Reformed Perspectives Magazine, Volume 9, Number 34, August 19 to August 25, 2007

The Spirituality of the Church 

Segregation, The Presbyterian Journal,
and the Origins of the Presbyterian Church in America,
1942-1973

By Kenneth Taylor

Mr. Taylor, who teaches history at Piedmont College, specializes in

the intersection of race, religion, and southern history. He is a
communicant at St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens,
Georgia.
Sin permeates and corrupts our entire being and burdens us with
more and more fear, hostility, guilt, and misery. Sin operates not
only within individuals but also within society as a deceptive and
oppressive power, so that even men of good will are unconsciously
and unwittingly involved in the sins of society. Man cannot destroy
the tyranny of sin in himself or in his world; his only hope is to be
delivered from it by God. (A Brief Statement of Belief (1962) of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States  1 ).
Introduction
A group of conservative Presbyterians gathered to form the Presbyterian
Church in America (PCA) in December 1973. The schism in the southern
Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) resulted from a
generation-long struggle over increasing liberalism of some in official
circles. Since 1942 the PCUS, as a denomination, had tempered its
Calvinism with elements of Arminianism, embraced civil rights, permitted
divorce and remarriage, ordained women, accepted evolution, and
adopted a cautious pro-choice position on abortion. Consequently, some
of the founders of the PCA felt unwelcome in the PCUS as it approached
reunion with the national and liberal United Presbyterian Church in the
U.S.A.  2
The Presbyterian Journal, originally The Southern Presbyterian Journal,
printed condemnations of all the above actions except the 1973 schism,
which the publication advocated and abetted. From 1942 to 1966, the
Journal printed anti-civil rights articles, columns, and editorials, and
argued that segregation was best for members of all races.  3 The
magazine also condemned civil disobedience and the civil rights
movement before and after it printed anti-racist content in November
1966. The substance and tone of many of The Presbyterian Journal's
racial positions of 1942-1966 echoed nineteenth-century southern
evangelical defenses of slavery and haunted elements of the
Presbyterian Church in America into the twenty-first century.  4
This is a true story of the intersection of race, religion, and culture. We
human beings are partially products of our formative environment. Why,
for example, do we consider some statements true and others false? Or,
why do we think some practices proper and others beyond the bounds?
We learned these definitions and standards from our peers, friends,
leaders, and family members. We cannot, except by the grace of God,
lay our filters aside and recognize when the Scriptures contradict our
cherished points of view and then repent. So, I invite you, O reader, to
join me on a journey through part of the good, the bad, and the ugly of
ecclesiastical history and to ponder the meaning(s) thereof.  5
Before we embark on our journey, however, I must explain some
terminology, for words matter. By racism, I mean the attitude that one or
more groups defined by skin pigmentation is/are superior to other groups
also defined by skin pigmentation. Discrimination, whether formal (de
jure) or informal (de facto) is one expression of racism. Furthermore, one
can support racism and/or discrimination actively, by participating in its
mechanisms, or passively, by not challenging it when presented with the
opportunity to do so.
Also, we live in a politically polarized age, when many people use
political labels as epithets. That is not my purpose in this article, for I
employ dictionary definitions. The root word of "conservative" is
"conserve." So, as I use the term, "conservative" (as a noun) indicates
one who supports the status quo or at least something close to it. A
reactionary favors a return to a former state of affairs, real or imagined.
A liberal is more open to change, usually reform, than the others. Be
aware, however, that not every source I quote or paraphrase used these
terms in this manner.
Furthermore, this article concerns sensitive topics. (Graduate school has
taught me that the academic study of history is not for the faint of heart
or the easily offended.) Know that I have gone to great pains to write
exactly, and that I can document every quote and paraphrase. My
intention is state the past accurately then to derive lessons, not to brand
any present-day group negatively.
Now, with preliminaries out of the way, let us begin our journey.
Part I: To November 1966
The Presbyterian Journal, which former medical missionary L. Nelson
Bell founded in 1942, opposed various policies and positions of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). Bell, his co-workers,
and many guest writers professed to uphold theological orthodoxy. This
point of view included overt racism until 1966, when the Journal ceased
to publish theological defenses of segregation.  6
The Southern Presbyterian Church began to address racism in earnest
during the 1940s. World War II made the hypocrisy of legally sanctioned
segregation obvious to many Americans, for U.S. soldiers and sailors,
members of segregated armed forces, fought their counterparts from
Axis powers with overtly racist agendas. Against this backdrop, the 1944
PCUS General Assembly supported the equal treatment of all returning
veterans, regardless of race or ethnicity. Yet the denomination retained
its structural segregation. Moral objections to (and perhaps
embarrassment over) this contradiction prompted the Synod of Missouri
to propose in 1946 that the PCUS dissolve its black sector, the Snedecor
Memorial Synod, and its constituent presbyteries "to eliminate racial
discrimination and injustice within our church." Snedecor dated to 1917,
when the Southern Presbyterians readmitted the Afro-American
Presbyterian Church (AAPC), a denomination they had spun off nineteen
years earlier. The AAPC had always been small (no larger than 1,400
members) and financially dependent on the PCUS, and thus constituted
a failed venture.  7
The tiny Snedecor Memorial Synod fared almost as badly, for most of its
congregations (no more than fifty over time) depended financially on
white support. Furthermore, it had little say in PCUS decision-making at
segregated meetings. Nevertheless, a 1947 survey of Snedecor officials
revealed that they opposed dissolution of the synod and its presbyteries
and integration into other synods and presbyteries. They preferred a
seat at a segregated table to the possibility of no seat at any table. Four
years later, however, the PCUS began the yearlong process of
dissolving Snedecor yet not its presbyteries because the immediate
dissolution of majority black presbyteries would decrease already
nominal black participation in decision-making. By 1964, however,
embarrassment over segregation above the congregational level
prompted the denomination to begin the five-year process of integrating
presbyteries.  8
Integration was also occurring gradually in national life. President Harry
S Truman had asked Congress to enact a ten-point civil rights agenda in
1948. Components included the creation of a permanent civil rights
commission, the protection of voting rights, the establishment of the Fair
Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), and the outlawing of
lynching. Congressional opposition defeated Truman's proposal yet was
powerless to prevent him from issuing an executive order beginning the
integration of the armed forces. The President's actions of 1948
proceeded according to the recommendations of the 1946-1947 civil
rights commission, whose report had stated that discrimination was
immoral, damaged the economy, and harmed foreign relations,
especially in non-white regions of the world.  9
Socio-political pressures continued to prompt the majority white middle
class denomination to become increasingly progressive on race during
the 1950s and 1960s. The PCUS General Assembly of 1954 affirmed
the first Brown decision; the next year's assembly reiterated that
resolution. The 1955 General Assembly also urged Southern
Presbyterians to "lead in demonstrating the Christian graces of
compassion, courage, forbearance, and understanding" during that time
of racial and cultural change. Nine years later, the General Assembly
issued a pastoral letter to sessions, or congregational governing boards,
to support pastors whose progressive racial views upset members. Then
the denomination approved of civil disobedience to resist unjust laws in
1966. The influence of the civil rights movement upon the leadership of
the Southern Presbyterian Church was evident.  10
Racial progressivism was also evident below the top tier of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States. In the late 1950s, a sufficient
number of PCUS pastors supported the integration of Central High
School, Little Rock, Arkansas, for Governor Orval Faubus to take note
and label them communists. Also, many liberal Southern Presbyterian
clergy supported the 1960s sit-ins. In addition, the Presbytery of St.
Andrews (in Mississippi) urged people to obey the law and to examine
their racism in the wake of the 1962 riots at the University of Mississippi.
Furthermore, the Synod of Georgia expressed sorrow in 1963 over the
bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham,
Alabama.  11
Support for civil rights did not amuse the editors and many of the guest
writers at The Presbyterian Journal, who supported segregation on
theological and social grounds. Both overlapping arguments
presupposed white supremacy and included fears of miscegenation, or
interracial marriage, cohabitation, or sexual congress. The theological
case held that God had ordained and commanded segregation. Thus,
those who espoused Jim Crow upheld divine law, and those who thought
otherwise were heretical. This perspective echoed nineteenth-century
defenses of slavery and criticisms of slavery. This point of view also
continued in line with the founders of the denomination, whose legacy
many of the Journalers sought to continue.  12
The Presbyterian Church in the United States had begun as the
Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America in December
1861. The immediate trigger had been an affirmation of loyalty to the
U.S. government (with 156 delegates supporting the resolution and only
66 opposing it) at that 1861 General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. (Old School). Southern nationalism contributed to
the decision to form the Confederate Church; so did the belief that God
and the Bible sanctioned slavery, the primary cause of the Civil War. The
Address…to All the Churches of Jesus Christ Throughout the Earth, the
Confederate Church's declaration of independence from the PCUSA
(Old School), cited the Bible to justify slavery. In 1865, as the southern
denomination renamed itself the PCUS, it reaffirmed the scriptural nature
of the master-slave relationship and speculated that God had
disapproved of abuses within the peculiar institution as Southerners had
administered it.  13
Postbellum southern white Protestant orthodoxy, like its antebellum
antecedent, included the assumption of white supremacy. Southern
white church leaders generally responded negatively to black political
empowerment and social advancement. In 1868, Presbyterian pastor
Moses Drury Hoge of Richmond, Virginia, wrote his sister about the
prominent role of freedmen in the Reconstruction-era state legislature.
Government, he insisted, was not the proper place for "beastly
baboons." Robert L. Dabney, another prominent Southern Presbyterian
theologian, continued to defend slavery and argued for white supremacy
and segregated public facilities. He also opposed black education
because, he claimed, whites would be unhappy as manual laborers and
because education threatened to elevate freedmen, and thereby
endangered the social status of whites.  14
The defensive and racist religion of the Lost Cause helped many white
southern Christians cope with Confederate defeat and social upheaval.
