WHAT I LEARNED FROM MORDECAI HAM
Mark Coppenger
October 1, 1988
Ever since I heard TV's Jim Rockford call a mobster's henchman a "pet squirrel," I've had a hard time shaking the expression. Headed to seminary, I wondered whether I might one day become some congregation's pet squirrel. Now, four years into my first pastorate, the threat still seems genuine.
Throughout seminary, in books, and from conferences to conversations, I've been cautioned to go easy-that boldness and bluntness are imprudent, or immoral. There's always pressure to lighten up.
If darling Missy wants to marry a thrice-divorced avowed bisexual, then the pastor should comply, since to turn his back on their union would mean that he "isn't loving" and "couldn't minister to them later." The furor raised if he doesn't would underscore the maxims that "You have to be careful not to get too far out in front of your troops, or they'll mistake you for the enemy and start shooting" and "You can't lead them if you no longer work there." You know the words.
Which brings me to Mordecai Ham.
I'd always heard of him as the preacher to whose invitation Billy Graham walked the aisle. I figured him to be a rawboned, disheveled original-what with a name like Mordecai-whose only claim to fame was Graham's response to his preaching. But what did I know?
Rugged revivalist
In the midst of my study of Arkansas Baptist revivals, I found that Ham had captured the imagination of two of our state's major cities in 1933. He was conventional and sleek in appearance and gifted in communicating to professionals. Under his preaching during the first fifty years of this century, hundreds of thousands made fresh commitments to Christ.
But a pet squirrel he was not. The accounts of Ham's boldness remind me that I represent a shocking Lord, and woe to me if ...
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