Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.: A Mississippi Retrospective

Mississippi mirrored the tensions within Southern Presbyterianism during an era of civil rights agitation, theological reassessment, and a conservative secession to form a separate Presbyterian Church in America. by R. Milton Winter

IN 1983, THE SOUTHERN-BASED PRESBYTE- with 17,851 members may be seen as a price rian Church in the United States (PCUS) joined American Presbyterians paid for national re- with the United Presbyterian Church in the union.1 U.S.A. to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), After the Civil War, the South’s religious a union strongly opposed by many of the separation was more enduring than its politi- southern church’s conservatives. In the de- cal schism. Although several of the smaller cade preceding this union, half of Mississippi’s religious bodies quickly resumed communion PCUS congregations left to join the Presbyte- across sectional lines, the three largest—Bap- rian Church in America (PCA). A few years tist, Methodist, and Presbyterian—persevered later, still others left the PC(USA) to join the in disunity. In 1920, churches remained among Evangelical Presbyterian Church. These ac- the nation’s most distinctly sectional institu- tions occurred in a region where many consid- tions, and while Methodists reunited in 1939, ered secession an ancient and honorable means and Southern Baptists pushed north and west of resolving differences. The Magnolia State’s with their own special brand of revivalistic ecclesiastical realignments came in an era evangelism, the Presbyterian Church, U. S. when social and political change was rapid, (retaining the name it adopted in 1865), be- often occurring in tumultuous, disorderly ways. came virtually the only remaining American Many found this unsettling, and in Mississippi, institution organized along the lines of the old far from Presby-terianism’s centers of strength, Confederacy. As late as 1967, Samuel S. Hill, key church leaders grasped the inherently Jr., remarked that except for a few exceptional conservative nature of religion and took what individuals and locales, Southern churches some saw as a “last stand” against change. were “captive” to regional values. This obser- While Mississippi could not withdraw from vation throws into bold relief the challenge the federal union, some of its Presbyterians which faced Mississippi Presbyterians in the and other conservative Protestants did secede 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s who held social, theo- from their denominational bodies. The Synod logical, and ethical views espoused by the of Mississippi, one of the smallest in the PCUS, Protestant mainstream.2 suffered greater loss than any other in the Presbyterian divisions of the 1970s and ’80s, I with the result that one could no longer speak of a “solid South” in Presbyterian terms. Loss or Mississippi Presbyterian resistance to division of 128 Mississippi PCUS churches reunification with northern Presbyterians was

Dr. Winter is Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Stated Clerk of St. Andrew Presbytery. Journal of Presbyterian History 78:1 (Spring 2000) 68 Journal of Presbyterian History as old as southern Reconstruction.3 Thus in and predicted that if the issue was forced, 1873, when James A. Lyon, Professor of schism would occur in the PCUS. “Already Moral Philosophy in the University of Mis- we have a divided church. The only ques- sissippi, urged establishment of fraternal re- tions are when and where will the cleavage lations with the Presbyterian Church in the take place.” The bar for union was raised so U.S.A., he aroused vehement opposition. high as to make it virtually impossible (ap- Dr. Benjamin Morgan Palmer of First Pres- proval of three-quarters of the PCUS byterian Church in New Orleans (which was presbyteries was required after 1914). Still, then part of the Synod of Mississippi) pro- negotiations were carried on sporadically tested that official correspondence would with the U.S.A. Assembly and others. On 6 sanction the reunion of the Old and New April 1930, an overture came from the ses- School Assemblies in the North. That re- sion at Holly Springs to North Mississippi union, which had occurred in 1870 despite Presbytery calling for “union in one General conservative objections, involved, said Assembly of all the Presbyterian and Re- Palmer, “a total surrender of all the great formed Churches in America.” The overture testimonies of the Church for the fundamen- was forwarded to the General Assembly tal doctrines of grace.” He declared that “of where it languished. The minister offering these failing testimonies we [the PCUS] are the