The Lost Cause grew out of the soil of slavery. As many whites sought to
restore the racial hierarchy after the Thirteenth Amendment ended the
peculiar institution, segregation became the slavery substitute. Yet Lost
Cause appeals often avoided overt racism. Instead, they invoked
appeals to Southern patriotism and culture, as well as the imperative of
honoring the Confederate dead. The civil religion of the Lost Cause was
inherently racist, though, for it sought (often successfully) to restore and
maintain the old racial order.  15
The Journal's 1942-1966 theological case for segregation had four
overlapping legs: the curse of Noah, divine approval of geographical
segregation and disapproval of miscegenation, biblically-mandated
cultural segregation, and Jesus's implicit support for segregation. Three
of these elements were either similar or identical to antebellum pro-
slavery arguments. All four rhetorical points were culturally conditioned.
Defenders of the social status quo invoked the curse of Noah to argue
for slavery prior to 1865 and for segregation afterward.  Genesis 9:20-
27 functioned as the proof text. After the Great Flood, Noah was drunk
and nude in his tent. Ham, one of Noah's sons, "saw the nakedness of
his father" then informed his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who covered
their father. When the old man awoke and realized what Ham had done,
he cursed Canaan, Ham's son: "Cursed by Canaan, lowest of the slaves
shall he be to his brothers." Noah continued, "Blessed by the LORD my
God be Shem, and let Canaan be his slave. May God make space for
Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his
slave."  16
Noah's anger becomes understandable when one realizes that seeing a
father's nakedness may have been a euphemism for violating a sexual
taboo, perhaps castration or homosexual rape. Or, it might have meant
simply seeing one father unclothed. Either way, Ham had, in his culture,
demonstrated disrespect for his father.  17
According to many slavery advocates, Ham married into the lineage of
Cain, who had murdered Abel. God had marked Abel by turning his skin
black, so Ham had committed miscegenation. Thus, his descendants,
Africans, lived under the curse of Noah. Furthermore, the curse came
from God via Noah, not merely from a nude and angry drunk.  18
This interpretation indicated poor biblical interpretation because Noah
had cursed Canaan, not Ham. Furthermore, according to Genesis
10; Canaan's descendants resided in the land of Canaan, or modern-day
Israel. The descendants of Ham and another son, Cush, lived in Africa,
however. Thus the Africans were not subject to the curse of Noah.
According to some modern biblical scholarship, the purpose of this curse
was retrospectively to justify the social dominance of Shem's
descendants over those of Canaan.  19
The Journal published curse of Noah-based justifications for
segregation. In March 1944, L. Nelson Bell, the magazine's Associate
Editor, invoked the curse to argue that God had established certain
racial lines (including miscegenation) people should not cross. Almost
three years later, W. A. Plecker, M.D., of Richmond, Virginia, cited the
verse, "and Canaan shall be his servant," then continued, "How truly has
that prophecy been fulfilled during more than forty centuries since its
utterance." Bell and Plecker, like slavery advocates before them, ignored
the fact that Genesis 10 placed Canaan's descendants in Asia, not
Africa. 20
The second leg of the Journal's racist theological table held that
segregation was good and miscegenation was sinful because God had
scattered peoples across the face of the earth. This element of the case
rested on Genesis 11:1-9 (the Tower of Babel) and Acts 17:22-31. In
Genesis, prideful people who spoke one language began to erect a tall
structure to reach toward the heavens. The angered deity caused them
to speak different languages then "scattered them abroad over the face
of the earth." Paul, preaching in Acts 17:26-27, said that God had "made
the nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their
existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so
that they would search for God and perhaps grope for and find him."  21
Journal writers cited these texts to prove that God did not want people of
different races to mix, sexually or otherwise. Racial purity was apparently
part of God's plan, despite the statements of alleged outside agitators.
Segregationists stressed part of Paul's sermon: "…and he [God]
allotted…the boundaries of the places where they would live…." In 1946
B. W. Crouch of Saluda, South Carolina, quoted Dr. Benjamin M.
Palmer, a Southern Presbyterian leader from 1872, to make this point.
Then Crouch condemned "the social uplifters and fanatics of today," or
civil rights activists and liberal (often northern) white churchmen, such as
those of the Federal Council of Churches, a predecessor of the National
Council of Churches.  22
According to this line of reasoning, segregation, part of God's plan for
the temporal realm, was an imperfect arrangement born of Original Sin.
Thus, attempts to end segregation in this life were misguided. Heaven
would be integrated, though. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, pastor of First
Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia, in January 1861, had presented
a similar defense of slavery from his pulpit. Once again, the Journal had
published a recycled argument.  23
The third leg of the theological case contended that God had called the
Hebrews to segregate themselves (especially sexually) from the
Gentiles. Surely, proponents argued, the same principle applied to racial
matters. Many of these advocates spoke of God calling people out from
one place to another. In Genesis 12:1-9, for example, God called Abram
out of Haran to Canaan. Likewise, the Almighty called the Hebrews out
of bondage in Egypt and (eventually) into Canaan in Exodus 14.
Apparently, the imagery of God removing his chosen people from foreign
settings appealed to many segregationists seeking scriptural support for
their monocultural perspective.  24
Many opponents of miscegenation also quoted other passages from the
Hebrew Scriptures.  Genesis 27:46-28:4 cautioned against Hebrew men
marrying Hittite women.  Deuteronomy 7:3-4 proclaimed the
intermarriage between Hebrews and foreigners would anger God and
lead to destruction. In Joshua 23:12-13, Joshua, son of Nun, warned the
Hebrews not to marry foreigners because God would subsequently
withdraw divine protection if they disregarded this advice. According
to Ezra 10:3, 10-11; Jewish law required returning male exiles to divorce
their foreign wives.  Nehemiah 13:23-31 also condemned intermarriage
in the context of the post-exilic period. Therefore, certain segregationists,
claimed, God approved of social separation for the purpose of
maintaining cultural identity. In this context, then, many segregationists
claimed, segregation did not indicate disregard for blacks or their natural
rights. Rather, it was a simple matter of obedience to God's will.  25
Some Journalers also invoked Jesus in the fourth leg of their theological
defense of segregation. They observed that since the Messiah did not
attempt to end the orthodox Jewish-Samaritan rift, he must have
approved of segregation. In John 4:1-42, for example, he spoke to the
Samaritan women at the well yet did not detract her from worshipping at
Mount Gerazim (as was Samaritan custom) as opposed to the Temple at
Jerusalem. Furthermore, even the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke
10:25-37) seemed to affirm segregation from a certain point of view.
Jesus might have praised the selfless social outcast, but he did not
denounce that person's social status. Stories about Samaritans,
products of Hebrew-Assyrian miscegenation, appealed to many
segregationists.  26
Appealing to Jesus to defend racial injustice did not originate in the
context of segregation. Actually, antebellum defenders of slavery
practiced the same technique when they observed that the Christ never
condemned slavery. In Luke 7:2-10, for example, he cured a Roman
centurion's slave without making any comment about
slavery.  27 Elsewhere in Luke, Jesus said: 
Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in
from plowing or tending sheep in the field, "Come here at once and
take your place at the table?" Would you not rather say to him,
"Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I
eat and drink; later you may eat and drink?" Do you thank the slave
for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have
done all that were ordered to do, say, "We are worthless slaves;
we have done only what we ought to have done!"  28
The internal logic of these postbellum biblical interpretations rested on
the Southern Presbyterian Spirituality of the Church. According to this
perspective, the church was supposed to focus on spiritual matters, such
as doctrine, not on worldly concerns, such as attempts to change the
social order. Thus the Spirituality of the Church bolstered the status quo
by not questioning it.  29
This worldview had been one of the foundational principles of the
denomination, for the 1861 Address labeled slavery a worldly, not a
spiritual matter. As James Henley Thornwell, one of the founders and
prominent theologians of the Southern Presbyterian Church wrote,
"Where the Scriptures are silent, she [the church] must be silent, too."
Since the Bible did not condemn slaveholding (especially by the Hebrew
Patriarchs), actually commanded the Hebrews to own slaves (at least
according to the Authorized Version) in Leviticus 25:44-46, and
recognized the existence of slavery in Exodus 20 (the Ten
Commandments), the Bible seemed to approve of the peculiar institution
of the South. That at least, was what many antebellum Southern white
Christians told themselves and heard preached from pulpits.  30
The Journal articulated the Spirituality of the Church, frequently while
criticizing the Federal or National Council of Churches for supporting civil
rights. This argument appeared in the Journal's first issue, (May 1942).
