The Decline and Fall of the Southern Presbyterian Church, Part 2

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Reunion with the PCUSA was considered in 1954. in the midst of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that racially integrated the schools, the PCUS appointed a Special Standing Committee on Christian Relations and voted (in a non-binding resolution) to agree with the PCUSA that segregation is unacceptable for Christians. The plan of reunion was sent to the presbyteries for a vote, requiring three-fourths acceptance to join with the North.

Of course, the vote on segregation would not have happened without the Supreme Court dictating how we are to live. The pressure was only beginning.

First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi, was outraged over the vote, and said that “the General Assembly did err” in making

“pronouncements on the subject of racial segregation so phrased as to convey the erroneous impression to the public that those voting therefore spoke the sentiments of the 750,000 Presbyterians of the South.”

Kennedy Smartt, who later became one of the architects of the PCA, one of the original “Committee of 12” that was tasked in 1971 with exploring the creation of a new denomination, writes of how he traveled to every little country church under the Atlanta Presbytery to urge them to vote against the 1954 plan of reunion.

“In those days, many of these churches…rarely if ever sent a ruling elder to presbytery. But for this [reunion vote] they came. You would have thought that General Sherman was on his way back to Atlanta… All these strange faces began to appear, faces that were red and wind-burned from plowing in the face of spring winds. These men took their seats with the commissioners. All day long they just sat there, waiting. And finally, about three o’clock in the afternoon we came to the vote for which they had been waiting. ‘All those who are opposed to the plan of union please stand.’ And they stood. Their suits didn’t fit, their neckties looked out of place, and their shirt collars weren’t buttoned, but they were Presbyterians and they were there and they voted their convictions. Atlanta Presbytery had voted against the plan of union. It sent shock waves across the denomination.”
—Kennedy Smartt, I Am Reminded, p. 49

In the end, the advocates for union failed to achieve even a simple majority.

Ernest Trice Thompson, one of the leading progressive theologians in the PCUS, later wrote:

“What could not be foreseen was the fact that, only a few months before the 1954 General Assembly met, the Supreme Court of the United States would give out its decision outlawing segregation in the public schools. The reaction of the South to this decision was quick – massive resistance… [T]here can be little doubt but that it influenced the final vote. It is doubtful if a three-fourths vote for union could have been secured at any time.”
—Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Vol. 3, p. 574

Nevertheless, the PCUS GA in 1954 had discovered a new sin: segregation. The Special Standing Committee on Christian Relations issued a report entitled “The Church and Segregation” that was adopted by the Assembly. It uses unbiblical language, for example, “that every person is of infinite value and has infinite possibilities.” And, “Whatever injures or prevents the growth of human personality is contrary to the law of love.” As Smith writes in Gold, this implies that now this vague thing called “the law of love” is to be obeyed, which “seeks the welfare and happiness of all people.” The conclusion was that the Church should lead in the matter of integration.

On June 22, 1954:

“It has been the historic position of the Presbyterian Church in the United States that church courts should refrain from making deliverances which bind the conscience of its members in matters which are primarily political or social in nature. We have always affirmed that, in such matters, no man or group of men, however sincere, can or should presume to speak for other Christian men of equal sincerity and liberty of conscience, as if this group alone knows the mind of Christ, and that assemblies or lower courts of the Church should not assume jurisdiction or claim to rule over the right of private judgment in such matters or make deliverances concerning them which amount to authoritative statements of policy; rather, as our Confession of Faith says: ‘Synods and councils are to handle and conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical’ (Confession of Faith, Chapter 31, Section 4)…

[W]e believe that the Council of Christian Relations in its various reports and recommendations has been one of the major causes of disunity in our Church. We further believe that the 1954 General Assembly did err in declaring segregation to be a sin and in seeking to obligate the members of both races in the Presbyterian Church in the United States to work for the integration of the races, inasmuch as the Scriptures do not sustain the view that segregation in itself is wrong or un-Christian...

We therefore recommend that Overture 48 from the Synod of Mississippi and Overture 60 from the Presbytery of Central Mississippi, which requested that this Assembly rescind the action of the 1954 Assembly concerning segregation, be answered in the affirmative.”

On July 7, 1954:

“This present movement to end segregation in the schools is merely the beginning of a well-laid plan to completely end segregation in everything in the South. If this happens, the Negro will be thrown into direct competition with the white race, and our business institutions will crumble.”

