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A Tale of Two Alberts

Written by Terry Howard

The Hand of the Lord . . . is all in the timing.

Prologue

Grantville, 1997

As they crossed the state line into West Virginia, Claudette said, "Albert Green, I did not marry you to be stuck in some backwoods little brown church in the dell. If I'd wanted to live in the hills I could have married Tom Anders right out of high school and raised pigs."

"Why, Claudette Hawley, I thought you married me for my body."

She laughed. "Seriously Albert, you've got too good a mind to let it go to waste. You should be teaching, preferably back at Louisville."

"We both know why that isn't likely to happen. The way things are going, a liberal Southern Baptist school is not going hire a teacher with my credentials, especially with my published credits. Not that a conservative school is going to overlook my published credits either."

"Yes," Claudette replied quite seriously, "you do seem to have a way of writing papers that upset both sides at the same time."

"About my only hope of getting a teaching job is going to be a secular school or at least somewhere outside of the denomination and you know what kind of problems come with that." He didn't have to mention how close the latter part of that statement was to being true for pulpits also. The deacon board at the church he pastored in Dallas while taking his doctorate at Southwestern Theological Seminary grew increasingly uneasy with each paper he published. It was understood that he would move on as soon as his education was completed. Fortunately, they were gracious about things when it became clear that he was having trouble finding somewhere to go.

Grantville had never had a pastor with more than a B.S. They were willing to overlook his degrees just to get someone to come. So it did not matter if the degree was from a liberal or a conservative school. His published credits never came up at all. That his family lived just a few miles away in Shinnston did come up. That was how he heard of Grantville's vacancy and Grantville of his willingness to come. It was assumed he wanted to be close to home and his aged and ailing mother. This often cited, and officially unmentioned, factor provided an acceptable, face-saving reason for his willingness to accept a smaller and less lucrative pulpit than the one he was leaving.

Grantville's reputation for being rough on pastors was well deserved and things did not wait to get started.

On the day they arrived old Deacon Albert Underwood met them with the keys to the parsonage. He lost no time in letting them know just how things were in his church.

"Reverend Green, I thought I should tell you up front, I opposed calling you. Grantville is an old congregation with old ways. I was a deacon in this church before you were a gleam in your daddy's eye. Preachers come and preachers go but the deacons remain. My daddy was a deacon here, as was his daddy. Both of them are still here, right out there in the graveyard. We ain't never had a preacher with so many high-falootin' certificates hanging on his wall. We don't need one now. Shoot, all a fellow needs is an ordination certificate, saying he was called of the Lord and acknowledging that he has been with Christ.

"I've seen a lot of preachers try and make a lot of changes. Just leave things as they are and you will have a much easier time of it while you're here."

"If you didn't want a seminary trained man, why did you call me?"

"It was the Lord's will," the old deacon said. By which Pastor Green assumed he meant they couldn't get anybody else to come. "Here are the keys."

When he was gone, Albert said to Claudette, "It was the Lord's will. We're a perfect match. They couldn't get anyone else to come. We couldn't get anyone else to take us." They laughed when he said it. The laughter eased the pain at least a bit for a short time.

A warm crock-pot with a first-rate homemade chicken pot pie waited for them in the kitchen with a pitcher of tea in the refrigerator and complete picnic supplies including fresh homemade bread. A note said, "Just leave the crock-pot in the church kitchen."

"Well, it looks like we won't be going out for lunch," Claudette said. The picnic table in the backyard hosted their first meal in the parsonage.

The moving van came promptly at one o'clock. Some volunteers showed up to help. By sundown half of Grantville knew most of what they had was too nice and the rest was shabby. Anything that wasn't custom made or an antique came from a second hand shop. For once the gossip mongers got it, mostly, right. Claudette shopped the second hand stores of Dallas. A member of the congregation refurbished antiques and custom-built furniture as a hobby. Over the years they were there, with the help of a part-time upholsterer who worked on the pastor's projects for cost of materials, the Greens ended up with a lot of very nice furniture.