Founder and Associate Editor L. Nelson Bell wrote, "The Federal Council
has caused confusion and resentment by constant meddling, in
economic, social and racial matters…." Three years later, he wrote of the
inverse relationship between ecclesiastical focus on social issues and
"evangelical power." The Gospel of Jesus Christ concerned sin and
salvation, not ethics, morality, and social policies, Bell wrote. Thus, the
Associate Editor wrote in 1947, the Southern Presbyterian Church
should withdraw from the Federal Council. He wrote, "We [at the Journal]
distrust an organization which seeks to solve the difficult race problem
by declaring segregation un-Christian and which advocates a non-
segregated society.  31
The National Council of Churches succeeded the Federal Council in
1950. The Presbyterian Church in the United States remained a member
of both organizations, much to the Journal's published chagrin. In 1948
L. E. Faulkner of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, condemned the Federal
Council for supporting President Truman's civil rights program and urged
the PCUS to withdraw from the ecumenical body. The next year, the
Reverend J. E. Flow of Concord, North Carolina, likewise criticized the
Federal Council and labeled civil rights activists "wicked people" who
disturbed the racial peace of the South. Other Christians agreed with this
critique. Much of White evangelicalism of the 1950s and 1960s generally
defined spiritual matters narrowly by fixating on individual salvation, not
social justice. In January 1951 the Journal reprinted a National
Association of Evangelicals criticism of the nascent National Council,
which allegedly stressed "matters socio-economic and political rather
than religious."  32
The Spirituality of the Church stood in contrast to the social gospel and
neo-orthodoxy, which encouraged social reform. Walter Rauschenbusch,
a northern Baptist pastor in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York
City in the late 1800s, articulated the social gospel. He believed that
people were essentially good, but that institutions were corrupt. Thus,
people could usher in the Kingdom of God by reforming society. It was
their divine calling. The social gospel reflected the optimistic thinking
commonplace in much of pre-World War I liberal Christianity. Neo-
orthodox theologian Reinhold Niebuhr also supported social activism,
which he considered imperative. Yet he, beginning in the 1930s,
countered that Christian love alone was insufficient to advance social
justice because people were generally selfish and culturally blinded to
much injustice. Thus, only God could usher in His kingdom.  33
In 1967 Journal Editor G. Aiken Taylor explained that, twenty-five years
earlier, L. Nelson Bell had become alarmed by "the growing shift with
many in the Presbyterian Church U.S. away from acceptance of the
complete integrity and authority of the Bible as the Word of God. At
various levels, many showed a willingness to equate the opinions of men
with divine revelation." Taylor alluded to the fact that the PCUS had
created a permanent committee to address social moral issues in 1934.
This action contradicted the Spirituality of the Church. In 1961, Ernest
Trice Thompson, a veteran of that board, provided two reasons for this
change in policy. First, the social gospel had attracted many followers in
the PCUS. Second, the dire circumstances of the Great Depression had
pricked the consciences of many Southern Presbyterians and expanded
their definitions to include human suffering.  34
The Journal criticized any attempt to change the racial status quo. Such
pressures frequently came from liberal theologians in northern churches
and the Federal then National Council of Churches. In September 1958,
for example, Journal Editor Henry B. Denby condemned the northern
churches' "lack of sympathy" for segregationists. He wrote that this
integrationist attitude, if unchecked, could harm the cause of Christ.
Regardless of whether the theology of social reform was the social
gospel or neo-orthodoxy, it threatened the Journal's constituency.  35
Culturally conditioned prooftexting regarding selected biblical passages
and the theology of Scriptural authority bolstered the racial and social
status quo in the 1800s. South Carolina Baptist clergyman Richard Fuller
wrote in 1845, "What God has sanctioned in the Old Testament, and
permitted in the New, cannot be sin." Sixteen years later, pastor Joseph
Ruggles Wilson defended slavery as biblical. If the Bible is true, for all
time, he preached, Paul's proslavery statements in various epistles must
be as reliable in the nineteenth century as they were in the first.  36
These arguments echoed in the pages of the Journal from the 1940s to
the 1960s. According to this point of view at that time and place, the
social and racial order of the South was divinely sanctioned and biblically
supported; anyone who disagreed was mistaken. The interpretations
Journalers favored conveniently supported the dominant group's
interests and personal agendas.  37
The Journal also printed social justifications for Jim Crow. They were
that segregation maintained the peace and that it was kind, American,
and practical. Furthermore, the Journal argued, civil disobedience was
dangerous and more laws would not foster racial justice. Authors seldom
quoted Bible verses while making these secondarily theological
arguments.
Segregation (sexual and otherwise) maintained the peace, the Journal
argued. In an echo of nineteenth-century rhetoric, the publication
insisted that since most race riots had occurred outside the South,
segregation, which prevented "unnecessary social contacts," was best
for all people. Besides, the argument continued, the races were simply
too different to integrate, so intermarriage was unnatural. The dire
consequences of miscegenation included "confusion, strife, hatred, and
bloodshed." Thus, as Dr. Bell wrote in 1947, the "extremes to which
some would go in solving the race problem we face in the South show
both lack of judgment and psychological common sense." Yet Bell
recognized that blacks had feelings, too. Thus, he recommended that
whites extend them courtesy by saying "thank you" and patting an
occasional black child on the head.  38
Paternalistic Journalers professed to love African Americans and to want
only the best for them. Integration, the writers insisted, was cruel, and
segregation was kind. Thus, social separation was consistent with the
Golden Rule, "to do unto others as you want others to do unto you." In
1947 Bell wrote without irony that he was "ashamed at the intolerance,
the discrimination, and the humiliations which have been heaped on
them [blacks] by the white race" while he defended segregation. Three
years later, when the Southern Presbyterian Church pondered dissolving
the Snedecor Memorial Synod, Bell wrote that the Synod's existence
was a mistake. Instead, ignoring or misreading the history of the Afro-
American Presbyterian Church (1898-1917), he proposed making
Snedecor a separate denomination, which would presumably be more
successful at evangelism. According to Bell, the presence of blacks in a
majority white denomination retarded the growth of black Presbyterian
congregations. Thus, segregation was kind and Christian.  39
In 1950 the Journal also published medical and cultural reasons for the
kindness of segregation, in the context of miscegenation. According to
these Social Darwinian arguments (ironically published in an avowedly
Creationist magazine), the dire consequences of intermarriage allegedly
included "weakening the resistance to certain diseases by hybrid
offspring" and the reversal of American cultural progress by creating a
culture of the lowest common denominator. According to this logic,
mixed-race children, the natural consequences of integration, would be
biologically inferior. So the purity of the dominant popular culture was
also in danger.  40
The Journal published this argument as late as 1966. The 22 June issue,
for example, included an editorial regarding the integration of
denominational children's homes. The Journal went on record as
opposing this policy because "Christ said that His followers were to look
upon all men as brothers. He did not say they were to look upon them as
potential husbands and wives." Furthermore, the "liberals'" obsession
with racial equality was certainly a "cover up for bankrupt theology and
empty Christian conviction." Ironically, the Journal professed to support
racial equality: "We abhor race prejudice in any form and we would be
glad to put our personal experience in race relations alongside anyone
else's."  41
Much of the content of these arguments echoed antebellum defenses of
slavery. Consider, O reader, the following nineteenth-century case:
slavery and social hierarchy are part of the divine plan for the world
order. Whites, who are superior to the benighted blacks, are supposed to
raise their dark brothers and sisters to the light of civilization and
Christianity. Slavery reduces competition and tension between blacks
and poor whites. It is therefore best for all concerned because it protects
whites from the blacks it simultaneously uplifts. As the Reverend Joseph
Ruggles Wilson said in 1861, the peculiar institution saves a "lower race"
from improvidence and enriches the "superior race." This unfortunate
reality indicates the fallen nature of the world due to Original Sin. Yet
there will be no slavery in the afterlife. The peculiar institution of slavery
must continue in the temporal plane of existence, though.  42
According to the Journal's Cold War-based argument, segregation was
American and practical. During the Cold War, many defenders of the
racial status quo noted that communist regimes criticized the United
States for its segregation. To embrace integration, then, would be to
capitulate to the enemy. Thus, integration was un-American. United
States Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia made this argument,
which the Journal echoed while mixing it with condemnations of
theological liberalism. According to the Reverend G. T. Gillespie, of
Jackson, Mississippi, in 1957, segregation was American because state
constitutions contained it. Furthermore, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham
Lincoln, and Booker T. Washington had supported it. That same year,
Dr. Bell condemned forced integration as "un-Christian because it denies
the rights which are inherent in American citizenship." Then he echoed
Booker T. Washington when he wrote, "Social equalities are earned and
not imposed by law." Finally, Bell added the most damning indictment:
racial integration was part of theological liberalism.  43
The Journal also condemned the Delta Ministry of the National Council
of Churches. The project, which began in 1964, helped poor blacks and
whites in the Mississippi Delta. It identified community leaders,
encouraged economic development, and advocated for school
integration and fair employment practices. The Southern Presbyterian
Church, a member of the National Council, supported this work. Critics,
such as those at the Journal, labeled the Delta Ministry subversive,
namely communistic. Besides, they said, the church should engage in
evangelism, not social work intent on overturning the status quo.  44
The Journal also condemned civil disobedience as dangerous. Martin
Luther King, Jr., had eloquently defended this civil rights tactic in his
"Letter from a Birmingham City Jail" in 1963. He wrapped himself in the
cloak of Judeo-Christian tradition. King referred to Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, who, in the Book of Daniel, had disobeyed a law
requiring them to commit idolatry. The pastor also mentioned some early
Christian martyrs who had refused to worship false gods in violation of
Roman law. He quoted Saint Augustine of Hippo, the influential
theologian of the late Western Roman period: "An unjust law is no law at
all." King also cited Saint Thomas Aquinas, author of the Summa
Theologica, to say that there are two kinds of laws: unjust (which violate
moral law) and just. Unjust laws, the pastor wrote, included segregation.
Then King insisted that he opposed anarchy and violence, and that he
was willing to accept the legal consequences of the actions he
committed in the name of justice.  45
This case failed to impress some of King's critics at the Journal and
elsewhere. In 1966 Bell condemned civil disobedience as a threat to law
and order, and thereby to the continued existence of the nation. He
shared this perspective with many other conservatives, including Lionel
Lokos, who published a negative biography of King in 1968. Lokos, a
self-professed individualist and resident of an integrated (soon to be
segregated) Harlem neighborhood, described the pre-civil rights era as a
time of "racial innocence." He also equated civil disobedience with
lawlessness and claimed that law breaking for any reason created
anarchy. This, according to Lokos, was especially dangerous during the
Cold War, for loyal Americans needed to unite in the face of the
communist threat.  46
Finally, the Journal argued that more laws would not accomplish racial
justice. In 1948 the magazine published an editorial from the Newark,
New Jersey, Telegram, an African-American newspaper. Davis Lee, the
editor, had toured the South then written of the inverse relationship
between racial injustice and civil rights laws. He noted that the North was
home to more civil rights laws and racial discrimination than the South.
