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Stephen D. Hall is the pastor at The Remnant Christian Fellowship in Brewer.
Pastor Buddy Frankland passed away on Feb. 2, and it has been troubling to watch the community response. If it was just vitriol and contempt from the social media peanut gallery, it could be written off to “small minds seeking big attention,” but there has also been what I consider some piling on from a couple of bloggers and the Bangor Daily News as well.
Michael Shepherd’s article on Feb. 7 was not inaccurate, just unnecessary, in my view. Pastor Frankland was a powerhouse in Maine ministry in the 1970s and 1980s. While the world was celebrating the sexual revolution, Roe v. Wade, and exponential increase in on-screen vulgarity and lewdness, Frankland, in contrast, was building one of the largest, most active ministries in Maine history. Shepherd acknowledged some of the bigger ministries Frankland developed and he acknowledged his “credible” bid for governor. It’s just sad that those achievements were presented under the dark shadow of a 40-year-old scandal, and Frankland as essentially just a spoiler in the 1978 gubernatorial race. Is there no common courtesy or decency concerning the deceased and their surviving family and friends?
I knew about Pastor Frankland long before I met him. I worked for Dr. Jerry Falwell after he had been here to assist Bangor Baptist with the transition to new ministry leadership. I was present for Frankland’s first wife’s passing and later attended the wedding when he married my wife’s aunt Edna, whom he loved and has been faithful to until his final breath.
We were at many family events together and we have had numerous discussions concerning theology and methodology in today’s churches. I have also had countless conversations with former church members and business associates of his. All this is to simply say, it is highly doubtful that somebody out there is sitting on a story, good or bad, that I haven’t heard or discussed with Buddy at some point.
For the past 35 years of ministry in Maine, I cannot do ministry anywhere in this part of the world without running into people who say things like, “It was Buddy who led me to the Lord,” or “We were about to be divorced when we met Pastor Frankland and everything changed,” or “I was going to make some really bad decisions until I talked to Buddy.” I cannot begin to count how many times Pastor Frankland’s name has been invoked in conversation as I meet people still today in whose lives he made a real difference.
Please, dear community, is it too much to ask that while his wife, family and friends are grieving the loss of this loved man, who was larger than life and who had accomplished so much, that we not fill these difficult moments with more self-righteous judgment than compassion? It should not be lost on us that King David, whose sin was far greater than any of ours, went to his reward remembered as “a man after God’s own heart.” Dr. Jerry Mick’s quote in the Feb. 7 article was wonderfully gracious and accurate. Buddy was “highly gifted” and also “human.” He deserves to be remembered for his extraordinary work and dynamic leadership in the kingdom of God.