WHY MY "MOURNING FLAG" IS FLYING
One of my mentors, Chaplain Hubert Flesher , an Episcopal priest and onetime seminary professor, formerly of Lehigh University, has died.
Finishing his undergraduate work at Pomona College, he applied and was accepted at Yale for graduate work... by the Divinity school, the Law School AND the Medical School.
He chose to get an M.Div. from Yale which might have been the only unsound decision he ever made in his life. :-)
He and his entire family were there for me through some of the darkest periods of my life, including championing me in three, separate ordination attempts in the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, keeping me just a bit to the side of sanity during my long and tortured experience at a local Episcopal church, and letting me sleep in his office at Lehigh when I was homeless for three months.
His was the first historical-critical, biblical studies course I took at Lehigh, which made a lot more sense than the fundamentalist nonsense I was being fed by my other (well-meaning, loving, and sincere) Christian mentors.
He also encouraged me to go to seminary and then encouraged me not to drop out. :-)
At Lehigh, his Chaplain's Office sponsored a film and discussion series and I remember him facing Inquisition from the on-campus evangelical student fellowships for showing the movie, "Carnal Knowledge" which he argued, to largely deaf evangelical ears, actually bespoke AGAINST the lifestyle depicted.
And, needless to say, when his office sponsored Lehigh tiny homosexual support group, Le-Hi-Ho, back in the '70s, WAY before it became anything like acceptable to do so, they figured he was beyond the pale. (Theologically, though, like most other students, they liked him on a personal level. And he made common cause with the evangelicals as well as the Catholic Newman Center on any number of issues.)
He was a friend of Presidents and Civil Rights Leaders, was a mentor to Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal Divinity School student of his who participated in the march depicted in the movie "Selma" and, after being released from jail following his civil disobedience, was killed by a sheriff's deputy as he shielded 17 year old African-American Ruby Sales, his intended target, from the shotgun blast.
"Upon learning of Daniels' murder, Martin Luther King, Jr. stated that "one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels"." (Wikipedia)
Hugh and Mary's son Jon, is named for him.
When I first heard about Jonathan Daniels from Hugh I, for the first time, realized that the Christian faith was nothing to screw around with. It can get you tortured, maimed, or killed.
It is WHY I'm [aggravated :-)] when I hear evangelical Christian butchers and bakers and candlestick makers [mourning :-)] about having to provide their services to gays getting married and then acting as if there's ANY MEANINGFUL COMPARISON WHATSOEVER between them having to pay a fine for beliefs I suspect are both unbiblical and uncharitable and ACTUAL martyrdom.
(Ruby Sales went on to attend the Episcopal Divinity School and has remained active in Civil Rights. Jonathan Daniels was one of only fifteen people in the 20th century to be recognized as a martyr by the Episcopal Church. The recognition day for all the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement (including Dr. King) is August 14th, the day of Daniels initial arrest. Daniel's icon is being crafted to be installed at the National Cathedral, I believe on Aug 14th of this year.)
Hugh had friends in high places - and low. :-)
He and his family are the closest thing Lehigh University had for a soul
Tagging David John Eisenmenger , Andrea Eisenmenger , William M Pottenger, Robert Kendall, Robert G Jerus, Richard Redd, Robert Morein, David Morein, and Alice Pinck.
Jonathan Daniels (Wikipedia)
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