He wrote that southern Negroes, but not northern ones, could do
anything they wanted, despite the obvious segregation in the South.
Blacks, he argued, should not try to prove their equality to southern
whites who naturally would not recognize it because of the psychological
trauma resulting from Confederate defeat. Rather, blacks should uplift
themselves until southern whites had no choice but to accept them as
equals. By this method alone, Davis, wrote, southern Negroes could
improve their situation, for outside agitation would just make enemies
and retard progress. Journal editor Henry B. Denby prefaced his reprint
of Davis's editorial: "We most earnestly commend it to the extremes now
advocated as a solution to this problem." Those alleged extremes
included Truman's civil rights proposals.  47
Bell, writing in 1956, summarized the Journal's attitudes toward civil
rights laws: "Our serious problems will never be solved by law,
regardless of the source of that law. But, they can be solved by mutual
love, forbearance, and Christian courtesy." Bell and many of his fellow
Journalers, although correct that laws alone could not solve racial
difficulties, underestimated the effectiveness of social courtesies. Patting
a black child on the head or saying "thank you" to an African American
would not improve race relations. Furthermore, segregation was unkind,
for it denied blacks equal economic and educational opportunities.
Although certain biblical passages seemed to justify segregation from a
certain point of view, Jim Crow violated the Golden Rule. The existence
of substandard schools, for example, belied doing unto others as one
wanted others to do unto oneself. Even after the Journal abandoned
overt racism as an editorial policy in November 1966, many of the
writers, including Bell, continued to oppose the civil rights movement.
The leopard did not change its spots.  48
Part II: 1966-1973
The Presbyterian Journal changed its editorial policy regarding racism
on 23 November 1966, when it published the complete text of "One
Race, One Gospel, One Task," the statement of the World Congress on
Evangelism. The World Congress was a major event for many
evangelicals. Billy Graham, who supported civil rights, helped organize
the gathering of people from 100 nations at West Berlin in November
1966. The appearance of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to speak at
the meeting highlighted its interracial nature. The delegates adopted a
statement calling for the evangelization of all people and for the removal
of all barriers, including racism, to that goal. The document said in part,
"We recognize the failures of many of us in the recent past to speak with
sufficient clarity and force upon the Biblical unity of the human race." The
statement then declared that everyone needs divine forgiveness and
salvation, and continued, "We reject the notion that men are unequal
because of the distinction of race and color. In the name of Scripture and
of Jesus Christ we condemn racialism wherever it appears." The
document then pled for forgiveness and for grace to resist racism.  49
Although the Journal had ceased theological defenses of the civil rights
movement, the substance of its critiques of the movement and social
reform did not change. For example, the magazine continued its pre-
November 1966 policy of placing "civil rights" in quotation marks, as if to
say, "so-called civil rights." Furthermore, Bell wrote in 1969 that the
Southern Presbyterian Church had failed blacks by preaching social
justice, not redemption. He could also have made the same charge
about the national United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., whose neo-
orthodox Confession of 1967 he condemned for focusing too much on
social issues and not enough on the Bible.  50
Regarding racism, the Confession declared:
God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal
family. In his reconciling love, he overcomes the barriers between
brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on
racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. The church is called to
bring all men to receive and uphold one another in all relationships
of life: in employment, housing education, leisure, marriage, family,
church, and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church
labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to
those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of
Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize their fellowmen,
however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the
faith which they profess.  51
Martin Luther King, Jr., functioned as a lighting rod for criticism for many
people, black and white, during the late 1960s, when he became more
radical. His 1967 critique of the Vietnam War proved especially
controversial. The war, King declared, was immoral. First, it diverted
money from federal anti-poverty programs and the draft
disproportionately affected young black men with limited economic and
educational opportunities. Second, it was imperialistic. King claimed the
right to speak out because "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere."  52
This prophetic denunciation was extremely controversial. The National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
National Urban League, many prominent newspapers and
newsmagazines, President Johnson, White House partisans, and many
reactionary Cold Warriors condemned King. He was allegedly either
hurting the cause of civil rights or he had no right to denounce foreign
policy or he was aiding and abetting the enemy (Ho Chi Minh).  53
King's domestic and foreign policy views influenced how some Southern
Presbyterians reacted or responded to his April 1968 assassination. For
example, the Journal editorialized against King and civil rights laws in
the 17 April 1968 issue. The editorial, "This is Not the Way to ‘Justice,'"
began, "Martin Luther King was not a man we admired." According to the
Journal, F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover was correct; King was a
subversive. "On the other hand," the editorial continued, "we do
subscribe wholeheartedly to the basic principles of justice and equal
opportunity for all men, regardless of color or creed. And we
acknowledge that Dr. King was a most effective champion of the
principles that he stood for." Then the Journal deplored the manner of
King's death as well as his civil disobedience. The editorial concluded,
"Until law and order prevail, social justice will never be perfected."  54
The official Presbyterian Survey responded quite differently. They
devoted the June 1968 issue to King and civil rights. The front cover
featured, "LOVE SHALL OVERCOME" above a photograph of King's
casket. The issue included a King profile plus articles about the Memphis
strike, racism, economic justice, and the effects of segregation on
African Americans, as well as a reprint of King's "Letter from a
Birmingham City Jail."  55
Letters to the editor appeared in the magazine for the remainder of the
year. Relatively few letters were positive. Among the most succinct of
these came from Roz White of Atlanta, Georgia, who wrote, "WOW!" The
negative letters, in contrast, contained much invective. Some of them
described the June 1968 issue as "disgusting," "excrable," and contrary
to Christianity. Others blamed African-American poverty solely on black
laziness, labeled the Survey a communist publication, and cancelled
subscriptions in protest. One reader even placed the Survey in the same
category as Playboy, for as he wrote, he did not want his nine-year-old
daughter to read either publication.  56
The negative reactions of the Journal and of angry Survey readers might
seem odd a generation later, when, as Michael Eric Dyson observes,
many self-described conservatives quote King to support their causes,
such as opposition to affirmative action. Dyson posits that the King of the
public imagination is a sanitized and non-threatening fiction. Actually,
King was radical by the standards of his day, and he became more so as
time passed. Many of the conservatives who wrote for the Journal or
who reacted strongly to the Survey's June 1968 issue seem to have
perceived that radicalism (at least partially) and found it threatening.  57
Racial views had defined the liberal and conservative wings of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States since the 1940s. This
polarization heightened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the
denomination moved further to the left, much to the distress of many
conservative members. Racism, the subject of this article, was just one
of the causes, however. Many conservatives also complained of
doctrinal changes that contradicted Christianity, as they understood
it.  58
First, the Southern Presbyterian Church had amended its version of the
Westminster Confession of Faith, its standard summary of Christianity, in
1942 to include two new chapters, "Of the Holy Spirit" and "Of the
Gospel." According to PCA co-founder Morton H. Smith, these additions
embraced the Arminian doctrine of free will, and thereby contradicted
other portions of the Calvinist document regarding predestination. For
example, Chapter III, "Of God's Eternal Decrees," proclaimed, "By the
decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels
are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to
everlasting death." In contrast, the new Chapter IX, "Of the Holy Spirit,"
said, "…He [the Holy Spirit] prepares the way for it [the gospel],
accompanies it with his persuasive power, and urges its message upon
the reason and conscience of men, so that they who reject its merciful
offer are not only without excuse, but are also guilty of resisting the Holy
Spirit." The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., predecessor of the United
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., with whom the PCUS reunited in
1983, had similarly amended its version of the Westminster Confession
in 1903.  59
Second, the southern denomination had amended the Westminster
Confession's Chapter XXVI, "Of Marriage and Divorce," in 1959 to permit
divorce and remarriage. Cases in which the church recognized divorce
stemmed from "the weakness of one or both partners," including
"extreme, unrepented-of, and irremediate unfaithfulness (physical or
spiritual.)" Only under these circumstances, the church decreed, should
people ponder divorce. Yet God still intended marriage to last until
death. The revised chapter permitted remarriage yet added, "Divorced
persons should give prayerful thought to discover if God's vocation for
them is to remain unmarried, since one failure in this realm raises
serious questions as to the rightness and wisdom of undertaking another
union."  60
Third, the denomination permitted women to hold lay offices and to
become ministers in 1964. The protest recorded in the General
Assembly Minutes cited Ephesians 5:21-23, 1 Timothy 3:1-13, and Titus
1:5-9. Ephesians contains the oft-quoted passage, "Wives be subject to
your husbands as you are to the Lord," in the context of mutual husband
and wife submission to the Christ. 1 Timothy declares that bishops and
deacons should be men married only once. Titus likewise describes a
bishop as male.  61
Fourth, the Southern Presbyterian Church denounced capital
punishment in 1966. This action allegedly contradicted the Westminster
Confession's Chapter XXV, "Of the Civil Magistrate," which declared that
God had ordained civil authority for the common good and armed it "with
the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good,
and for the punishment of evildoers."  62
Fifth, the church resolved in 1969 and reaffirmed the following year that
evolution was compatible with the Bible, the Westminster Confession,
and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, all foundational documents for
the Presbyterian Church. According to the resolution, the existence of
God and uniqueness of human beings did not "exclude the possibility of
evolution as a scientific theory." This action reversed General Assembly
resolutions from 1886, 1888, 1889, and 1924.  63
Finally, the Southern Presbyterian Church affirmed access to abortion
for socioeconomic reasons in 1970. The denomination recognized
abortion as "the willful destruction of the fetus" and stated that nobody
should decide hastily to have the procedure. Nevertheless, the church
recognized four circumstances when abortion would be morally
justifiable: rape, incest, threat to the life of the mother, and "physical or
mental deformity." The General Assembly resolved that all women in
need of an abortion should receive one regardless of financial means.
