One staffer I will never forget was named Kristen Kay. We started talking one day when she saw me wearing my Yankees hat. She told me her grandfather used to play for the Yankees in the ‘50s and ’60s. Then she told me one of the greatest redemption stories I have ever heard. It was a lot like the story of Jimmy Duke. But it involves someone you have definitely heard of before. The story is a long one and the hour is getting late. I’ll try to write again tomorrow.
LETTER 29
Mickey’s Last at Bat
Dear Zach,
I want to tell you about an hour-long interview that I was able to do with Yankee great Bobby Richardson last Christmas break. He’s the grandfather of Kristen Kay, the Summit staff member I told you about in my last letter. Kristen was kind enough to arrange an interview with Mr. Richardson, who was gracious enough to accept. I’ve wanted to talk to him ever since I learned about his relationship with Mickey Mantle, the great Yankee Hall of Famer. I was lucky enough to meet Mickey Mantle when I was just a young boy. He’s the main reason I’m a Yankees fan today.
Shortly after I met Kristen Kay and told her I was a Yankees fan, I got a very special package in the mail. It was from Bobby Richardson. Inside, there was an autographed picture of him holding the bat he used to set the World Series record of 12 RBIs back in 1960. There was also a pamphlet inside that told the story of Mickey Mantle’s conversion to Christianity in the final days of his life. That story teaches a valuable lesson I want to share with you.
Mickey was raised in a home with an alcoholic father and a Christian mother. His mother took him to church throughout his childhood and adolescence. The lessons he learned in the church stayed with him in his later years. They eventually helped facilitate his own acceptance of Christ shortly before his death.
Like many young men who fall away from God, Mickey’s decline had been a slow one—even though his rise to fame was fast. The Yankees drafted him when he was only seventeen years old. Within five years, he won baseball’s coveted Triple Crown by hitting the most home runs and the most RBIs and batting for the highest average in the American League. Before he retired, he won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award three times. He was also probably the fastest player in the major leagues.
Mickey quickly became a legend and was admitted to the Hall of Fame during his first year of eligibility. His fast living was also legendary. Unfortunately, it would continue long after his retirement and induction into Cooperstown.
Bobby Richardson and Mickey Mantle played their last major league game together on October 2, 1966. That was the year Bobby retired from baseball. Although he was four years younger, he retired three years before Mickey. In retirement, they saw each other several times a year, on average, for over three decades due to the numerous Old Timers’ games they played together, beginning when they were both relatively young men. Bobby told me he made his debut as an “old timer” when he was just thirty-three years of age.
According to Bobby, nearly every time they were together during those retirement years, Mickey told him that he knew he needed to come back to the Lord. But he kept putting it off. That was mostly because of the shame and regret he carried with him. He had wasted most of his life on booze and hard living. He had been a bad husband and a bad father, and he knew it. Finally it all caught up with him in the summer of 1995.
Bobby had one last chance to sit down with Mickey that summer, just a few days before he died. When he paid his last visit to Mickey in Baylor Hospital, the legendary Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford was just walking out of the room. That would be Whitey’s last visit with Mickey.
Bobby walked into the hospital room, went over to the bed, and saw that Mickey had a smile on his face. The first thing he said was, “Bobby, I’ve been wanting to tell you something. I want you to know that I’ve received Christ as my savior.”
In a very simple way, Bobby said, “Mickey, I just want to make sure.” Then he went over God’s plan of salvation with him—that God loves us and has a purpose and a plan for all of us; that he sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to shed his blood; and promised in his word that if we repent of our sins and receive the Lord Jesus that we might have everlasting life. Mickey said, “That’s what I’ve done.” Just a few days later, Bobby Richardson repeated that story at the funeral of Mickey Mantle. I’m repeating it to you today for a reason.
Mickey drifted away from the truth and from the sense of right and wrong that his mother had worked so hard to instill in him. He barely recovered and was able to secure his salvation with just a few short days left in his life. Nonetheless, his story is being used for a greater good. Every time it is told, it helps bring meaning to a life that seemed to have been squandered chasing after things of little value. I tell it to you today for much the same reason I told you the story of Jimmy Duke.
Jimmy Duke was more fortunate than Mickey in the sense that he had some time to share his story with others. In that wonderful last year of his life, Jimmy was able to show people what a difference Christ can make in one’s life and in the lives of others. I would not be writing to you today were it not for the inspiration I received from hearing Jimmy’s story of redemption.
In a sense, I feel even more blessed than Jimmy Duke. It has now been over a decade since I came back to Christianity. I’ve been blessed with a nationally syndicated column and with several book contracts. Those blessings have afforded me an opportunity to share the truth with those who are being led astray in a world captivated by lies and deceit.
But you are more fortunate than any of us. You have your whole life in front of you. You were led astray during your first couple of years of college. But since we have been talking over the course of the last year, I’ve seen great changes in your outlook on life. I’ve seen things that have led me to believe that you are not going to squander large portions of your adult life as Mickey, Jimmy, and I did. Collectively, we wasted nearly a hundred years striking out in anger over things we did not understand, and reaching for things that were not really of any worth.
