Death of the New Hope Baptist Church
Rent from DeepDyve- Death of the New Hope Baptist Church
The old people died off, one grave after the next in the red-clay field behind the pastor’s small brick house.
The young people grew bored with the same tired hymns, the deacon down on one knee praying for the sick,
for the lost sheep of this little flock still out there on Sodom’s dark streets, still sinning.
They left, one family then another, for a big, shiny church with a wide-screen tv behind the pulpit.
The preacher on that screen never preached about sin but the rewards of faith: clothes and cars. [End Page 114]
The old church still opened its Sunday doors, and the faithful gave what they could to fix a leaky roof.
The altar call failed, week after week, to save a single soul with water and spirit; there were no children or faces hung in shame.
A sudden storm, a spring twister, tore through the walls one Thursday night, though the steeple somehow stood…
The sign too still declares the hour of Sunday worship, as if this church wasn’t in ruins, as if many
might still be saved from sins older than wooden pulpits and stained-glass windows, a hell always burning. [End Page 115]
William Miller is a poet, children’s author, and mystery novelist who was raised in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama. His academic career included teaching writing for children at Hollins University, where he still teaches every other summer. He is now retired and lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