The denomination also affirmed pastoral counseling, including abortion
alternatives.  64
Organic unity within the Southern Presbyterian Church broke down in
1971-1973. A group of leading conservatives, who had lost most policy
and doctrinal debates since 1959, plotted to create a new denomination.
The Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church, Faithful
to the Scriptures and the Reformed Faith, formed in 1971 at the annual
Journal Day, a Presbyterian Journal-sponsored gathering for dissident
PCUS members. Congregations seceded and presbyteries formed
during the next two years. In 1973, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, who had resigned
from the Journal in protest in 1971 and who had served as the 1972-
1973 Moderator of the General Assembly, told the delegates that
attempts at theological reconciliation had unfortunately failed. He also
criticized the longstanding PCUS practice of sidelining conservatives and
bemoaned the imminent schism. Bell did not live to witness the formation
of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which the magazine he
founded facilitated, for he died in August 1973.  65
The Presbyterian Church in America, née the National Presbyterian
Church, formed on 4 December 1973, the 112th anniversary of the
founding of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of
America/United States, from which it broke away. The new denomination
issued the Message to All Churches, just as the Confederate Church
had published the Address…to All the Churches of Jesus Christ. The
1973 Message, unlike the 1861 Address, did not include overtly racist
language. The PCA decreed that it formed in defense of theological
orthodoxy and purity, which change had threatened. Specifically, the
Message condemned "a diluted theology, a gospel tending towards
humanism, an unbiblical view of marriage and divorce, the ordination of
women, financing abortion on socio-economic grounds, and other non-
Biblical positions."  66 At least one co-founder of the PCA opposed
ecclesiastical involvement in civil rights as late as 1973. Morton H.
Smith, the PCA's first Stated Clerk, had defended segregation in 1964,
when he wrote that integration would lead to miscegenation, which
would destroy human diversity and thereby aid and abet communist
domination of the United States. Smith's writings of nine years later
indicated that he had not come to support ecclesiastical pro-civil rights
declarations as the PCA gestated. The Steering Committee published
his book, How is the Gold Become Dim, a condemnation of perceived
PCUS doctrinal lapses and denominational decline, that year. Smith
pointed to six main alleged errors: Arminianism, allowance for divorce
and remarriage, ordination of women, opposition to capital punishment,
support for evolution, and affirmation of the pro-choice stand on
abortion.  67 Then he wrote of the 1954 PCUS endorsement of Brown v.
Board of Education:
The report comes to the conclusion that the Church should lead in
the matter of integration. It is debatable whether this conclusion
can really be based in Scripture. As one looks at the stance of the
Southern Presbyterians towards slavery issue a century before,
one finds that the Church restrained from getting into social issues,
and trying to decide such issues, because the Bible itself did not do
so. The fact is that God segregated Israel from the Canaanites. It is
debatable as to whether the Church should get into the matter of
trying to change that particular pattern, and branding one form of
culture as sinful as opposed to another.  68
In 1973, at a meeting to plan the inaugural PCA General Assembly,
Smith delivered a speech based on this book. The Journal excerpted
that address. He either ignored this final argument in that speech or the
magazine omitted that portion thereof.  69
A key Presbyterian Church in America founder, the author of the
denomination's official book-length theological manifesto, incorporated a
condemnation of ecclesiastical civil rights activism in his arguments as
late as 1973, the year of the PCA's birth. He did so while clinging to the
Southern Presbyterian Spirituality of the Church, which, like the southern
political tradition of States' Rights, provided cover for slavery then
segregation. One might recall James Henley Thornwell's 1850 inherently
proslavery quote in the context of disputes, sectional and religious,
leading up to the Civil War: "Where the Scriptures are silent, she [the
church] must be silent, too."  70 Smith applied the same logic to civil
rights issues and condemned official PCUS pro-civil rights reports as
relying too much on social sciences (and too little on the Bible), and
therefore humanistic:
Again in pressing the matter of fair treatment between races, the
subjective standard of man's thought is made the measure rather
than the Scripture. "Whatever injures or prevents the growth of
human personality is contrary to the law of love." It is interesting to
observe that the law of love now is the law to be obeyed. This has
no specific reference in the Bible, but is the law which "seeks the
welfare and happiness of all people." Here we see a bald
humanism coming forward as the ultimate goal of man's moral
conduct.  71
In this context the Message's reference to "a gospel tending towards
humanism" sounds like a veiled criticism of the civil rights movement, or
at least ecclesiastical involvement in it.  72
The Journal endorsed the 1973 schism, in which nearly six percent (an
estimated 55,000 members in 250 congregations) of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States (896,203 members in 4,117 congregations
as of the 1974 General Assembly) broke away. The publication covered
the first Presbyterian Church in America (then National Presbyterian
Church) General Assembly extensively and published a photograph of
editor G. Aiken Taylor posing at the gathering. As late as 2006, the PCA
Historical Center listed the Journal under the heading, "Formative
Organizations in PCA History." The Historical Center also gave an
annual G. Aiken Taylor Award in American Presbyterian History to a
seminarian. Taylor, the Historical Center said, was a "key figure in the
formation of the PCA."  73
According to Frank Joseph Smith, the first ministerial candidate of the
Presbyterian Church in America and the author of that denomination's
official history, "unsympathetic writers" have overplayed the role of
racism in the PCA's formation. He conceded that some founders were
segregationists but observed that the Steering Committee adopted a
racially inclusive policy. Furthermore, according to F. J. Smith, the PCA
has never segregated African Americans, and the only non-geographical
presbytery is linguistically Korean. Also according to the PCA historian,
conservatives, such as those who read and wrote for the Journal, cared
about social issues yet opposed policies which led to "socialism,
communism, or subversion."  74 F. J. Smith was partially correct about
racism and the Presbyterian Church in America's founding, for the
Steering Committee did announce a racially inclusive policy. And at least
one African American belonged to the planning committee for the first
General Assembly; the Journal published his photograph. Furthermore,
the PCA has never created an African-American presbytery. Yet one
should not ignore the fact that the same Steering Committee published
Morton H. Smith's How is the Gold Become Dim, which refused to
condemn segregation, albeit as a minor point. The Steering Committee's
imprimatur of M. H. Smith's book, including the comments regarding civil
rights, seemed inconsistent with racially inclusive statements. 
Part III: The Pastoral Letter
Many Presbyterian Church in America members have, over the years,
found the perceived racist legacy of some of the denomination's
prominent founders either burdensome or embarrassing. In 2003
parishioner Rich Lusk wrote that southern racist sins "continually
haunted" the PCA. A southern presbytery proposed an official anti-
racism statement at each annual General Assembly for years. Rarely did
such overtures address the particulars of such sins, but these proposals
reflected a desire to wash the "damned spot" from the PCA's hands.  75
The denomination began to address this issue in earnest in 2002. That
year the Nashville Presbytery proposed that the General Assembly
adopt Overture 20, which recognized the sinful nature of racism,
oppression, and exploitation then stated that the effects of these had
divided and disadvantaged people. The overture also confessed
collective sins: "As a people, both we and our fathers, have failed to
keep the commandments, the statutes, and the laws God has
commanded." It repented of "our pride, our complacency, and our
complicity," and sought forgiveness from "our brothers and sisters."
Finally, according to the Overture, the PCA should seek racial
reconciliation and engage in interracial evangelization. The 2002
General Assembly adopted the controversial measure. The following
year, the Nashville Presbytery's Overture 17, which the Assembly also
approved, called for a pastoral letter because "the adoption of this
statement [Overture 20] has exposed some divisions within the PCA
regarding the issue of racism."  76
The 2004 General Assembly approved The Gospel and Race, the
pastoral letter on racism. This diplomatic document condemned racism
as unscriptural, recognized the existence of racism within the PCA, and,
in broad strokes, acknowledged the racist sins of Presbyterian history,
minus the racial attitudes of some of the PCA's founders. Yet the
pastoral letter forcefully stated the theological problems of the sin of
racism and contradicted justifications for slavery and segregation, such
as those this article explains.  77
Previous generations of theologians had invoked the Bible to defend
slavery and segregation; The Gospel and Race quoted many of the
same passages, as well as some verses defenders of the old order had
ignored, to make to opposite points. For example, the pastoral letter
argued that racism (and thereby slavery and segregation) undercut the
doctrine of the Fall of Man (and therefore Original Sin), for, as Paul wrote
in Romans 3:22-23, "There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God."  78
Also, the pastoral letter quoted Acts 17:26 ("From one man, he [God]
made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and
he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they
should live."), which segregationists had cited, to denounce separation.
The Gospel and Race stressed the beginning of the verse, whereas
segregationists had emphasized the end. The pastoral letter decreed
that since there is only one human race, claims of racial superiority or
inferiority deny the common origin (Adam and Eve) of all people.  79
Third, The Gospel and Race cited the Ten Commandments, 1 John
3:15, and Matthew 5:21-22 to argue that since hatred leads to murder,
and since no murderer has eternal life within himself or herself, and
since racism is a form of hatred, racism equals murder. One antebellum
defense of slavery held that since the Ten Commandments recognized
the existence of slavery without condemning it, the peculiar institution
must be morally permissible. Biblical interpretation had changed over a
century and a half.  80
The pastoral letter also said that the Presbyterian Church in America
should demonstrate "a Gospel that united people across the dividing
lines of race." These were the lines that Dr. L. Nelson Bell and his peers
at the The Presbyterian Journal claimed God had put in place. The PCA
had come a long way since the founding.  81
One cannot, of course, exhume the dead and try them for their sins,
alleged or real, and hope to accomplish anything. One can, however,
learn from the past and strive to do better in the present and future. This
rule also applies to institutions (whether congregations, presbyteries, or
denominations), which, like individuals, have distinct histories and
personalities.