Mrs. Myers stopped by while the furniture and boxes were being unloaded and looked up Claudette. "Claudette, I'm Amy. I don't know if you remember me from when you and your husband came as candidates. Anyway, we had a big fight over who got to have you for dinner tonight and I won." She handed Claudette a file card with a map and an address and a note: Dinner 6:00. "See you then." She left before Claudette could say yes, no, or can we make it at 6:15?

Claudette was standing there with the note in her hand watching the whirlwind depart when Albert came up. "What's that?"

"Dinner," she replied.

"Looks rather small and dry," Albert joked.

"An invitation to dinner," Claudette replied just as dryly.

"Oh, that's different."

Over a substantial meal, through which Mrs. Myers talked nonstop, Mr. Myers said nothing beyond "Pass the potatoes, please." When his wife went to get the cream-filled cake out of the refrigerator, her husband took that opportunity to get two cents in. "If I know Deacon Underwood, he's already given you his, 'deacons are here forever' speech. I wish I could tell you not to worry about him. We've had five pastors and a lot of interims over the last twenty years. The longest anyone stayed was four years. He had a daughter in high school. They moved a week after she graduated. Underwood complained constantly about him not doing anything. If you try to change things, the old man is going to complain about it. If you don't, then he'll complain about that. So you can count on him complaining.

"I've been told that years ago, when he was a young man, he did some preaching. They tell me he was pretty good. But he wouldn't admit to having a calling. They tell me he's been miserable ever since. It seems like he's always trying to prove that he could be doing a better job of being a pastor than whoever has the job. I'd tell you to ignore him, but he won't let you. Underwood's family goes way back. They were charter members of the church. That means a lot. People listen to the old fool."

"Hale, you shouldn't say things like that," their hostess said when she returned to the table.

"It's the truth," he replied.

"Well, you'll be old yourself one day if you live long enough."

"What's that got to do with this? Albert Underwood is an old ass; before that he was a young ass."

"Dear . . ." Mrs. Myers voice, dripping with honey, failed to hide the sharp taste of acrimony. "Albert Underwood is a fine man and I'm sure he has the best interest of the church at heart!"

****

Not long after the Greens arrived, Joe Jenkins' wife said to her husband, "Joseph, you ought to come hear the new preacher. You'd like him."

"So? If I like him that means he'll be gone in two years instead of three. You can't hardly get to know a fellow in that amount of time."

She sighed. She knew Joe was bitter and she knew why.

****

Shortly after arriving in Grantville, Claudette started looking for a job. None of the elementary schools within driving distance need a teacher as late in the year as she started looking, so she asked to be put on the substitute list. The hardware store had a help wanted sign in the window and Claudette stopped in and filled out an application. That night Nina Underwood, the office manager at the hardware store, told her husband Albert, one of the deacons at the church, that the store was thinking about hiring her.

"Nina," Albert said, "it isn't right. A man's wife shouldn't be working outside of the home."

"Yours does."

"That's different. She still has children in school and she should be there for them. It's a bad example. A mother with kids still at home shouldn't be working outside of the home. Raising kids is a full time job.

"When the women went to work in World War Two and the kids were left to raise themselves the nation went to hell and it ain't ever come back."

"Albert, maybe they need the money."

"Nonsense! We're paying them enough to live on. I wouldn't let you get a job until the kids were all out of the house. It was hard, but we got by. He's supposed to be setting an example. Besides, if she's working full time then he's likely doing the house work and he ain't got time to be doing that."

"Things are different now than they were back then. When our kids were growing up we kept a big garden and I canned a lot of what we ate. They don't have room for a garden."

"Nina, you know good and well that there are plenty of people who will invite her into the pea patch. She's got two boys to help her. It will do them good to have to work some. Builds character. He's just going to have to tell his wife to stop and that is all there is to that. You can still live on one income if you don't go getting fancy. She don't need to be buying more antiques. She's got enough of them already.

"We went through all of this with the pastor before last and I'm sure the deacon board will see it my way."

