EDITORIAL: Pastor Raymond Bailey led more than flock
The recent retirement and departure of Seventh and James Baptist Church pastor Raymond Bailey isn’t just a loss for his congregation, it’s a loss for our community.
During his 15 years at the helm, Bailey proved to be much more than a leader of his religious flock. He was a leader to us all.
He was an outspoken advocate for the unfortunate and for causes that not all Baptist preachers will publicly take stands on.
He spoke out on the virtues of education and criticized the Texas Education Agency’s plan to revamp history textbooks and take out references to some minorities. In a July 22 guest column for the Trib, he wrote: “The latest attack on quality education has taken the form of attempts to promote a social studies curriculum that will ignore significant contributions to American justice. . . . The suggestions that references to Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall should be expunged from the textbooks are clearly a political attempt to interpret history.”
Bailey also showed tremendous compassion for those in need. When victims of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina streamed out of New Orleans, Bailey’s church took them in. Likewise, when Hurricane Ike pummeled Galveston and the Gulf in 2008, dozens of victims sought refuge at Bailey’s church.
Bailey also reached out to younger generations and welcomed students from neighboring Baylor University into his pews weekly.
Waco surely shall miss Bailey’s ability to bring folks from different walks of life together to share different perspectives.
With a flair for the dramatic — which he admitted learning from famed Texas dramatist Paul Baker, who taught him drama at Baylor in the mid-1950s — Bailey infused intellectual anecdotes into sermons to stress religious verve. Sometimes he dressed in costume and gave dramatic monologues, all the more to emphasize a point. And all the more for his congregation’s enjoyment.
On May 2, Bailey took that verve to Kentucky to be closer to family. He’ll be missed.
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