Conclusion
Now our trek through time has ended. We have explored noble and
shameful moments during peaceful and turbulent times. And what are
we to make of them? Since I can speak only for myself that is all I
endeavor to do. I conclude that the relationship between religion and
culture has frequently been difficult, and that many devout Christians
have been unaware of their negative biases. Thus they have undertaken
non-Christian actions in the name of Jesus. Just as the Southern
Presbyterian 1962 Brief Statement of Belief (quoted at the beginning of
this article) said in its section on human depravity, we cannot deliver
ourselves from sin, which is both individual and societal. Only God can
do that. And we must, by the grace of God, do better. According to
tradition, Saint Francis of Assisi said to preach the Gospel always and to
use words when necessary. Actions and words must not belie each
other if we are to function effectively as ambassadors for the Christ.
In addition, ecclesiology and doctrine have practical effects in the real
world. One cannot love God, whom one cannot see, without loving
people, whom one can see. The author of the Letter of James wrote of
faith and works: "Yes, faith without action is as dead as a body without a
soul."  82 This love must find expression in deeds. The precise actions
will vary according to circumstances, but the constant biblical principle
remains applicable across time and space.
In conclusion, I submit for your consideration a centuries-old prayer from
the English Prayer Book tradition:
Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all
truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it
is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it
is right, strengthen it: where it is in want, provide for it; where it is
divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior.
Amen.  83

Notes:
1. Quoted in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, The
Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
Together with the Larger Catechism and the Shorter Catechism
(Atlanta, GA: Printed for the General Assembly, 1963; reprint,
1975), 332. I have quoted the section on human depravity.
2. The unofficial label of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate
States of America (1861-1865)/Presbyterian Church in the United
States (1865-1983) was the Southern Presbyterian Church. For the
purposes of this article, "Southern Presbyterian" refers to this
denomination, and "southern Presbyterian" does not. Many
members of other Presbyterian bodies lived in the South during the
lifespan on the Southern Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian
Church in the United States and the United Presbyterian Church in
the U.S.A. reunited in June 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.). I could not have written this article without referring to Joel
L. Alvis, Jr.'s Religion and Race: Southern Presbyterians, 1946-
1983 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1994). Alvis
stands in the historiographical lineage of Ernest Trice Thompson,
author of the three-volume Presbyterians in the South (Richmond,
VA: John Knox Press, 1963-1973). I stand on their shoulders. I
focus on the Journal and early leaders of the Presbyterian Church in
America in the same way a historian of the early American republic
might place a spotlight on the Founding Fathers. This is, then, an
unabashed "Great Man" history. I leave subalterns to other
researchers.
3. Note: That while the Journal may have taken this stance it does
not necessitate that everyone in Presbyterians circles did.
4. A partial list of the defenses of the social status quo and
criticisms of civil rights leaders and activists follows: L. Nelson Bell,
"Race Relations—Whither?" The Southern Presbyterian Journal 1
(March 1944): 4-5; Idem, "The Federal Council and ‘Race
Segregation,'" Ibid. 5 (15 May 1946): 9-10; B. W. Crouch, "Dr.
Palmer on Racial Barriers," Ibid. 5 (2 December 1946), 5; J. David
Simpson, "Non-Segregation Means Eventual Inter-Marriage," Ibid. 6
(15 March 1948): 6-7; W. A. Plecker, "Interracial Brotherhood
Movement: Is It Scriptural?" Ibid. 5 (1 January 1947): 9-10; William
H. Frazer, "The Social Separation of the Races," Ibid. 9 (15 July
1950): 7; J. E. Flow, "Is Segregation UnChristian?" Ibid. 10 (29
August 1951): 4-5; Bell, Racial Tensions: Let us Decrease—Not
Increase Them!" Ibid. 5 (15 February 1957): 3; "'Civil Rights' Drive
Turns to Economics," Ibid. 24 (19 January 1966): 4-5; "Alliance Unit
Asks End to Exemptions," Ibid. 25 (25 January 1967): 4. The
Journal did a partial about-face in the 12 November 1966 issue,
which included "One Race, One Gospel, One Task" (pp. 9-10). This
was the statement of the World Congress on Evangelism, over
which Billy Graham had presided. According to "One Race," racism
constituted a barrier to evangelism, and was therefore sinful. I
explore this matter later in the article. Other researchers have
written about twentieth-century Presbyterian defenses of
segregation and linked them to pro-slavery arguments.
Nevertheless, I focus on The Presbyterian Journal and relate these
defenses to the Presbyterian Church in America's 2004 pastoral
letter on racism, The Gospel and Race. Other works on Southern
Presbyterian racism either predate 2004 or cite the Journal only
occasionally.
5. I draw inspiration from the writing style of Will and Ariel Durant.
6. Billy Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham
(New York: HarperCollins, 1997; paperback, 1999), 287-288; G.
Aiken Taylor, "How the Journal Began," The Presbyterian Journal
26 (3 May 1967): 10-11. Taylor became editor of the renamed
Presbyterian Journal (minus Southern) beginning with the 7 October
1959 issue. [Ibid. 18 (7 October 1959):3] L. Nelson Bell was Billy
Graham's mentor and father-in-law. Bell shared neither his son-in-
law's friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., nor support for the civil
rights movement. The November 12, 1966, issue, which I will
discuss in detail later in this article, included the official statement of
Billy Graham's World Congress on Evangelism. This manifesto
stated that racism, an impediment to evangelism, was sinful.
Nevertheless, the magazine continued its pre-November 12, 1966,
policy of referring to the "'civil rights' movement," as if to say, "so-
called civil rights movement." Examples of this include:
"Intermarriage and Race Top Topics at Assembly," The
Presbyterian Journal 24 (9 June 1965): 7-8; "A Different
Demonstration," Ibid. 24 (7 July 1965): 14; "Leftist Criticism of U.S.
Action Mounts," Ibid. 24 (11 August 1965): 13; "'Civil Rights' Drive
Turns to Economics," Ibid. 24 (19 January 1966): 4-5; "Alliance Unit
Asks End to Exemptions," Ibid. 25 (25 January 1967): 4; L. Nelson
Bell, "Home to Roost," Ibid. 28 (11 June 1969): 13.
7. Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, vol. 3, 1890-
1972 (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1973), 533; Minutes of the
General Assembly, Presbyterian Church in the United States
(1946), 35; Minutes, PCUS (1916), 33-34; Minutes, PCUS (1917), 7,
29; Minutes, PCUS (1898), 236. A presbytery is a small
geographical grouping of congregations. A synod is a grouping of
presbyteries. Most PCUS synods prior to the early 1970s followed
state lines. The General Assembly is the annual meeting and
highest legislative body of most Presbyterian denominations.
8. Minutes, PCUS (1947), 154; Minutes, PCUS (1951), 82; Minutes,
PCUS (1952), 38; Minutes, PCUS (1964), 1:81; Alvis, Religion and
Race, 92-95.
9. Barton J. Bermstein and Allen J. Matusow, eds., The Truman
Administration: A Documentary History (New York: Harper and
Row, 1966), 95-108; Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race
and the Image of Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2000), 79-80, 83.
10. Alvis, Religion and Race, 109; Minutes, PCUS (1955), 77, 79;
Minutes, PCUS (1964), 153-155; Minutes, PCUS (1966), 1:90-91.
11. Alvis, Religion and Race, 108-111.
12. A Journaler was a writer for and/or editor at The (Southern)
Presbyterian Journal.
13. William E. Moore and William H. Roberts, eds., The
Presbyterian Digest of 1907: A Compend of the Acts, Decisions,
and Deliverances of the General Presbytery, General Synod, and
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, 1706-1906 (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of
Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1907), 871; Presbyterian
Church in the Confederate States of America, Address of the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate
States of America to All the Churches Throughout the Earth
(Published by order of the Assembly, 1861), microfilm, 4, 9-12;
Minutes, PCUS (1865), 384-385. 
14. H. Shelton Smith, In His Image, But…Racism in Southern
Religion, 1780-1910 (Durham, NC: Duke University Pres, 1972),
252, 264, 266-267. For an analysis of the theological thought of
Hoge, Dabney, and other Southern Presbyterian leaders, read
Morton H. Smith, Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology (1962;
reprint, Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing
Company, 1987). M. H. Smith, who served as the first Stated Clerk
of the Presbyterian Church in America, ignored slavery,
segregation, and racism in his study.
15. Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the
Lost Cause, 1865-1920 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press,
1980), 1, 3, 7, 100, 117-118; C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the
New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State
University Press, 1951; reprint, 1971), 155-157; Andrew Michael
Manis, Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Black and White Baptists
and Civil Rights, 1947-1957 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press, 1987), 79.
16.  Genesis 9:20-27 (New Revised Standard Version). Biblical
translations follow two versification systems. Jewish and Roman
Catholic versions follow one, and Protestant translations use the
other. 
17. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study
Bible, TANAKH Translation (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 26. Some sources use the misnomer, "curse of Ham." The
nature of the taboo in question may be vague, but the violation of it
was the key issue in that section of the biblical narrative.
18. H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…, 130-132; Mitchell Snay,
Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum
South (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1993; reprint,
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 56.
19. Berlin and Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study Bible, 27; Walter J.
Harrelson, ed., The New Interpreter's Study Bible, New Revised
Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 2003), 23; Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible, New
International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1985), 20.