resolution was George L. Bitzer, a leader now the sole surviving heir.”4 of astonishingly progressive mien in an oth- Five years later, when the PCUS revisited erwise conservative region of the church.6 the proposal for fraternal relations with the Throughout Southern Presbyterianism, U.S.A. Assembly, Moses Drury Hoge of Rich- opposition to union was bound up with mond, Virginia, rebuffed critics in Missis- belief that the Northern church was commit- sippi: “If, after all the great sacrifices of ted to racial integration. In 1940, W. A. confessors and martyrs of past ages, we Gamble, writing in the Mississippi Visitor, alone constitute the true church; if this only the synod’s newspaper, listed reasons for is the result of the stupendous sacrifice on opposing union with the U.S.A. Assembly: Calvary and the struggles of apostles and theological “modernism”; strong support for missionaries and reformers in all genera- the Federal Council of Churches (the South- tions; then may God have mercy on the ern Church was also a member, albeit some- world and his church.” Although most in times reluctantly); mixing of church-state Mississippi deserved their reputations as re- issues; the “unbridled supremacy” of the union opponents, there were a few who U.S.A. Assembly over presbyteries and ses- favored denominational rapprochement. Dr. sions; the Northern church’s support for H. M. Sydenstricker of the Presbyterian union with the Episcopal Church; granting Church at Water Valley (and uncle of novel- of social courtesies to Negroes; observance ist Pearl S. Buck), urged in 1884 that the of Lincoln’s birthday; and support for a fed- China missions of the U.S.A. and U.S. eral anti-lynch law.7 churches be combined. The proposal came In 1944, reunion opponents, rallied by to naught.5 the Southern Presbyterian Journal, called By the twentieth century, Northern and those agreeing with its aims to do everything Southern Presbyterians stared at one an- possible to organize a “continuing church” other across fixed chasms. Members and if and when the “inevitable” union with the ministers were freely exchanged, and bor- PCUSA should occur. By 1949 a Continuing der state congregations existed side by side. Church Committee was raising funds. Con- Some cooperation existed, as in Louisville servatives such as former Belhaven College Seminary and some mission fields. But those president W. H. Frazer peppered the church who envisioned greater oneness were warned with articles against the proposed plan of when J. B. Mack of the Presbyterian Stan- union. Reunion was defeated by Southern dard surveyed the “union question” in 1906 presbyteries in 1954 (including all five Mis- Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 69

sissippi presbyteries). The vote came just a blacks had long before withdrawn from few months after the Supreme Court’s con- white-dominated congregations, creating the troversial Brown v. Board of Education de- situation to which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. segregation decision, which brought racial referred in his famous sermon in Wash- fears to a boiling point and was blamed by ington’s National Cathedral, as “11:00 many for the proposal’s defeat. All the while, o’clock, Sunday, America’s most segregated predictions continued that whenever union hour.” Moreover, although the number of of Southern Presbyterians with their sister black Presbyterians in the South was small Assembly came about, a “continuing” South- and declining, the inclusion of Negroes in ern Church would result.8 meetings of church governing bodies and The process of negotiating the reunion of services of worship (other than attendance the PCUS and its U.S.A. counterpart (known at weddings, baptisms, and funerals of whites after 1958 as the United Presbyterian Church by whom they had been employed), implied in the U.S.A. or UPCUSA) was complex. to old-order Presbyterians a bestowal of Several factors influenced Mississippi con- social equality that opened the way to famil- servatives to oppose reunion at every step. iar associations which might ultimately in- These gave rise to the agenda which advo- clude courtship and marriage. Many sought cates hoped a continuing Southern Presby- to perpetuate segregated congregations, terian denomination would uphold. Dis- presbyteries, and synods, but some Missis- putes centered around fidelity to the so-called sippi Presbyterians, black and white, de- “fundamentals” of the faith, i.e., the Bible’s sired change.11 plenary inspiration and the virginal concep- In 1950, Dr. Walter L. Lingle of Davidson tion, substitutionary atonement, bodily res- College in North Carolina had proposed urrection, and physical return of Christ; the