd rally his troops.
Valhalla, Hall of the Slain, in Norse mythology is the hall presided over by Odin. This vast hall has five hundred and forty doors. The rafters are spears, the hall is roofed with shields and breast-plates litter the benches. A wolf guards the western door and an eagle hovers over it. It is here that the Valkyries, Odin's messengers and spirits of war, bring half of the heroes that died on the battle fields (the rest go to Freya's hall Folkvang). These heroes, the Einherjar, are prepared in Valhalla for the oncoming battle of Ragnarok. When the battle commences, eight hundred warriors will march shoulder to shoulder out of each door.The more I read those definitions from Norse mythology, the more they fit. Odin gathers his warriors in an imposing fortress in preparation for a mighty battle. Whatever goes on tomorrow night at Louisville's Valhalla Baptist Church has nothing to do with"people of faith," whatever its Valkaries may claim. They're playing valhallaball and their deepest wrong is worshiping a false god.