20. Alvis, Religion and Race, 53-54; L. Nelson Bell, "Race Relations
—Whither?" The Southern Presbyterian Journal 2 (March 1944): 4-
5; W. A. Plecker, "Interracial Brotherhood Movement: Is It
Scriptural?" Ibid. 5 (1 January 1947): 9-10. Since the Journal
repeated pro-segregation arguments in successive issues, I have
cited representative articles and editorials, not all examples of
specific justifications.
21. Alvis, Religion and Race, 53-54; Genesis 11:1-9 (NRSV); Acts
17:26-27 (NRSV).
22. L. Nelson Bell, "Race Relations—Whither?" The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 2 (March 1944): 4-5; Willliam H. Frazer, "The
Social Separation of the Races," Ibid. 9 (15 July 1950): 7; J. E.
Flow, "Is Segregation UnChristian?" Ibid. 10 (29 August 1951): 4-5;
G. T. Gillespie, "A Southern Christian Looks at the Race Problem,"
Ibid. 16 (5 June 1957): 11; B. W. Crouch, "Dr. Palmer on Racial
Barriers," Ibid. 5 (2 December 1946): 5; J. David Simpson, "Non-
Segregation Means Eventual Inter-Marriage," Ibid. 6 (15 March
1948): 6-7; W. A. Plecker, "Interracial Brotherhood Movement: Is It
Scriptural?" Ibid. 1 January 1947: 9.
23. J. E. Flow, "Is Segregation UnChristian?" The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 10 (29 August 1951): 5; Joseph Ruggles
Wilson, Mutual Relationship of Masters and Slaves as Taught in the
Bible. A Discourse Preached in the First Presbyterian Church,
Augusta, Georgia, on Sabbath Morning, Jan. 6, 1861 (Augusta, GA:
Steam Press of Chronicle & Sentinel, 1861; available at University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries,
http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/wilson/wilson.html), 5-8. Joseph
Ruggles Wilson was the father of President (Thomas) Woodrow
Wilson.
24. William H. Frazer, "The Social Separation of the Races," The
Southern Presbyterian Journal 9 (15 July 1950): 7; Genesis 12:1-
9 (NRSV); J. E. Flow, "Is Segregation UnChristian?" TSPJ 10 (29
August 1951): 4; Exodus 14 (NRSV).
25. Alvis, Religion and Race, 53-54; Genesis 27:46-
28:4 (NRSV); Deuteronomy 7:3-4 (NRSV); William H. Frazer, "The
Social Separation of the Races," The Southern Presbyterian Journal
9 (15 July 1950): 6-7; Joshua 23:12-13 (NRSV); Ezra 10:3, 10-
11(NRSV); W. A. Plecker, "Interracial Brotherhood Movement: Is It
Scriptural?" TSPJ 5 (1 January 1947): 10; Nehemiah 13:23-
31 (NRSV).
26. William H. Frazer, "The Social Separation of the Races," The
Southern Presbyterian Journal 9 (15 July 1950): 7; John 4:1-
42 (NRSV); G. T. Gillespie, "A Southern Christian Looks at the Race
Problem," TSPJ 16 (5 June 1957): 11; Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV).
27.  Luke 7:2-10 (NRSV); H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…, 133.
28.  Luke 17:7-10 (NRSV); H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…, 133.
The Gospel text includes the quotation marks.
29. Alvis, Religion and Race, 4-5.
30. PCCSA, Address…to All the Churches, 4; H. S. Smith, In His
Image, But…131-132; Andrew E. Murray, Presbyterians and the
Negro—A History (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Historical Society,
1966), 70; Snay, Gospel of Disunion, 56-57; Leviticus 25:44-
46 (Authorized Version); Exodus 20:10, 17(NRSV). The Authorized
Version translation of Leviticus 25:44-46 uses the verb "shall," a
command, as in "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou
shalt have…." Recent translations, such as the New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) of 1989, the TANAKH of 1985, and
Richard Elliott Friedman's 2003 Commentary of the Torah with a
New English Translation and the Hebrew Text use verbs such as
"may" and "will," which indicate recognition of reality, not a
command. South Carolina Baptist clergyman James Furman wrote
W. E. Bailey, a fellow slaveholder, in 1848, "We who own slave
honor God's law in the exercise of our authority." [Donald G.
Mathews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1977), 136, 258.] One might recognize Thornwell's
declaration about being silent where the Scriptures are silent as
being similar to one of the foundational declarations of the
Campbell-Stone movement, which began in the early 1800s.
31. L. Nelson Bell, "Why" The Southern Presbyterian Journal 1
(May 1942): 2-3, quoted in Frank Joseph Smith, The History of the
Presbyterian Church in America, 2d. ed. (Lawrenceville, GA:
Presbyterian Scholars Pres, 1999), 16-17; Bell, "A Layman Looks at
Liberalism," TSPJ 4 (15 September 1945): 4; Idem, "What is the
Gospel" Ibid. 5 (1 August 1946): 3; Idem, "For Such a Time as
This," Ibid. 6 (15 October 1947): 2.
32. Robert S. Ellwood, 1950: Crossroads of American Religious Life
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2000), 31-32,115,
186, 191; L. E. Faulkner, "Official Pronouncements of the Federal
Council of Churches," The Southern Presbyterian Journal 6 (1 April
1948): 17-19; J. E. Flow, The Federal Council on Human Rights,"
Ibid. 7 (1 February 1949): 18-19; Jack W. Hayford, "Confessing
What Separates Us," in Ending Racism in the Church, ed. Susan E.
Davies and Sister Paul Teresa Hennessee," S.A. (Cleveland, OH:
United Church Press, 1998), 18; Verne P. Kaub, "A Layman's View
of the NCC's Constitutional Convention," TSPJ 9 (24 January 1951):
10.
33. Linwood Urban, A Short History of Christian Thought, 2d. ed.
(Oxford University Press, 1995), 151-155, 351; Stewart Burns: To
the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Mission to Save America:
1955-1968 (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 92; Jean
Russell, God's Lost Cause: A Study of the Church and the Racial
Problem (London: SCM Press, 1968), 86-87; Richard Wightman
Fox, Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National
Obsession (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 323; David
J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York:
HarperCollins, 1986; reprint, New York: Perennial Classics, 2004),
42-43.
34. G. Aiken Taylor, "How the Journal Began," The Presbyterian
Journal 26 (3 May 1967): 10; Minutes, PCUS (1935), 93-95; Ernest
Trice Thompson, The Spirituality of the Church: A Distinctive
Doctrine of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
(Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1961), 41-43.
35. Henry B. Denby, "With Troops and Tanks," The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 17 (24 September 1958): 2-3.
36. H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…, 133; J. R. Wilson, Mutual
Relationship of Masters and Slaves, 5-8.
37. Based on elements from James McBride Dabbs, Haunted by
God (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1972), 186-187, and John
P. Newport and William Cannon, Why Christians Fight Over the
Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1974), 21-45. 
38. L. Nelson Bell, "The Federal Council and ‘Race Segregation,'"
The Southern Presbyterian Journal 5 (15 May 1946): 9-10; Idem,
"Racial Tensions: Let Us Decrease—Not Increase Them!" Ibid. 5
(15 February 1957): 3; G. T. Gillespie, "A Southern Christian Looks
at the Race Problem," Ibid. 16 (5 June 1957): 9-10; William H.
Frazer, "The Social Separation of the Races," Ibid. 9 (15 July 1950):
7; Bell, "Race Relations: Some Little Things Which Help," Ibid. 6 (2
June 1947): 3-4.
39. L. Nelson Bell, "Race Relations—Whither?" The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 6 (15 November 1947): 5; Idem, "Race
Relations and Montreat," Ibid. 9 (15 June 1950): 2; Idem, "Race
Relations and Montreat," Ibid. 9 (15 July 1950): 2-3.
40. Francis D. Adams and Barry Sanders, Alienable Rights: The
Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man's Land, 1619-2000
(New York: HarperCollins, 2003; paperback, 2004), 244; William H.
Frazer, "The Social Separation of the Races," The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 9 (15 July 1950): 7. 
41. "When ‘Concern' Is Taken Too Far," The Presbyterian Journal
25 (22 June 1966): 14.
42. Snay, Gospel of Disunion, 59; H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…,
151-152; James Henley Thornwell, "The Rights and Duties of
Masters" (26 May 1850), in Sermons in American History: Selected
Issues in the American Pulpit, 1630-1967, ed. DeWitte Holland
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1971), 221; J. R. Wilson, Mutual
Responsibility, 9-10, 21. In A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the
Confederacy of the White Christian South (Athens, GA: University of
Georgia Press, 1998), 81, Eugene D. Genovese argues that
Southern antebellum white Christian divines did not invoke race to
justify slavery. Rather, according to Genovese, they argued
abstractly that the Bible justified the peculiar institution, regardless
of skin tone. Evidence such as J. R. Wilson's sermon, demonstrates
that Genovese might be mistaken.
43. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 89; G. T. Gillespie, "A Southern
Christian Looks at the Race Problem," The Southern Presbyterian
Journal 16 (5 June 1957): 11-12; L. Nelson Bell, "Some Needed
Distinctions," Ibid. 16 (5 June 1957): 2.
44. Alvis, Religion and Race, 117-120; "Incident in Mississippi," The
Presbyterian Journal 24 (9 March 1966): 12-13. For more about the
Delta Ministry, read Mark Newman, Divine Agitators: The Delta
Ministry and Civil Rights in Mississippi (Athens, GA: University of
Georgia Press, 2004).
45. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail," in A
Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin
Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington (New York:
HarperCollins, 1986; paperback, 1991), 293-294.