abolition of the segregated Snedecor Memo- drawing and redrawing of presbytery and rial Synod (which served Mississippi’s PCUS synod boundaries; and objections to ordina- black constituents), and for the first time that tion of women;9 the doctrine of the Church’s year, blacks attending the PCUS General “spirituality”; and alleged Northern Presby- Assembly at Massanetta Springs, Virginia, terian proclivities for involvement in “politi- were allowed to enter the dining room by cal causes”; as well as local ownership of the same door as whites. Four years later the church property. Underlying all these mat- PCUS was the first church body to meet after ters and exercising influence to a degree still the Brown decision. Its General Assembly debated was the matter of race. Thus, Will- ratified a statement that segregation in pub- iam Childs Robinson of Columbia Seminary lic schools was wrong. The session of Jack- in Decatur, Georgia, had written in 1940 son, Mississippi’s First Presbyterian Church opposing reunion: “We remind you of our unanimously opposed this action, and that situation in the South in regard to the race same year the Synod of Mississippi pub- question.…”10 lished a spirited argument by Dr. Guy T. Gillespie of Jackson’s Belhaven College con- II tending on biblical grounds for black inferi- ority and the perpetuation of segregation. Even before the Brown decision, conser- The Southern Presbyterian Journal, published vative anxieties were heightened by escalat- in North Carolina and edited by L. Nelson ing controversies over race and challenges Bell, M.D., a distinguished China mission- to the prevailing system of segregation which ary and father-in-law of evangelist Billy Gra- characterized all areas of southern society, ham, mounted an offensive against integra- including church life. Although a few blacks tion. From then on, as Erskine Clarke has had continued as late as World War I to remarked, “The bitterness that had once worship in the churches of their former been aimed at Yankees now turned inward masters, the vast majority of Mississippi on the Southern Church itself.”12 70 Journal of Presbyterian History

In 1954, White Citizens’ Councils were received financial support from the U.S.A. organized in Mississippi—first at Indianola, Church. Elizabeth Spencer, a daughter of then Jackson, Greenwood, and other cities. the Carrollton, Mississippi, Presbyterian These urged defiance of civil rights initia- Church and an internationally acclaimed tives. 1954, the year of the Supreme Court novelist, spoke out against the segregationist decision, was Presbyterianism’s numerical policies of church leaders in her home state.15 high point in Mississippi. Thereafter, Presby- Meanwhile, as the University of Missis- terians increasingly divided over race and sippi (Ole Miss) was forcibly integrated in reunion and membership began to decline. 1962 with rioting and loss of life, Presbyte- PCUS defenders of the status quo mentioned rian ministers called on their people to pre- schism more often. A Yazoo City writer vent further lawlessness. The Reverend warned the pro-integration Presbyterian Murphey C. Wilds of First Presbyterian Outlook, published in Virginia: “Keep on Church in Oxford offered a strongly-worded …until you drive all the Southern Presbyte- resolution of repentance to St. Andrew rian Churches out of the General Assembly, Presbytery which was adopted fifty-seven to then you and the NAACP can be happy.” eight, and his colleague Robert H. Walkup Others spoke in different tones. Warner Hall, of First Presbyterian in Starkville declared former minister at Leland, Mississippi, wrote from his pulpit: that “throughout the South there is the un- We…are quite ready to confess for others. How easy feeling that our way of living is under quickly we have confessed the sins of President the judgment of God.”13 Kennedy in the last few days, and how quickly In 1958 Mississippi presbyteries asked we have confessed the sins of Governor [Ross R.] the PCUS Assembly to abolish its Council on Barnett. This tragedy, this shame from which we Christian Relations because it opposed seg- are still numb—we confess is the result of sin. Was it the sin of the State Highway Patrol or the regation. Denominational youth conferences U. S. marshals which caused this thing? Maybe it at Montreat, North Carolina, were desegre- was the outsiders—the hoodlums and the thugs gated in 1960, after which conservatives who came pouring into our state. I was in Oxford organized alternative events. Central Mis- Monday of this week, and what a sight I saw! The sissippi Presbytery even closed its Camp whole square was filled with men and boys— men of hate and violence, men who had come to Calvin rather than permit integrated activi- defy the United States Army! Very well then, is ties. In June 1960, Jackson’s First Presbyte- the blood on their hands? Will it help much if I rian Church offered a large gift to Columbia confess their sins? No! The blood is on my hands! Seminary which placed theological restric- For I, together with too many of our people, tions upon professors and limited enroll- helped to create the impression that we wanted them. We made the way for men of violence.