"They still had preschool kids and he was bringing them to the office and even on hospital calls once or twice. Her boys are in school. It's different."

"We didn't let the last pastor's wife work either and she didn't have preschool kids."

"And they left after one year. Don't you want this one to stay awhile?"

"Nope! Not if he can't lead by example and rule his household well like Paul told Timothy. We've got that deacon's resolution that the pastor's wife should not have a job if they've got kids and we can make it stick."

Hale Myers stopped by and chatted with Pastor Green about it. "Look, I know it's old-fashioned. But we're an old-fashioned community and let's face it, if you look at the make-up of the church it's just a plain old church and a lot of them are living in the past. You're going to have to tell her to quit looking for a job or it's going to come up in a business meeting. She can substitute as a teacher a day or two every week or two. That's seen as a service to the community. But that's about it.

"I know that is going to leave you in between a rock and a hard place. Look, Rev. Jones and the Catholic priest put a 1964 Ford Town and Country station wagon back together. It's a gas guzzler with a three ninety and a four barrel. It's down at the body shop now. When they're finished it will look brand new. It's being converted to run on natural gas. Some of us have chipped in on it, when you leave we can sell it and get our money back out of it easy. You can go out to the Jenkins farm and fill up from there gas well anytime you need to. So your fuel is free. That way you can park your van and save it for when you're going out of town farther than you can go round trip on a tank of natural gas. That will save you the money you would have spent on gas. And someone will be by with a pressure cooker and a mess of canning jars.

"But, if Claudette has to have a real job, it will have to go to the floor in a business meeting to overrule the deacon board."

Later that evening Albert bit his lip and then after saying a short, heartfelt prayer, he said, "Honey, some of the deacons have chipped in and are going to provide us a car that runs on natural gas that we can get for free."

Claudette looked at Albert. "There's a 'but' attached to that. What is it?"

"They don't want you getting a job."

"What? Why the hell not?" Claudette's hand went to her mouth.

"Because over half of the deacons are stupid, stubborn, opinionated, ignorant, old, asinine idiots who are living in the past and still think a wife is a chattel slave who shouldn't work outside the home."

The next day someone dropped off the cast off pressure cooker and canning jars. Claudette thanked them politely. When Albert came home for dinner the plaster clung to the ceiling for dear life.

"Yes, dear. You're right. You could work for four hours and buy more vegetables than you can can in four days."

"Yes, dear. It's stupid."

"Yes, dear. It's a lot of hard, hot, nearly pointless work."

"Yes, dear. The deacons are everything you say they are."

"Look. I can tender my resignation. We can go move in with my mother while we look for another job."

So Claudette dusted off the canning and baking skills her grandmother taught her. It was absolutely unreasonable. But unreasonable is simply part of a pastor's life and his family pays for his folly whether they like it or not.

The parsonage's large freezer was half full of beef when they arrived. One family slaughtered a beef every year and anything left when the next one was dressed ended up as a gift to the pastor. Since the parsonage did not have room for more than a tiny garden, the boys shuddered whenever certain ladies talked with their mother after church. The conversation was likely to include an invitation to come pick peas or beans or whatever was on the vine at the time.

****

The first year came and went without any real fuss or bother. After all, it looked bad to kick a man out the first year. Underwood asked that a pastoral vote of confidence be put on the August business meeting the second year, out of principle. That is: the principle of stirring up a fuss. He didn't expect to win, but there was a good chance that it would result in the pastor volunteering to leave. There were only a handful of naysayers. After all, Green was a polished speaker, with a personable demeanor. Besides, it wasn't like there were other candidates clamoring at the door."

Grantville, Summer 1631

Deacon Underwood insisted that a pastoral vote of confidence be once again put on the agenda for the August business meeting in the year 2000 which fell in 1631.

Hale Myers asked Deacon Underwood about it. "Albert, if you did get him voted out, where are you going to find another pastor?"

"We can ordain someone. He don't have to have a seminary education. None of the apostles did."

"Are you fishing for the job, Albert?" another old deacon asked.