On Aug 17, 1955, Bell gave up the defense of enforced segregation, and instead staked a moderate position on voluntary association. But reactionary voluntary association could be no long-term match for the coercive power of the state, as Eisenhower and the Kennedys would soon prove, with tanks in Southern streets and bayonets in the backs of Southern school children.

“Within the scope of those rights prescribed by law, every American citizen is equal. For that reason, it is futile to defend any law which restricts the legal rights of any individual, or group of individuals.

Therefore, segregation by law cannot be legally defended. This in no way precludes the expediency, wisdom, and right of voluntary alignments along racial or other social lines… In like manner, forced integration cannot be defended, either on legal or moral grounds. Both forced segregation and forced integration infringe on the legal right of the individual…

The Assistant Attorney General of the State of North Carolina has recently said: ‘Race consciousness is not race prejudice. It is not intolerance. It is a deeply ingrained awareness of a birthright held in trust for posterity. There have been in every group, and are individuals, who, despising their birthright, have been faithless to their trust. So it has been and so it is in North Carolina. But the majority of North Carolinians have been taught from infancy, and they understand how it came about that Israel became a great nation, while Edom faded into oblivion, and they agree with the great Disraeli, who said, “No man will treat with indifference the principle of Race, for it is the key to history.”‘

It is utterly foolish to think that…an act of the Supreme Court or an act of the General Assembly…can destroy race distinctions which are God-ordained…

The Church has never attempted to force social relationships of any kind. It is an inherent right of the individual to choose his or her own intimate friends and associates, and this does not imply anything derogatory to those not so chosen…

With all the restraint we can muster we would ask this question: what possible ‘solution’ is there to be found in crossing racial barriers, barriers which man had no part in making?”

On June 5, 1957, the Journal published a long and excellent article by G.T. Gillespie entitled “A Southern Christian Looks at the Race Problem”:

“Southern Christians, generally, feel that the Supreme Court Decision, outlawing the principle of segregation and ordering integration of the races in the public schools of the nation, was a tragic mistake. This decree reversed previous decisions of the Supreme Court which had served as precedents for all Federal and State courts for more than a half century, nullified the constitutional and statutory provisions of seventeen sovereign states, and prescribed radical and revolutionary changes in the long-established customs and social traditions of a large proportion of the people of the United States...

The reasons assigned by the Supreme Court for its revolutionary decision are not based on legal or moral principles, but on the ex parte opinions of psychologists and sociologists, whose knowledge of this particular problem has been clearly shown to be superficial, and whose close affiliation with Socialist and Communistic organizations scarcely qualifies them as safe counsellors in formulating the policies which are to shape the education of the children of this great democracy, for generations to come.

Believing as we do, that this decision was based upon false premises, that it is unsound in principle, unrealistic and impracticable, and that its consequences, if generally adopted, would prove disastrous and irreparable, we do not regard it as a proper or final adjudication of the issues involved…

After long and painful experience, Southern people are firmly convinced that where two widely different races live together in the same area in approximately equal numbers, that the only alternative to racial amalgamation is some reasonable and equitable form of segregation.

The pattern of segregation which has been in operation in the South, and throughout the nation generally, is the result of a gradual process of evolution for many generations. It must be admitted that it has not always been consistent or equitable, and some of its features cannot be defended on rational or ethical grounds. Like all human institutions, it is still far from perfect. On the whole, however, it has provided a working basis for mutual understanding and effective cooperation between the two races. With occasional exceptions, peace and order have been preserved, mutual confidence and goodwill have been fostered, and each race has been able in the main to preserve its racial integrity, and to develop cultural and social patterns suited to its own capacities and needs…

In all nature, God has endowed his living creatures with an instinct to mate only with their own kind. The old adage, ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’ only expresses a universal law of nature. Bluebirds never mate with redbirds, doves with blackbirds, or mockingbirds with jays. The intelligent farmer does not allow his dairy and beef breeding stock to run in the same pasture, otherwise he would down-grade his herds, and have only a herd of scrubs or mongrels. The same principle applies with even greater force to the mating of human beings of widely different types and cultural backgrounds. The offspring are generally unstable, eccentric, ill-adjusted, unpredictable, unhappy. Extend the experiment on a large scale and over successive generations, and the result is a retarded or decadent civilization. Both science and history confirm the truth that progress for the human species as well as for the lower orders of nature comes through selective breeding rather than through mongrelization.

