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Looking for true stories of shootouts and showdowns, when six-guns at high noon served as arbiters of frontier justice?
Your search will inevitably lead you to Deadwood, South Dakota, one of the roughest towns of the Old American West.
In the latter decades of the 1800s, Deadwood seethed with gold prospectors, gamblers, and gunslingers. Since law enforcement tended to be a work in progress, violence often ruled the day. The most famous character in town, in fact – Wild Bill Hickock – was gunned down while sitting at the poker table.
Hollywood has long had a love affair with Deadwood, from the 1953 movie musical Calamity Jane, starring Doris Day, to the 2006 HBO series that proved to be considerably closer to gritty reality.
One of the strangest stories, however, was a theological duel fought not with bullets but with Bibles.
In the spring of 1889, a pair of clergymen began to get on each other’s nerves (the only time I believe this has ever happened).
As reported in Amazon’s mini-history book series, The Practical Atlas, the Reverend Elijah Grim, a fiery revival preacher from Tennessee, carved out a congregation amongst the rough working class of Deadwood’s miners. Then Father Thomas Braith, an Irish Catholic priest, arrived in town from Denver. He delivered carefully crafted homilies in a hastily built chapel that doubled as a schoolhouse during the week.
In a town where saloons outnumbered churches, it wasn’t long before the fire and brimstone preacher clashed with the thoughtful exegete. Grim the Protestant denounced Braith the Catholic as a dangerous heretic – someone leading souls into empty rituals in this world and spiritual disaster in the next.
Braith was not one to put up with such slander. In a note that he posted in the window of the general store, he challenged Grim to a public theological debate.
The revival preacher countered with a dismissive sermon called “The Fool on the Rock,” a copy of which he audaciously nailed to the front door of the Catholic chapel.
Things escalated from there. Members of the two flocks began to assail each other in public. Gamblers placed bets on which spiritual leader would be vindicated.
It was ultimately decided that the quarrel should be settled in classic Deadwood fashion – with a duel. Not with guns, but with Bibles.
It sounds too silly to be true, but Elijah Grim and Thomas Braith actually confronted each other in the town square on May 21, 1889. At least 300 people gathered to watch. Each pastor was allowed to bring a single “weapon” – a huge, leather-bound family Bible. If you’ve ever been thwacked with one of those monstrosities – and I sincerely hope your answer is No – then you grasp they can pack quite a punch.
The Atlas reports, “The rules, such as they were, were hastily scribbled on the back of a saloon menu.” No Bible-slamming on the head. No quoting of the Apocrypha (the 14 “extra” Bible books which Catholics recognize but Protestants don’t). And, of course, no blasphemy. The winner would be the Last Preacher Standing.
Let the Bible-bashing begin.
Braith and Grim circled each other. They got in a few body slams with the Word of God. The revivalist shouted, “Thou art the man!” (that’s what the prophet Nathan said to David when convicting him of adultery and murder). The priest responded, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” (Jesus’ words to Peter when the disciple seriously misunderstood his Lord’s plans).
The Fight of the Century lasted 45 minutes, at the end of which both men collapsed. Grim was exhausted. Braith had a slipped disc.
The crowd, wildly enthusiastic throughout, declared the contest to be a draw. They carried both men to the nearest saloon for a slug of sarsaparilla (frontier soda).
The strangest thing is what happened a few weeks later.
Grim and Briath, recovered from their respective beatings, began to realize they had more in common than they originally suspected. They launched a joint preaching series called “The Double-Barreled Gospel.” Deadwood, to this day, commemorates their fight and their reconciliation with the annual Duel of the Books, a contest staged with reenactors wielding foam Bibles.
If only that duel was history’s only episode in which Christian leaders have tried to use the Bible as an assault weapon.
Followers of Jesus believe that the Bible represents God’s communication to humanity. The words, which come from the pens of human authors, also originated from the Holy Spirit in such a way that the nuances of human personality were preserved.
The Bible, in a word, is Truth with a capital T.
But that doesn’t make it a Handbook of Correct Answers that Bible readers are empowered to use to win arguments and put other people in their place.
Scripture has a far deeper, richer purpose, as expressed in verses like 2 Peter 1:4, which states that God has given us “his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature.”
The Bible, in other words, is God’s gift to grow our hearts and lives in such a way that we become more like him – which ought to mean, ideally, we’ll never end up on a dusty street using a heavy book to beat the living daylights out of someone who has a different take on reality.
Of course, we still need to learn to be quick on the draw.
Quick on the draw to listen, listen, and love, love.