"I ain't been called. I thought we would elect one of the young deacons to the job," Underwood replied.

"None of them would be crazy enough to want it."

"Wantin' the job's got nothin' to do with it," Underwood answered. "If you're called, then you serve. My momma always said anybody who was crazy enough to want to be a preacher was too crazy to have the job, but anyone who was called and didn't serve was crazier still. Wantin' has nothin' to do with it."

Hale spoke up. "Well, no one has to because we've got Green."

"That's fine." Underwood said, "As long as he's still called of God to be here and I ain't sure he is."

This time there were a few abstentions and one vote of no confidence. There wasn't another ordained Southern Baptist Pastor for over a hundred years in any direction.

****

In the weeks after the Ring of Fire Claudette blossomed, doing volunteer work with refugee relief in the broader community outside of the church.

Grantville, January 1632

Old Joe Jenkins walked through the service door of the grocery store carrying a covered bushel basket. By chance the produce manager was coming out of the office.

Lutz sighed. There always seemed to be someone who didn't get the word. The grocery stores in town had their winter vegetable supply tucked away in cold storage. Even in the summer, when fresh produce was available, the stores only bought at the bulk market at the fair grounds or the retail market next to the swimming pool in town. So everyone knew there was no point in bringing their produce to the store.

Before Lutz could politely tell the old man to get out, Joe set the basket down and lifted the old quilt off of the top. The basket was full of ripe red tomatoes. Lutz's face brightened and his lips turned up at the corners. His mouth actually started to salivate. For months the produce isle had been limited to things that kept well in storage like onions and cabbages, apples and pears, winter squash and root crops. Yes, the hippie commune would sell some fresh herbs out of their green house but, that was small change. Imported citrus would find its way onto the shelves, but, that was maybe once a month at best. Dried, pickled, and preserved fruits and vegetables were mostly sold at the bulk counter.

"Got a basket of cucumbers out in the truck," Joe said.

"How much?" Lutz asked.

"Every penny I can get. Twice what they're worth. Half of what people will pay. Ninety percent of retail. I figure you're looking at your loss leader for the week."

Lutz nodded. If the store advertised ripe tomatoes people who normally shopped elsewhere would come in for the fresh fruit and leave with a cart full of everything else. He named a price while picturing the ad and the presentation.

"You can do better than that." the old man said.

Lutz upped it ten percent.

"Okay, but if that isn't at least ninety percent of retail these are the last fresh vegetables you're going to see before spring."

"You've got more?"

"I figure I can bring a bushel a week into town till they play out, if it's worth the bother."

Lutz took the hint and raised the price another ten percent. The profit would come from the increase in other sales.

Grantville, August 1633

Several older men gathered on the old couch and comfortable chairs around the coffee table on the parsonage's screened-in porch. Reverend Johannes Cloppenburch, pastor of the Reformed Church in Brielle, was in Grantville to use the library. While in Grantville he sought out the company of Reverend Albert Green and attended the Southern Baptist church services. The size of Green's library left him light headed and disappointed. So much of it was in English; theological works should be in Latin.

A long evening of discussion and debate went through two pots of coffee, three plates of honey snap cookies, and topics from everywhere under the sun. It settled, as it so often did, on end-time prophecy.

Deacon Underwood looked sour and shook his head emphatically. "I don't see how you can say that. No man knows the day nor the hour. Just because the second coming did not happen before the year two thousand in our old time line is no reason to assume it will not happen sooner in this time line. It could happen any day now."

Lincoln Reynolds shook his head right back. "Nonsense! The prerequisites for a pre-millennial time line have not changed. Certain things have to happen before the rapture. That is why I can . . ."

Underwood interrupted him. "But there is no reason they can't happen sooner in this timeline." He glared a challenge at his pastor. "The generation that sees the budding of the fig tree will see the beginning of the end. Now most scholars agreed that in Matthew, chapter twenty-four, the fig tree is Israel." He knew that Reverend Green held to a post-millennial theology and did not agree with him. Green's published papers on eschatology were a large part of the reason he was in Grantville. Post-millennialism was pretty much out of fashion. Underwood looked back at Lincoln. "You agree the fig tree budded when Israel became a nation. Who is to say that it will take the Jews 'til 1948 in this time-line?"