Lebon, the noted French psychologist and sociologist of the past century, testifies as follows: ‘It is an historical fact that human stocks that have produced the highest civilizations have been strains of stock without mixture for many generations. Every race of fixed type that has attained the highest civilization has quickly lost its power and standing after mixing with another race radically different.’

In confirmation of the truth of this observation, we have but to cite the remarkable virility of the cultures of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the English-speaking peoples, all of whom kept their racial stocks pure, as contrasted with the retarded or decadent civilizations of India, Egypt, Spain, Portugal, who allowed their racial stocks to become mixed with the diverse peoples with whom they came in contact… Let those who now so strongly urge the integration of white and colored races in this country cross the Rio Grande, and travel all the way to the southern tip of South America, and see the ignorance, poverty, squalor, superstition, undeveloped resources, inefficient and unstable governments, frequent revolutions, ruthless dictatorships, and the many other evidences of the blight that results from the mixing of dissimilar races!...

Providence is directly responsible for the linguistic differences and other factors which have served to keep the peoples of the earth segregated into tribal, national, or racial groups, from prehistoric times down to our day. By special divine decree, Abraham and his descendants were separated from all the other peoples of the earth, and for fifteen hundred years Israel existed as a strictly segregated nation. They were forbidden by God to mingle socially, to intermarry, or to amalgamate with the nations around them. Violations of this command were considered as a capital offense, and punished with great severity, by Moses and later by Ezra.

Jesus used the Parable of the Good Samaritan to rebuke the smug complacency and narrow-minded intolerance of the Jews and to show that the duty to love our neighbors is a practical principle of sympathy and helpfulness which knows no limitation of nationality or race. At the same time, he did not ignore or denounce racial distinctions, nor did he set plans on foot to abolish them or to bring about amalgamation of the Jews with the Samaritans or other races. Insofar as we have any record, there is no indication that Jesus or the Apostles were ever called upon to pass judgment upon the question of the rightness or wrongness of racial segregation or racial integration; certainly, no question was raised concerning the mixing of races as dissimilar as the white and Negro races. Since this is primarily and essentially a social or political question, and since Our Lord on several occasions refused to decide controversial issues of a social or political nature, but left these matters to the reason and conscience of the individual, we are justified in concluding that he has given us no mandate on this matter, but has left us free to decide the question in the light of reason and experience and the broad principles set forth in the Old as well as in the New Testament…

It was the recognition of this truth as an essential feature of the American Way of Life which made Booker T. Washington an influential national leader and the greatest benefactor of the Negro race in the past generation. All would-be leaders and promoters of better race relations in America today would do well to study his realistic approach to the problem and follow his able and far-seeing Christian leadership. In a notable and epoch-making address delivered at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, pleading for understanding and cooperation between the races, he held aloft the torch which must guide us to the ultimate solution of this great and pressing problem. It is eminently fitting therefore that this discussion should be concluded with a quotation of his wise words. He said: “The wisest among my race understand that agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing… In all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

In the same issue of June 5, 1957, Bell signaled the same Southern resistance to school integration, and foretold the exodus of many Christian parents from the public school system and creation of segregated schools in the White churches.

“In some sections of the South, integration of schools would be folly. Even in Washington, D.C., integration has created such serious problems that the only solution many are finding is the removal of their children from the public school system.”

Note that this was less than four months before Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block black children from entering Little Rock Central High School, and Eisenhower responded by deploying the 101st Airborne troops.

On July 3, 1957, Morton Smith writes,

“Abraham was called out from the other nations and peoples around him. His descendants failed to keep themselves separate from the people of Canaan, and thus God, in His all-wise providence, brought them down into Egypt, where they were set apart by the Egyptians in a segregated area. It should be noted that this segregation of Abraham’s seed was done by God ultimately for the purpose of preserving their religious purity, yet it was done by means of racial segregation…

Following the Exodus, the Israelites continued the policy of segregation. Moses clearly commanded against intermarriage with other peoples. See Deut. 7:3… Though the Israelites sinned and mixed with the pagans around them, they saw that it had contributed to their exile, and thus in Ezra 9 and 10 we find again the command against marriage with non-Israelites. This is repeated again by the last prophet of the Old Testament (Malachi 2:10-16). Again, this had the double aim of preserving a people as distinct, but particularly of preserving their religious purity