46. L. Nelson Bell, "Danger Signals," The Presbyterian Journal 24
(9 March 1966): 13, 24; Lionel Lokos, House Divided: The Life and
Legacy of Martin Luther King (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House,
1968). 11-12, 460-462. 
47. "A Negro Looks at Racial Issues," The Southern Presbyterian
Journal 7 (15 October 1948): 5.
48. L. Nelson Bell, "No Moratorium on Courtesy," The Southern
Presbyterian Journal 14 (11 April 1956): 3.
49. Alvis, Religion and Race, 53; Graham, Just As I Am, 562-567;
World Congress on Evangelism, "One Race, One Gospel, One
Task," The Presbyterian Journal 25 (23 November 1966): 9-10.
50. "Intermarriage and Race Top Topics at Assembly," The
Presbyterian Journal 24 (9 June 1965): 7-8; "A Different
Demonstration," Ibid. 24 (7 July 1965): 14; "Leftist Criticism of U.S.
Action Mounts," Ibid. 24 (11 August 1965): 13; "'Civil Rights' Drive
Turns to Economics," Ibid. 24 (19 January 1966): 4-5; "Alliance Unit
Asks End to Exemptions," Ibid. 25 (25 January 1967): 4; L. Nelson
Bell, "Home to Roost," Ibid. 28 (11 June 1969): 13; Jack Rogers,
Claiming the Center: Churches and Conflicting Worldviews
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), 103-104; Bell,
"Confession or Concession?" TPJ 25 (26 April 1967): 15.
51. The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., The Confession
of 1967 II:4a, in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The Constitution of
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I, Book of Confessions
(Louisville, KY: Published by the General Assembly, 1996), 267-
268.
52. Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years,
1965-68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 251-252; Burns, To
the Mountaintop, 297, 300-301, 303; Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not
Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York:
Free Press, 2000), 52, 54, 66, 71-72; Martin Luther King, Jr., "A
Time to Break Silence," in A Testament of Hope, 231-244.
53. Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, 61-62; Lokos, House
Divided, 379; Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of
Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper and Row, 1982;
paperback, HarperPerennial, 1994), 432-437; Robert Dallek,
Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 366.
54. "This is Not the Way to ‘Justice,'" The Presbyterian Journal 26
(17 April 1968): 12.
55. Alvis, Religion and Race, 126; Presbyterian Survey 48 (June
1968), microfilm.
56. Alvis, Religion and Race, 126; Presbyterian Survey 48 (August
1968), microfilm, 4-8; Ibid. 48 (September 1968), microfilm, 5.
57. Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, ix.
58. Alvis, Religion and Race, 137. 
59. Morton H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim! (Lamentations
4:1): The Decline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States as
Reflected in Its Assembly Actions (Jackson, MS: The Steering
Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church, Faithful to the
Scriptures and the Reformed Faith, 1973), 51-53; Idem, "How is Thy
Gold Become Dim" The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June 1973): 8;
Westminster Confession of Faith (PCUS) III:3, IX:4, X, in PC(USA),
Book of Confessions, 129; Westminster Confession of Faith
(UPCUSA), XXXIV, XXXV, in Ibid., 164-168. I have taken the list of
theological grievances from Morton H. Smith, the first Stated Clerk
of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and from the Steering
Committee, which founded the PCA in December 1973. The
PC(USA) version of the Westminster Confession of Faith is a
composite of the PCUS and UPCUSA versions. Consequently many
of the WCOF pages in the Book of Confessions have side-by-side
columns and dual numeration for the same articles. Thus I have
differentiated between the PCUS and UPCUSA versions of the
document. The PCA version of the Westminster Confession of Faith
omits the 1942 chapters.
60. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 54-56; Idem, "How
is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June
1973): 8; Westminster Confession of Faith (PCUS) XXVI:5-7, in
PC(USA), Book of Confessions, 155-156.
61. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 61-62; Idem, "How
is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June
1973): 8; Minutes, PCUS (1964), 111-113; Ephesians 5:21-
31(NRSV); 1 Timothy 3:1-13 (NRSV); Titus 1:5-9 (NRSV).
62. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 62-63; Idem, "How
is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June
1973), 8; Minutes, PCUS (1966), 1:91-92; Westminster Confession
of Faith XXV:1, in PC(USA), Book of Confessions, 151.
63. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 58-59; Idem, "How
is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June
1973): 8; Minutes, PCUS (1969), 1:59-62; Minutes, PCUS (1970),
1:124-126.
64. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 63-64; Idem, "How
is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian Journal 32 (13 June
1973): 8; Minutes, PCUS (1970), 1:124-126.
65. F. J. Smith, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America,
546, 566; Minutes, PCUS (1973), 1:189-190; L. Nelson Bell,
"Regretfully Yours," The Presbyterian Journal 30 (1 September
1971): 13; "Dr. Bell, Journal Founder, is Dead at 79," Ibid. 32 (15
August 1973): 4; Graham, Just As I Am, 710. The Moderator, who
serves for a year, is the presiding officer of the denomination. Bell
believed that conservatives needed to remain within the PCUS to
fight for the truth, as they understood. The denomination, he
believed, was not beyond redemption. His last column ran in the 1
September 1971 issue of the Journal.
66. Alvis, Religion and Race, 132-135; National Presbyterian
Church, Message to All Churches (7 December 1973), available at
http://www.pcahistory.org/documents/message.html.
67. NPC, Message to All Churches; Alvis, Religion and Race, 68-
69; M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, v. The Stated Clerk,
who serves for years, is the chief administrative officer.
68. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 153; partially quoted
in Alvis, Religion and Race, 136. Smith echoed arguments the
Journal had printed prior to November 1966.
69. M. H. Smith, "How is Thy Gold Become Dim," The Presbyterian
Journal 32 (13 June 1973): 7-8, 20.
70. Alvis, Religion and Race, 136; H. S. Smith, In His Image, But…,
131-132. According to Thornwell's standard, slavery was a political,
not a spiritual issue. Furthermore, according to the standard
southern evangelical defense of slavery, in which Thornwell
participated, the lack of biblical condemnation of slavery constituted
support for it. Opposition to civil rights constituted a dark subtext in
theological conflict, much in the same way that appealing to abstract
arguments about the proper role of the federal government in
people's lives during school desegregation conflicts during the
1960s and 1970s frequently concerned both civics and racism. I am,
in other words, reading between the lines.
71. M. H. Smith, How is the Gold Become Dim, 153. I quote and cite
the first edition of the book in this article. Pre-Civil War theological
defenses of slavery relied on numerous biblical passages, from
Genesis to the Pauline letters. In contrast, contemporary theological
critics had far fewer passages on which to draw. These were chiefly
Paul's statements about no slave or free in Christ, the Golden Rule,
and the command of Jesus to love one's neighbor as oneself. The
latter two points constituted the "law of love," which slavery violated
according to anti-slavery activists of various stripes and which
segregation violated according to many religiously-inclined civil
rights supporters. (Note that Morton H. Smith was critical in writing
of the law of love.) These arguments, whether against slavery or
segregation, relied mainly on appeals to the spirit of Christ, or as
many people say today, "What would Jesus do?" The primary
appeal (in the twentieth century) to the spirit, rather than the letter,
of the Bible to support civil rights echoes the evangelical anti-
slavery strategy.
72. NPC, Message to All Churches.
73. The Presbyterian Journal 32 (19 December 1973): 4-9; Minutes,
PCUS (1975), 2:138; WebPages of the PCA Historical Center
(http://www.pcahistory.org/collections.html;
htttp://www.pcahistory.org/main/tayloraward.html. The 1973
founding of the PCA culminated the initial wave of secession, for
many other conservatives have left the PCUS and other bodies for
the PCA in subsequent years and decades. Furthermore, many
conservatives have left mainstream bodies to join other
denominations, such as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
(founded in the North in 1981) or older groups, such as the
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (founded in the early
1800s). Still other conservatives have remained within the reunited
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 
74. F. J. Smith, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America,
23, 101, 536, 541, 583-584, 608. F. J. Smith's account of the 1970
Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial service at the PCUS General
Assembly reveals his sentiments. After writing about the abortion
resolution, he introduces the King matter with, "To add insult to
injury," then mentions that the Assembly struck the conservative
protest against the memorial service from the record. The protest
accused King of having "Communist connections" and of supporting
"violence, murder, lying," as well as denying the Virgin Birth and
bodily resurrection of Jesus. W. Jack Williamson, who became the
first PCA Moderator in 1973, signed that protest (101). Furthermore,
F. J. Smith reveals his opinion of the civil rights movement by
placing "civil rights" in quotation marks, such as on pages 8 and 70.
Whenever the author writes of civil rights without quoting someone,
he places that phrase in quotation marks, as if to say, "so-called civil
rights." The Journal employed the same policy.
75. Rich Lusk, "The PCA and the NPP: Why a Denomination with
Southern Presbyterian Roots Should Carefully Consider the ‘New
Perspective on Paul," available at
http://www.hornes.org/theologica/content/rich_lusk/the_pca_and_th
e_new_perspective_on_paul.htm.
 76. Quoted in "Attachments to Pastoral Letter on Racism,"
Presbyterian Church in America, The Gospel and Race (2004),
available at http://www.byfaithalone.com.
77. PCA, The Gospel and Race (2004). I have summarized only the
elements of the pastoral letter that pertain to my main points.
78. Ibid.; Romans 3:22-23 (New International Version).
79.  Acts 17:26 (NIV); PCA, The Gospel and Race (2004).
80. PCA, The Gospel and Race (2004); 1 John 3:15 (NIV); Matthew
5:21-22 (NIV).
81. PCA, The Gospel and Race (2004).
82.  James 2:26 in The New Testament in Modern English. Revised
Edition. Translated by J. B. Phillips (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
83. Quoted in The Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer
(New York: Church Publishing, 1979), 816.
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