Islamic caliphate of the future.
95 For my personal description of and perspective on this effort, see Manning, Think Big.
96 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1790), 18–19.
1.8 THE GREAT GUIDELINE:
WISE AS SERPENTS AND GRACIOUS AS DOVES
During the first year of Jesus’ three-year public life it would appear that the main role of his small band of followers was simply to follow, listen, and observe the master at work. But there came a day when this initial apprenticeship was over, and he began to send them out to do public work—to speak and act publicly on their own in his name.
Jesus’ instructions on that day were well remembered by one who was there—Matthew, the former tax collector. He later recorded, in Matthew 10, Jesus’ instructions to them. Paramount among those is what I call the great guideline for believers called to exercise their faith in public. Jesus said to them, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”97
Wise as Serpents, Gracious as Doves
The analogies Jesus employs here are striking, particularly to those familiar with the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. In those Scriptures, the serpent is the symbol of the devil—evil personified, the antithesis of God, the “wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-existence” as Dostoyevsky called him.98 So in essence Jesus is saying to his followers, “In your public lives, be as shrewd as the devil.”
Likewise, in the New Testament the dove is the symbol of the spirit of God. So in essence Jesus is saying to his followers, “In your public lives, be as gracious as the spirit of God.”
Foolishness in the Name of God
Note further what Jesus did not say in sending out his followers to do public work. He did not say, “Be vicious as snakes and stupid as pigeons,” although, sadly, it must be acknowledged that sometimes we believers act as if this is the perverse guideline governing our public conduct.
As believers we must acknowledge that we are quite capable of acting foolishly, even viciously, in the name of God, especially at the interface of faith and public life, and need to be constantly cautioned against doing so.
The Old Testament prophet Samuel was obliged to say to Saul, Israel’s first king, “You have done a foolish thing” when as a political leader he disobeyed the instruction of Samuel and expropriated functions that were the domain of the priests.99 David, a man after God’s own heart, nevertheless had to confess, “I have done a very foolish thing” after he conducted an ill-advised census of Israel’s army.100 In addition, the book of Proverbs contains dozens of admonitions, attributed to wise King Solomon, to avoid “foolishness.”
In our time, one of the great but often ignored services to the Christian community by the American evangelist Billy Graham is his confession of acting foolishly on his very first excursion into the political world and the lessons he learned from it.
This incident, recorded in the introduction to his autobiography, occurred just after he and his evangelistic team had received national media attention as a result of very large evangelistic crusades in Los Angeles and Boston and throughout New England. As a newborn celebrity it was arranged for him and his team to visit the White House to meet President Truman, an intersection of faith and public life. Graham ruefully describes what happened in the following words:
I was just a tanned, lanky thirty-one-year-old, crowned by a heavy thatch of wavy blond hair, wearing what Time magazine would later describe as a “pistachio-green” suit … with rust-colored socks and a hand-painted tie. My three colleagues [Jerry Beavan, Grady Wilson, and Cliff Barrows] were similarly attired. But was there something missing, we asked ourselves.
We had seen a picture of the President on vacation in Florida, wearing white buck shoes. That was it! Grady already had a pair. I sent him to the nearest Florsheim store to buy white bucks for Cliff and me. So how could we go wrong? …
Promptly at noon, we were ushered into the Oval Office. From the look on President Truman’s face, the chief executive of our nation must have thought he was receiving a traveling vaudeville team … I told him about Los Angeles, … Boston, … and my extensive New England tour in the early months of 1950 … I had publicly called on the President of the United States to proclaim a day of national repentance and prayer for peace.
Mr. Truman nodded as though he remembered the incident …
Our allotted time was quickly running out, and what I really wanted to talk to him about was faith. I did not know how to begin.
“Mr. President,” I blurted out, “tell me about your religious background and leanings.”
“Well,” he replied in his Missouri accent, “I try to live by the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule.”
“It takes more than that, Mr. President. It’s faith in Christ and His death on the Cross that you need.”
The President stood up. Apparently, our twenty minutes were up. We stood up too.
“Mr. President, could we have prayer?”
“It can’t do any harm,” he said—or something similar.
I put my arm around the shoulders of the President of the United States of America and prayed …
When we stepped outside the White House, reporters and photographers from the press corps pounced on us.
“What did the President say?”
I told them everything I could remember.
“What did you say?”
Again I told them everything I could remember.
“Did you pray with the President?”
“Yes, we prayed with the President.”
“What did he think about that?” someone called out.
Before I could respond, an enterprising photographer asked us to kneel on the lawn and re-enact the prayer. The press corps roared its approval. I declined to repeat the words we had prayed in the Oval Office, but I said that we had been planning to thank God for our visit anyway, and now was as good a time as any.
The four of us bent one knee of our pastel summer suits, and I led the prayer of thanksgiving as sincerely as I could, impervious to the popping flashbulbs and scribbling pencils.
It began to dawn on me a few days later how we had abused the privilege of seeing the President. National coverage of our visit was definitely not to our advantage. The President was offended … Mr. Truman never asked me to come back.
A White House staff memorandum in late 1951 stated it bluntly: “At Key West the President said very decisively