Galatians 3:28 reads: ‘There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus.’ Here Paul is setting forth the real unity that exists in the Church, and yet it can hardly be maintained that he meant to imply that there were no real and continued distinctions within the group that he lists. The Christian Faith is not a religion that demands the erasure of all diversity between us. Rather, there is in the Christian Faith a unity in diversity, and a diversity in unity. There may even be a reflection in the Church of the unity and diversity that exist within the Godhead. God is both One and Three. He is One God who exists in Three distinct Persons. The whole thrust of 1 Cor. 12 is that there is diversity within the Body of Christ, the Church. Even in spiritual matters within the Church, the Apostle makes a distinction between men and women… There are even to be found in Paul’s writings a recognition of the continued differences that existed between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Some of the Jewish Christians continued in some of the Old Testament practices, such as Sabbath observance, worship in the Temple, etc… Thus, it is evident that the Apostle does not insist on a distinctionless mass of people within the Church…

[T]he Bible does not condemn segregation… Who are we to fly in the face of God’s revealed will? Dr. B.M. Palmer, the first Moderator of our General Assembly, stated the case very effectively at Washington and Lee University in 1872: “But so far as I can understand the teachings of history, there is one underlying principle which must control the question. It is indispensable that the purity of race be preserved on either side; for it is the condition of life to the one, as much as to the other.” This is certainly true. If God has made the different races to accomplish specific destinies, then they can only do so if they maintain their integrity as distinct races. To the Negro Dr. Palmer said: “I have said to them — and to their credit be it testified, the proposition has generally been accepted as the council of wisdom — if you are to be a historic people, you must work out your own destiny upon your own foundation. You gain nothing by a parasitic clinging to the white race; and immeasurably less, by trying to jostle them out of place. If you have no power of development from within, you lack the first quality of a historic race, and must, sooner or later, go to the wall… Were I a black man, I should plead for a pure black race, as, being a white man I claim it for the white race; and should only ask the opportunity for it to work out its mission… The true policy of both races is, that they shall stand apart in their own social grade, in their own schools, in their own ecclesiastical organizations, under their own teachers and guides, but with all the kindness and helpful cooperations to which the old relations between the races and their present dependence on each other would naturally predispose.”

In 1957, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, the moderator of the PCUSA, took $10,000 from church funds and gave it to the NAACP to help settle a libel lawsuit. The KKK drew attention to the Northern Presbyterians being in league with these Communists, and stealing donations from church members and using them for leftist political causes. Blake said the assembly itself “asked me to go to the aid of any of our ministers or members who get into difficulty because of taking a position for desegregation as adopted by our church.”

Rev. Joseph Jones asked in the July 31, 1957, issue of the Journal:

If libel, why not murder or insurrection or arson or stealing or any other thing which might come from “taking a position for desegregation”?

Mr. Robert E. Hodges expressed the sentiment of a multitude of people when he said, “Few Americans and fewer Presbyterians ever thought they would see the day when the Presbyterian Church would sink so low in the mire of social gospel politics as to raise funds for the race-mixing activities of the Communist-dominated NAACP.” That is most certainly the way many Presbyterians feel today.

Obviously, the money was given for the purpose of “mixing the races and destroying the white race and thus aiding the Communists,” which was in line with the control that the PCUSA sought from the beginning.

It was the political activity of the U.S.A. General Assembly which caused the division in the church in 1861… Those who support the NAACP today are those who tried to reunite the divided church that they might control the whole church. Surely after this political action no intelligent minister or layman of the U.S. Church would ever consider organic union with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.

In aiding the NAACP, the Presbyterian Church, North, whether it so intends or not, is aiding the advance of Communism. If the old law of mathematics still holds true that ‘things equal to the same thing are equal to each other,’ then the NAACP is equal to the Communists by reason of accomplishing the Communist objective of division, strife, hatred, enmity, chaos, confusion, and the Presbyterian Church has become a party to this objective by aiding and abetting…

It would appear that in this instance the church has to look up to the Ku Klux Klan which brought to light the unchristian political activity of the church.

On Sept. 24, 1958, the Journal reported that on September 10, about two weeks before Eisenhower deployed troops to Little Rock, the same Eugene Blake mentioned above, and the new moderator, Dr. Theophilus M. Taylor, said that

They favored enforcement of integration at Central High School in Little Rock, “with troops and tanks” if necessary.

Eisenhower’s invasion caused many Southerners to realize that they had lost in their efforts to maintain any degree of civilly enforced segregation, and so they focused on what they could control, namely separating from race-mixing propagandists in the church and promoting voluntary segregation.

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