Harley Thomas spoke up emphatically. "Israel happened under the British mandate, which only happened when they carved up the last of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One. Without World War One there will be no mandate. There will be no Prussia to unite Germany; it's not even in the CPE so there will be no war. There is no way the Turks are going to let the Jews have a country of their own in Palestine. So there's no way there's going to be an Israel any earlier this time."

Underwood smiled gleefully. He had a point that would let him squash Harley like a bug. "No way?" he asked. "I can think of three without trying. What if the Turks push through the Balkans toward Vienna? Austria would be so desperate for help they'd sue for peace and Sweden with our help could take the Middle East. In return for bankrolling the war, the Jews would get Jerusalem. That's one. Yemen just tossed the Turks out. Egypt could try it, especially if they had help. You could end up with a free Jerusalem in the turmoil, with just a little outside assistance."

Johannes Cloppenburch was in Grantville, in part, to size up Doctor Albert Green on behalf of several men in the theological department at the University of Harderwijk who were thinking of offering Doctor Green an invitation as a guest lecturer with an eye toward a full professorship. He had spent the evening posing questions and quietly listening to Pastor Green and the deacons debate. He spoke up to prompt Underhill to complete his thought. "You said three. That was two."

Underwood scrambled for a third scenario and smiled when he had his answer. "Divine intervention."

Johannes Cloppenburch sat back and nodded. "Well, I can't argue with that one."

The discussion continued, with Deacon Underwood going at it hammer and tongs with anyone who did not agree with his very narrow viewpoints. Cloppenburch watched them all, particularly Dr. Green. By the end of the evening, he'd made his decision. The next morning, taking pen in hand he wrote a letter to his fellows at the university.

. . . tarry a while longer to farther plumb the depths of the library.

As for this man Green, the fellow fully deserves the title Doctor of Theology for he is very learned. His Hebrew is good, his Greek is better, his Latin is acceptable. His knowledge of the classical thinkers is barely passable. He gives them little thought and less weight. But, he has an understanding of, and access to, the early church fathers the likes of which I have never encountered. He has works on his shelves purportedly from the second and third centuries that I was taught were lost for all time. He has others which we had no idea ever existed at all.

He is well able to defend his views in open debate. Alas, his beliefs are such that the resultant disharmony which would ensue if he were to join your staff would bring the whole educational process to an abrupt halt and leave time for nothing but debate on those topics his presence would introduce. We discussed adult only baptism, for example, and I thought, surely, he might waiver. He will not. Furthermore, this is not the only doctrine he holds to which we would find offensive in the extreme.

I cannot speak more strongly against having this man at the university than this: I would forbid it if it were in my power to do so.

Grantville, January 1634

There was a knock on the kitchen door, Claudette waved her guest in and held up one finger to ask him to wait. Then she told the phone, "Yes. That will do fine."

There was a pause and she said, "No, I haven't heard. But someone just came in. You'll have to call me back."

Joe Jenkins sat a half full paper bag on the counter, "I didn't mean to intrude," he said.

"She was about to tell me all about her latest round of feuding with her sister-in-law, along with a recount of the whole long story all over again starting at the wedding. With any luck she will find another victim and she'll forget to call back."

Claudette looked in the sack. Her voice was almost a squeal of delight. "Ripe tomatoes!"

"The winter crop in the green house is starting to come on. This is the early ones beyond what I can eat. There ain't enough to bother taking to the grocery store and they won't keep till next week when I've got a peck full." The last was not quite the truth but Claudette wasn't about to call him on it.

"Thanks, Joe. We'll really enjoy these. You shouldn't have made a trip into town on our account. It is good of you to do so, especially after the church voted to throw you out like that." The church didn't actually vote to throw him out. After all he had never been a member, but the statement, while technically incorrect, was still true.