… ment to whites. The seminary declined the money.14 Meanwhile, Dr. Horace Villee of First Pres- A few Mississippi Presbyterians worked byterian Church in Columbus, Mississippi, for change. Sara Barry of Benoit (later a thanked God for men of courage “like St. PCUS missionary in Korea) wrote her M.R.E. Paul and Governor Barnett.”16 thesis at New York’s Biblical Seminary on Mississippi Presbyterians had few out- “The Role of the PCUS in a Segregated right social liberals in their ranks during the Society.” Dwyn Mecklin Mounger, a Missis- 1960s, but the Ole Miss crisis marked the sippi minister’s son, prepared a thesis at beginning of a split in segregationist ranks Princeton Seminary on racial attitudes in the between those committed to segregation at PCUS. The Reverend Marsh Callaway was any cost and those who would not support it removed from his pulpit at Durant, Missis- at the cost of lawlessness and the destruction sippi, in 1956 after interceding for a Presby- of the state’s educational system. Most white terian physician and his family at a “citizens’ church leaders did not support massive re- meeting” which evicted workers at Provi- sistance to desegregation, such as advo- dence Farm, an interracial ministry which cated by the Ku Klux Klan and Governor Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 71

Barnett, and in this respect the state’s major- Jesus would do if he were standing at the ity-white churches—Baptist, Methodist, Pres- front door of First Presbyterian Church?” he byterian, and Episcopal—by and large fol- asked. “I know exactly what He would do,” lowed a middle course, albeit at times timidly. she huffed. “And He would be wrong.”20 Mississippi Presbyterians through statements As well-known PCUS ministers in other of their presbyteries rejected violent and states spoke for compliance with laws and illegal opposition to civil rights, but con- court orders requiring desegregation, some demned marches, protests, and other stri- Mississippi Presbyterians began to feel that dent efforts to achieve integration.17 they were victims of “outside interference.” This was a period in which many Missis- Advocates of change found themselves hard- sippi congregations adopted policies bar- pressed to speak if they could not claim local ring “persons who appear with the apparent birth and upbringing. Starkville’s Robert intent of attending services for any reason Walkup once prefaced a sermon on admit- other than in a true spirit of worship.” Indi- ting blacks with a reminder that he was no vidual pastors opposed these resolutions. outsider—he was born in Mississippi. Still, The Reverend Stanford Parnell of Holly even a Mississippi heritage did not always Springs stated on 22 September 1964 that he earn the right to be heard. One Sunday could not support the action of his elders in morning in 1964, after casting the only dis- turning people away from services. He said senting vote in his session at Canton, Missis- that: “a) such action is unconstitutional; b) sippi, against a motion to exclude blacks, he believed it to be unscriptural; and c) that the Reverend Richard T. Harbison, a he could not imagine Christ standing at the Greenville native, draped his pulpit gown door and forbidding anyone to enter.”18 across the chair in his study and pinned to it Presbyterians who spoke out found them- a letter of resignation.21 selves at odds with members of their congre- That summer, forty-two of Mississippi’s gations and other ministers. At Jones Memo- black churches were burned in the belief rial Church in Meridian, Charles L. Stanford, that they were meeting places for voter reg- Jr., preached on 1 John 4:1–21 the Sunday istration drives organized by the Council of following the Oxford riots. He declared that Federated Organizations. During COFO’s “the horror at Ole Miss has been the result “Freedom Summer,” civil rights workers suf- largely of Christian preachers who have not fered eighty beatings, thirty-five shootings, been preaching the whole counsel of God to thirty house bombings, and six murders. the people of God.” After the sermon, While Mississippi’s white Baptists raised Stanford noticed that one of the elders re- $126,766 to rebuild the burned-out fused