Funeral sermon by civil rights pastor Rev. Vernon Johns applies to Rev. Jerry Falwell

[HamdenRice]

The Rev. Vernon Johns was the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery Alabama and the immediate predecessor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

Rev. Johns is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern civil rights movement, and it is often said that he laid the foundation on which Dr. King built, when the latter succeeded him at the Dexter Avenue Church and shortly thereafter led the Montgomery bus boycott.

Rev. Johns was both a civil rights leader and a devout Christian. As far as I'm concerned, I would defer to him when it comes to how, morally and ethically, we should regard the deceased. But Rev. Johns also was a truth-teller and felt that sometimes the truth had to be told even if it might seem insensitive.

As Andrew Young once recalled, Rev. Johns was once asked to give a funeral service for a young man of the Montgomery community who had led a troubled, maybe even trifling life. As we think about some of the mixed judgments and criticism that have been posted about Rev. Falwell so soon after his death, perhaps the words that Rev. Johns spoke over that young man's body can provide us some guidance.

According to Andrew Young, Rev. Johns preached before the young man's family as follows that day:

"So and so lived a trifling and worthless life. He went around Montgomery daring someone to cut his throat. Saturday night somebody obliged him. He lived like a dog; he died like a dog. Undertaker claim the body."

[gaspee]

1. OK,

that ranks right up there with best story ever.

[HamdenRice]

2. That's only one of many

Vernon Johns stories. He was an amazing guy who not only told the truth to his congregation, but routinely told off white people in the Jim Crow south. It was sometimes said he was able to get away with it because the town labelled him a "crazy Negro."

At any rate, the moral of the story is that sometimes it's best to just tell the truth about the deceased in as blunt words as possible, rather than indulge in false piety.