****

Someone pointed out to Deacon Underwood that some of the Germans who were attending the separate German language service weren't Baptist. Some of them were asking after training in military medical practices, wanting to serve but unwilling to fight. Underwood did some digging, asked some questions, did some more reading and threw a fit. Pacifism might squeak by; but some of the Germans were, in Underwood's opinion anyway, Arminians. On that point, the shit hit the fan.

The pastor was called before the deacon board. "Green," Underwood snapped as soon as the pastor arrived, "are you aware that some of the Germans taking communion at the two o'clock service aren't Baptists at all?"

Green sighed. "On that point, Brother Underwood, you are absolutely mistaken. I am quite sure they are all Baptist."

"No. they are not! Some of them do not believe in once saved, always saved."

"You don't have to believe that to be a Baptist."

"Yes, you do," Underwood almost roared.

"Albert," young Deacon Myers said, calling Underwood by his first name rather than the formal Brother Underwood. The tone of voice alone would distinguish whether it was an insult or an endearment, and the tone was unclear. "Calm down. There is such a thing as General Baptist, and Particular Baptist. You are the latter. But they are both Baptist."

"And these General Baptists don't believe in once saved, always saved?" Underwood asked.

"No, but that doesn't mean they aren't Baptist," Myers said.

"Here it does," Underwood replied. "Which are you?" he demanded of the pastor.

"Brother Underwood, the argument between the pro-Calvinist and the anti-Calvinist Baptist theologians was still going on when we ended up here. The denomination was changing. When you were a boy the idea that everything was predetermined and unchangeable according to the will of God was a lot more common than it is now."

"Which are you, Green?" Underwood demanded. "Are you a real Baptist who believes once saved, always saved or a General Baptist?"

In the course of the meeting, which started at seven o'clock and was over somewhere around midnight, Underwood proposed that all General Baptists be expelled. Additionally, the German language service should be shut down. He also proposed a by-law making English the only language for worship. All three proposals were on their way to a vote by the full body of the church at the next business meeting.

Immediately after the deacon's meeting, Albert Underwood was a busy man. The deacons meeting fell on Monday. Wednesday morning, Claudette had three calls by ten o'clock.

****

"Claudette? This is Ruth Ann. Is it true? Are the Germans taking communion at the two o'clock service Arminians?"

"I wouldn't call them Arminians, just like I wouldn't call us Calvinists."

"Well, it's all the ladies down here have been talking about. I don't think most of them had ever heard of an Arminian before yesterday. But now they're sure the Germans are and that it's something horrible and that they're going to take over the church so they've got to be voted out. When I asked any of the Baptist residents why Arminians are so wrong, all they really seem to know is that they don't believe once saved, always saved and that they're horrible people who are going to take over the church and change everything. Shoot, you know as well as I do that there is no sin in the world to these ladies as bad as change."

"Let me guess. Albert Underwood was through there yesterday flirting with them?"

"Well, he was here, and he usually does flirt. At their age, what difference does it make?"

"He's got a burr under his saddle and . . ."

"Doesn't he always?"

"This time he's mad about the Germans and wants them kicked out."

"Well? What would happen if they did become the majority?"

"Not a thing, Ruth Ann. They're good Christian people, and on the average they're putting more than their share in the offering plate but there's no way they could pay the bills and I'm sure they know it."

"But is Underwood right? Do some of them not believe in eternal security?"

"Ruth Ann, I'm sure they all believe in eternal security. What Underwood means is they don't believe in unconditional eternal security."

"Well, that's the doctrine of the church isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then Albert's right. They need to be kicked out."

****

"Claudette, this is Mary Ellen. What is going on?" The Methodist co-pastor asked the Baptist preacher's wife. "I was visiting my old ladies at Prichard's this morning and they're all riled up. Seems your Baptist ladies are all up in arms about Arminianism. They want the Germans kicked out of the Baptist Church."

"I got the same news from Bowers. Albert Underwood has been down there campaigning."

"Well, considering the voting block in the nursing homes, and the way they like to ...