the Lord’s Supper. Following the churches, Presbyterians were largely pas- evening service, he happened to drive past sive, bound up in their internal turmoil.22 the elder’s home and realized that his ses- When organizations allied with the Na- sion was meeting there secretly. The next tional Council of Churches assisted in the week Stanford was given a resolution calling Mississippi civil rights effort, criticism fol- his sermon “untimely” and the references to lowed. Many Mississippians looked to Mem- alleged sins of the congregation “uncalled phis, Tennessee, and were shocked when for.” Attendance dropped precipitously.19 the Reverend Paul Tudor Jones of Idlewild The issue caused strife within families. Presbyterian Church in Memphis urged his Hodding Carter, Jr., crusading editor of people to continue support for the NCC in Greenville, Mississippi’s Delta Democrat- the aftermath of its activities during the sum- Times, remembered that when Roy Camp- mer of 1964 in nearby Clarksdale, Missis- bell, Jr., an elder in that city’s First Presbyte- sippi. Other Mississippi Presbyterians re- rian Church, told his mother that he thought sisted programs such as Head Start for poor blacks ought to be seated, the older woman children and resented the fact that when the was outraged. “Mother, what do you think state refused to accept federal money for this 72 Journal of Presbyterian History purpose, the UPCUSA served as a temporary ans, Mississippi Baptists gradually modified conduit for Head Start funding.23 their stance, moving from a convention reso- The trials of Mississippi Presbyterians in lution opposing Brown to support for “obe- this period were paralleled in other com- dience to the law” (while condemning pro- munions where the argument was some- test marches and other displays of pro- times more vocal. Yet, the PCUS was the integration sentiment). “We have moved only denomination to suffer major with- through the last forty-odd years as if through drawals because of the controversy. Although a millennium,” noted Wilmer C. Fields in a the national Methodist and Episcopal bod- 1983 Baptist assessment of southern reli- ies, along with Southern Baptists and the gion.25 PCUS, endorsed the Brown ruling, their Jackson’s Episcopal cathedral (similar in Mississippi organizations, except the Epis- size and prominence to the city’s First Pres- copal Church, defied denominational policy. byterian Church) after initial resistance gath- When the Southern Baptist Convention ap- ered many of the city’s moderate leaders. proved the Brown decision, W. Douglas After the cathedral’s dean resigned in the Hudgins, of Jackson, Mississippi’s First Bap- wake of the 1962 Ole Miss controversy, tist Church, insisted that his name be re- Episcopalians moved forward under the pro- corded in opposition, and a resolution by gressive leadership of their bishop, the Right First Baptist Church of Grenada, Mississippi, Reverend John M. Allin. A few years later, warned that such actions would cause “with- Allin’s forward look and diplomacy were drawal of this and other churches” from the recognized in his election as presiding bishop Southern Baptist Convention. In 1965, 7,000 of the Episcopal Church. His successor in Mississippi Methodists petitioned Bishop Mississippi, the Right Reverend Duncan M. Edward J. Pendergrass to oppose integra- Gray, rector in Oxford during the Ole Miss tion. In 1964, the Methodist Church had upheavals, was a spokesman for civil rights. voted to end the Central Jurisdiction, to Meanwhile, First Presbyterian in Jackson which black conferences (regional govern- was a bastion against change, and its minis- ing bodies) had been confined as the price of ters, John Reed Miller and Donald B. a 1939 merger between the northern and Patterson, led conservatives in the PCUS southern branches of the Methodist Episco- and the “continuing church” movement.26 pal Church. Desegregation of Methodist The near-complete polarization of two conferences in Mississippi was not accom- of Jackson’s most prominent congregations plished until 1973. During this period, 200 was striking, giving the state capital’s 5,000- Methodists formed the Mississippi Associa- member First Baptist Church an unusual role tion of Methodist Ministers and Laymen to as a sort of mediator between extremes. The maintain segregated churches. Baptists tried church and its pastor Frank Pollard eventu- a similar strategy. A 1968 survey revealed ally were recognized as leaders of the so- six Southern Baptist churches in Mississippi called “moderate” party in the Southern with open door policies, three of which had Baptist Convention and thus developed a black members.24 reputation for tolerance. This situation was In some