They were called stewardship dinners, as I recall, and they were at least as important as the Christmas cantata and the annual Lottie Moon drive to raise money for international missions of the Southern Baptist stripe. They were catered affairs as opposed to the covered-dish suppers that I much preferred. The most engaged members of the congregation would be there, and most of the ladies would have put as much care into what they wore as they did for Easter Sunday.
Of course, the main thrust of the event was to raise more money from those who were already giving. There would be little speeches and testimonials of the blessings to come from tithing, given by those who did to those who didn’t. Those who tithed would be admonished to remember that the 10% they were giving was only what already belonged to the Lord, that a real gift was to contribute more than that, and that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. There might even be a helpful reminder that the calculation should be performed on gross income, not just take-home pay.
By the time I was attending these dinners in my early teens, I had begun to realize that Hell yawned ahead of me in a particular way, raising my fear level and leading me to consider if I needed a little more insurance than just a baptism.
So I wondered if maybe I should be tithing out of my weekly allowance. But then I realized that Daddy gave me the allowance, and he had at least tithed on the money before he gave it to me. Therefore, what I got should be tithe-free. Having this history of critical thinking has proven helpful in understanding the Federal Tax Code.
Over the years since, I’ve had occasion, just as most of you have, to attend these fundraisers for all types of causes in all types of venues. The mother of all such events today is the annual Met Gala, which requires not just $75,000 per ticket but inclusion on the guest list approved by Anna Wintour.
So there’s been a good deal of attention paid to that fundraiser in Washington last weekend. Whether or not it was staged has been bandied about, and clips from the event have been endlessly played and analyzed. I don’t really care about getting into all of that, other than to say the most interesting clips to me have been the ones showing those in attendance who are unknown to the general public being herded like cattle out of the ballroom. No special security for them.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner may be the greatest gathering of American elites that takes place annually. Politicians of the highest rank, often including the president, celebrities of various types, and the most easily recognizable journalists attend, setting aside their differences for the evening and enjoying some good-natured ribbing. Yeah, right…
This dinner is the most high-profile activity of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which for decades has handled the process by which journalists and news outlets are credentialed and get access to the president and the White House briefing room. That is, until last year, when the White House jerked that authority back to itself. This usurping of power might have been interpreted as a metaphorical declaration of war, and Trump’s remarks about the press throughout his tenure in elected politics match in rhetoric how he talks about the “Democrat Party” and those Iranians with whom he’s taken us to war. Am I the only one who finds it difficult to respect an organization that lacks the integrity to even hold a grudge, much less act on it?
That Trump might have found himself in serious physical danger by attending an event raising money to support journalism with scholarships for students, awards for excellence, and promotion for the role of the free press in our democracy is more than ironic. His being there could be compared to Harry Truman going to a fundraiser for Japanese children orphaned by the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I understand that there is a thirst for things to return to more normal, less chaotic times. But I’m beginning to wonder if less chaotic is an appropriate desire and more normal not so much. There are voices gathering that object to the old normal returning on the other side of all of this.
It is a point worth pondering.