When writing to you, I’ve often thought about your father. He has spent nearly all of his life working at a blue collar job. He wanted to give you the college education he never had. But, as I’m sure he knows, there are some things in life a college education cannot teach. Sadly, many of those who call themselves teachers are determined to keep you from discovering the things you need to live a life that is worth living. It is not for lack of intelligence. It is for lack of humility. It is my hope that you will return to the teachings of your father and trust that he has more concern for your well-being than the tenured radicals you have encountered in college.
What you learned in your father’s house might not be as enticing as some of the ideas you encounter in college. Indeed, the truth can sometimes seem like a rigid set of punitive commandments, but in reality, it is nothing less than a gift from God. It is His way of telling you what you really desire, so that you can live a life that is worth living. When you arrive at that Truth, you will find peace with your earthly father. You will also please your Heavenly Father, and you will cherish every day you wake up with the blessing of sharing the Truth with future generations.
Those who acknowledge the Truth will join the only Hall of Fame that really matters. It is not a place where men live in a state of perpetual rebellion. It is a place where angels live in a state of perpetual joy. Their joy is not in knowing what the future holds. Their joy is in knowing the One who holds the future.
LETTER 30
The Silent Scream
Dear Zach,
I can’t tell you how happy I was to read your letter. I can’t imagine any better news than your decision to commit yourself to Christ, and I really appreciate your sharing your father’s reaction with me. I hope (and pray) that your relationship with your parents will continue to heal and strengthen as you mature in faith and wisdom.
I thank God every day for my parents. I also occasionally thank God for my parents’ friends. One of t
hose special friends is a woman named Lisa Chambers. I’ve written to you before about the Chambers family. They were the people who lived in the apartment complex across the street from us when we moved to Clear Lake City, Texas, in the late 1960s.
I am going to tell you a story about Lisa Chambers now, because it’s an excellent example of the kind of Christian witness I want you to be able to give. After moving away from Texas in 1985, I returned to Clear Lake in order to attend the ten-year reunion of the Clear Lake High School class of 1983. When I went home, Steve and Lisa Chambers were visiting from Atlanta, Georgia, where they had moved in the late 1970s. I was so glad Steve and Lisa had remained friends with my mother and father. In fact, they are still dear friends to this day.
One morning during that 1993 visit, Lisa Chambers sat down with me at breakfast for about fifteen minutes. She asked whether I had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. I told her I had. She asked whether it bothered me that he was our first unequivocally pro-choice president. I told her it did not. Then she asked whether I was pro-choice. I told her I was.
Mrs. Chambers responded to my honest answers in a calm and calculated way that I now recognize as brilliant. She told me that one of her sons had a friend who worked at a crisis pregnancy center. From there, she began to talk about the impact that technology had upon women who were considering abortion. Then, she told me about a man named Bernard Nathanson. It was the first time I would hear his name. But it would not be the last.
Mrs. Chambers did not tell me that Bernard Nathanson was once an abortion doctor who co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League, or NARAL. Nor did she tell me that he had once aborted one of his own children. But she did tell me he was a Jewish convert to Christianity who was a courageous pro-life advocate. She also told me about a film he had made in 1984. That film was called The Silent Scream.
Although it is only twenty-eight minutes long, The Silent Scream caused quite a firestorm when it was released. In the film, there is an ultrasound of an abortion as it is actually taking place. It is simply chilling to watch. It does more than just prove conclusively that the thing that is being aborted is a tiny human being rather than a lifeless clump of cells. It also shows that the tiny human being feels the pain of the abortion as it is taking place. It actually shows a tiny mouth opening as the baby screams in agony while being dismembered.
Mrs. Chambers took no more than a few minutes of my time as she explained to me that The Silent Scream proved—through medical technology, no less—that a baby feels pain as it is being aborted. After she was finished, she simply urged me to take the time to watch the movie. That was it.
For the life of me, I could not get the image of that baby out of my mind after Mrs. Chambers described how it cried out for help during an abortion. Note that this was long before I even saw The Silent Scream. Mrs. Chambers had brilliantly planted that image in my mind so that I could not avoid the central question of whether the object of the abortion is, in fact, a living human being.
It should go without saying that I eventually saw The Silent Scream. I was so moved by it that I eventually organized two showings of the movie on my campus. I even set up panels to discuss it afterwards. I invited pro-abortion feminists. None accepted the invitation.
The point of my writing to you about Mrs. Chambers has little to do with the substantive issue of abortion. I know you already agree with me that abortion is murder.
The real point of my telling you this story is to remind you that you do not always have to get into an argument in order to win a convert to your way of thinking—even on an issue that means a lot to you. Mrs. Chambers did not start an argument with me. Had she done so, I would not have listened to her. My heart was not in the right place, and she knew it. Instead, she decided she would simply plant a stone in my shoe.
Please remember this lesson and use it to your advantage. When someone you want to influence is simply not listening, go and find yourself a stone. Slip it into their shoe so that every time they take a step they will be reminded of it. Let their growing discomfort with their own positions cause them to stop and re-evaluate their thinking. You don’t have to beat them over the head. You just have to leverage their own weight—the weight of their inner conscience—against them.