ways, Mississippi Baptists made replicated in many of the state’s smaller greater progress than Presbyterians in facing communities, depriving Presbyterians of a the race issue, for though Baptist opposition role they often played as a “bridge church” to integration was fierce, they dealt with the between revivalistic, socially conservative challenge apart from schism. As early as the Baptists and the liturgical, socially progres- 1950s, a few Baptist leaders, such as Joe T. sive Episcopalians. Mississippi’s largest Odle, editor of the Baptist Record, the state Methodist congregation, Jackson’s Gallo- Baptist newspaper, and University of Missis- way Memorial, was also affected, and as a sippi chaplain Will Campbell, urged a more result an Independent Methodist Church progressive direction. Like the Presbyteri- was established in the state capital—a situ- Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 73

ation that occurred in several communities had a policy of segregated worship. Several across the state. However, Mississippi’s Meth- presbyteries and synods, including the odist withdrawals were in no way as great as Presbytery of Memphis, urged Second Pres- those experienced by Presbyterians.27 byterian to change its policy, as did its Jews and Unitarians were generally sup- pastors, but the elders refused. This resulted portive of change, and for these commit- in an unprecedented decision by Assembly ments some of their houses of worship were moderator Felix B. Gear (who had been bombed. These religious communities were Second Church’s pastor, 1943–47), to move small, and while Mississippi’s Roman Catho- the meeting. This was greatly embarrassing lics were not outspoken at first, they later to the congregation, and a group of elders gave leadership for civil rights. Hodding and 340 members withdrew to form an Carter III has written that in the 1950s, the independent Presbyterian church which es- Catholic Church, although committed to poused segregation and later drew ministers integration, did not desegregate Mississippi from the Presbyterian Church in America. parochial schools, nor did its priests preach Meanwhile, Second Presbyterian instituted change. Yet, by 1970 Bishop Joseph B. elder rotation, opened its doors to all, and Brunini issued a pastoral letter criticizing the General Assembly accepted its invita- segregation as “an affront to the informed tion to meet there in a subsequent year.30 conscience,” and urged that appeals to the In 1966 the PCUS Assembly cited its patterns of a “dead past” would do nothing Mississippi presbyteries for defying a 1964 but “defraud young Mississippians of their directive to admit Negro churches into mem- rightful place in tomorrow’s world.”28 bership from the former all-black presby- The small UPCUSA Presbytery of Missis- teries. It sent a committee of five former sippi—mostly former Cumberland congre- General Assembly moderators. The com- gations which united with the “Northern” mittee reported strong anti-Assembly senti- Assembly in 1906—was rural and included ment, especially in Central Mississippi a few struggling black congregations. It did Presbytery. That year, meeting at West Point, little to amplify or oppose positions taken by Mississippi, by order of the General Assem- the General Assembly, even excluding blacks bly, St. Andrew Presbytery agreed to receive at its camp as late as 1964.29 churches and commissioners from the former Louisiana-Mississippi Presbytery of the Snedecor Memorial Synod. (The moderator’s III tie-breaking vote settled the issue.) Missis- sippi was the last to accept members of the In 1965, Congress passed a sweeping former black synod, but in its summer 1966 Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President meeting the Synod of Mississippi advised Lyndon B. Johnson. Leading the opposition the General Assembly that it could not “in in the Senate was majority leader Richard B. good conscience…place the stamp of its Russell (D-Georgia), brother of Dr. Henry E. approval upon the recommendation that Russell, pastor of Second Presbyterian sessions of constituent churches of this Synod Church in Memphis, Tennessee. On this as admit persons to membership without refer- other occasions, Memphis churches influ- ence to race.”31 enced Mississippi Presbyterians. In 1964 the In the face of court-ordered school de- PCUS had voted to amend its Book of Church segregation, thousands of Mississippians— Order to state that “no one shall be excluded including many Presbyterians—removed from participation in public worship in the their children from public schools (often Lord’s house on the grounds of race, color, citing Supreme Court decisions about school or class.” Protests resulted when it was an- prayer as an additional cause) and enrolled nounced that the 1965 PCUS Assembly them in segregated academies, many spon- would be at Second Church, Memphis, which sored by Presbyterian churches. Advertising 74 Journal of Presbyterian History

“superior education in a Christian environ- IV ment,” academies were supported almost exclusively by white Christians—and also in Further impetus toward division came the Delta by conservative Asians and Jews. from the 1960 consolidation of Mississippi’s Mississippi’s black and more liberal white five presbyteries into three—an action some Presbyterians, led by William F. Winter, the said would reduce negative votes against state’s first Presbyterian governor in a gen- union with the UPCUSA. Others argued that eration, supported public education and with modern highways fewer presbyteries expressed no qualms about any perceived were needed, and that consolidation would lack of religious freedom in public schools. make each presbytery large enough to em- White Presbyterians such as the Reverend ploy an executive secretary and maintain a Reginald V. Parsons of Holly Springs were summer camp. elected to school boards and kept their chil- Efforts toward governing body consoli- dren in the public schools at a time when dation accelerated with the redrawing of many church members turned to other ven- synod boundaries in 1973. This effort brought ues for the education of their young. Many the synods of Mississippi and Alabama into Presbyterian teachers in Mississippi were an entity provisionally known as Synod C–F. distinguished by work in public education This plan was eventually revamped into a during this period—labor sometimes not synod embracing Mississippi, Alabama, Ten- supported by their churches or sessions.32 nessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the Mis- Critics of change found a voice in Missis- souri bootheel. While expanded opportuni- sippi theological professor Morton H. Smith, ties for mission were cited as reasons for of Jackson’s Reformed Seminary, who as- consolidation, critics claimed that it eased serted that integration would lead to inter- the way toward denominational reunion. In marriage and that the 1960s social revolu- the 1970s, Belhaven College, French Camp tion would “destroy the divinely created Academy, and Palmer Home for Children in diversity of humankind and help establish Columbus, Mississippi (along with South- Communist domination.” He argued that western, the synod-supported college at the church should not support integration. Memphis) established self-perpetuating In How Is the Gold Become Dim: The De- boards not controlled by the synod. These cline of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (1973), actions, taken for a variety of reasons, weak- he wrote: “The fact is that slavery had been ened ties among Presbyterians in the region. legislated in the Bible, and therefore the Changes in the Westminster Confession Presbyterians in the South refrained from upset Mississippians. While some conserva- condemning slavery as sinful. The same can tives chafed under the confession’s Calvin- be said of the matter of segregation. The fact ism, others believed any change could un- is that God Himself segregated Israel from dermine the church’s witness. For years, the the Canaanites.”33 synod’s Mississippi Visitor was filled with Gradual change in racial attitudes and articles for and against such proposals. In policies came to the South and Southern 1942, the Southern Church’s Calvinism was Presbyterians. PCUS seminaries and col- modified by the addition of chapters to the leges gradually opened their doors to blacks, confession on the Gospel and Holy Spirit. Belhaven College being the last (1966). In Since these were identical to chapters added 1972, John M. Mulder asserted in Theology by the U.S.A. Church in 1903, conservatives Today that white racism in America was balked, claiming that the chapter on the declining, and he credited churches with Holy Spirit implied that humanity had un- bringing about a good deal of the change. aided power to accept the gospel and that Yet, some in Mississippi claimed that advo- the chapter on God’s love in the gospel was cacy of integration by Presbyterian leaders so ambiguous that it could be construed to caused the division of their church.34 teach universalism. More discontent came Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 75