In the case of my discussion with Mrs. Chambers, she just needed fifteen minutes to start a great awakening in my conscience. I began to fundamentally rethink the issue of abortion. But I also began to think about larger issues as well. If life begins before birth, then does it extend after death? If life begins before a woman is aware she is pregnant, then how can she ever have the moral authority to take it? What is the origin of moral authority in the first place?
These are all important questions. As you know, they can lead to answers that truly change lives.
LETTER 31
Killing Till
Dear Zach,
What you wrote me about how your life has been changing in the past month is truly phenomenal. It seems that God has been doing momentous things in your life this summer. As you grow in your rediscovered Christian faith, you’re going to be thinking about how you are called to fight in the battle for the truths you now recognize—and ultimately for the Truth.
In my last letter I told you the story of how Mrs. Chambers managed to eventually change my mind about abortion by employing a method that was gentle, subtle, and very effective. But in the right circumstances, it can also be very effective to use more aggressive techniques of persuasion—to bring up arguments that can be called harsh and evidence that is truly horrifying to see.
To illustrate this point, I want draw your attention to the Emmett Till case, which involved the tragic death of a young black teenager at the hands of two white supremacists in the Mississippi Delta in 1955. I have recently decided to add it to the list of trials covered in my popular “Trials of the Century” course, which you have already completed here at UNC-Wilmington.
My own interest in the Till case began back in 1989, when I was attending graduate school just ninety miles away from where Till was murdered. In the summer of 2010, my interest in the case was revived quite unexpectedly when my friend John Stonestreet, the voice of Breakpoint Radio and a colleague at Summit Ministries, hit me with a stunning revelation: his wife Sarah is the granddaughter of Robert Smith, who was the lead prosecutor in the Emmett Till case.
As a result of my friendship with the Stonestreets, I was able to obtain and read numerous documents relating to the trial that were fortunately still in the possession of one of Robert Smith’s surviving children, Sarah’s father Fred. Reading the original local newspaper accounts and personal correspondence of the lead prosecutor provided fresh new insights into the Till murder case.
When I teach about the Till trial, I will be careful to tell students that there is much factual ambiguity regarding the events leading to the death of young Emmett. But there are some things we know for certain. Some of the most horrible facts of the case are simply beyond dispute.
It was late in the summer of 1955, at a time when racism was endemic—and sometimes lethal—in Mississippi. Young Emmett, at just fourteen years of age, had traveled from his home in Chicago to visit relatives living in the Mississippi Delta. After Emmett told his cousins that he had dated white women, there was a dare, and he ended up going into Bryant Grocery Store to ask twenty-one-year-old Carolyn Bryant for a date. This is where the factual ambiguity sets in. One account says that all Till did to offend Bryant was put money in her hand rather than placing it on the counter. This would have been a violation of the taboo against any kind of physical contact between black males and white females. Other accounts say that Till “wolf-whistled,” asked Bryant for a date, and grabbed her around the waist (which would have been simple assault).
Regardless of the actual events in that store, what happened a few days later was an utterly shocking and unjustifiable crime against a minor. Till was abducted from the home of his great-uncle Moses Wright in the wee hours of the mor
ning. His captors were Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy, and J. W Milam.
After the abduction, Till was brutally pistol-whipped—beaten so badly that one of his eyes popped out of its socket. Later, he was fatally shot in the head. A large fan was then attached to his body via barbed wire so that his corpse would sink to the bottom of the Tallahatchie River, where it was finally dumped.
Bryant and Milam were acquitted in September of 1955, just a few weeks after Till’s murder. The double jeopardy clause of the Mississippi Constitution, based on the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, barred a retrial.
Given the national media attention the case had garnered, Milam and Bryant figured they could cash in by selling the story. So they described the murder of Emmett Till to a reporter for Look magazine in a now-infamous 1956 interview. They thought they had nothing to lose, but they were wrong.
Milam had this to say of Emmett Till’s last words on earth: “I stood there in that shed and listened to that n——r throw poison at me.” Milam also claimed that he asked Till, “You still as good as I am?” to which he replied “Yeah.” Finally, they report Milam’s claim that he asked Till, “You still ‘had’ white women?” to which Till responded “Yeah.”
Zach, I consider it unlikely that any of that dialogue actually took place. The only honest person who was on the scene was murdered. The two murderers were proven liars. After all, they had entered verdicts of not guilty and later confessed to being guilty. So their accounts cannot simply be presumed to be accurate.
Milam also had a strong motive to lie. Bryant and Milam knew they had been given a pass in the court of law. They thought they would be given a pass in the court of public opinion, too—especially if they appealed to white people’s hatred and fear of “uppity” black people. But the murderers would not, in fact, be given a pass in the court of public opinion. Many whites in the Mississippi Delta were bothered by the brutality of the murder—and by the fact that it was perpetrated against a minor. Emmett Till’s mother, in an act of unmitigated heroism, had demanded an open-casket funeral so the world was able to see young Emmett’s one-eyed head, swollen to over twice its normal size. It looked like a part of a grotesque costume made for a Hollywood horror film. But it was not. It was real. And it evoked justifiable outrage.
Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don't Understand Page 12