in 1959 when the PCUS amended the con- themselves “in the light of all the facts” and fession to broaden its policy on remarriage “try to restate and reemphasize its message of the divorced in the church. As many to meet the needs of the questioners.” In Presbyterians embraced developmental theo- 1932, Bitzer’s friend Cecil V. Crabb of ries of history and doctrine, conservatives Clarksdale, one of Mississippi’s scholarly held on to concepts of truth as unchanging young pastors, hinted in the Union Seminary and absolute. Attempts to bring insights from Review that fear of heresy trials stifled liter- sociology and psychology to problems be- ary output among Presbyterians.37 fore the church were rejected outright. There Mississippi conservatives established a was anxiety among Mississippi conserva- reputation for their synod as the most vigor- tives in the 1960s and ’70s about what they ous quarter in the church for efforts to ferret perceived as looser subscription to the out perceived deviations from orthodoxy. Westminster Standards and the implications Central Mississippi Presbytery lodged charges of proposed changes in ordination vows. against Charles E. Diehl, president of South- They charged that instead of adhering to a western, and E. T. Thompson, a professor in “system” of doctrine, some affirmed “sys- Union Seminary in Virginia. It also peti- tems” of doctrine, as well as ever-changing tioned the General Assembly to investigate concepts of ethics and belief.35 rumors of unsound teaching on the mission PCUS Sunday school literature was also field. A few years later, Meridian Presbytery blamed for dividing the church’s Mississippi overtured the PCUS Assembly concerning constituency. In 1963, Southern Presbyteri- “liberalism” in denominational publications. ans adopted a highly challenging church The effort’s chief supporter was W. J. school curriculum known as Covenant Life. Stanway, a graduate of Bob Jones University The new materials made great demands and Westminster Seminary. Several congre- upon teachers as well as church members, gations in the presbytery used materials from who were asked to think critically about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.38 ethical questions such as racial justice. The During this period presbytery examina- material posed open-ended questions, en- tions of incoming ministers intermingled couraging class members to think and dis- social and theological questions. The Pres- cuss. The Presbyterian Journal charged that byterian Outlook reported that a Mississippi the curriculum made “situational ethics” candidate for ordination was quizzed as official for the PCUS.36 follows: Although individual ministers and con- 1. Do you advocate the integration of the black gregations were regarded as “liberal,” the and white races? Synod of Mississippi was dominated by con- 2. Do you advocate an early reunion of the USA servative thought. In 1921 the synod com- and the U. S. Presbyterian Churches? mended “the stirring words of this distin- 3. Are you Neo-Orthodox in Interpretation of Scriptures? Miracles? guished man,” the silver-tongued orator 4. Do you accept: the Virgin birth of Christ? William Jennings Bryan, who led the charge Deity of Christ? Substitutionary atonement? Res- against evolution and later would lead the urrection of Christ? prosecution in the famous Tennessee trial of 5. Do you believe in salvation through Christ 39 biology teacher John Scopes. A few years alone? later, George L. Bitzer, who had served at The ferocity of the Central Presbytery’s Leland and Holly Springs, Mississippi, gave questioning resulted in a case which went to the alumni address at Austin Seminary. Said the General Assembly. This occurred when Bitzer: “We are living in...a time of change Meridian’s Trinity Church called the Rev. A. and necessary readjustment…amid the chal- M. Hart, of Arkansas, as pastor. Hart, who lenge of countless new facts in biology, had been ordained by Central Mississippi psychology, and sociology.” He urged min- Presbytery in 1953, was rejected in 1962 isters “to think the message through” for after examination in presbytery. Protests re- 76 Journal of Presbyterian History sulted in the presbytery’s being cited by the heid-oriented Dutch Church in South Af- synod for “acrimonious relations…divisive rica. Carl McIntire, strident leader of the Bible atmosphere,” and a mentality “which toler- Presbyterian Church (which split from the ated only legalistic interpretations.” The Orthodox Presbyterian movement in 1937) synod ordered Hart’s reexamination, which also swayed opinion against the PCUS-PCUSA was again not sustained. Protest was made reunion. His Christian Beacon newspaper was and the normally conservative synod again mailed free to hundreds of Southern Presbyte- condemned the presbytery’s acerbic exami- rian ministers, and the Presbyterian Outlook nations. Critics believed Hart’s anti-segre- blamed McIntire for introducing arguments gation views were the cause of his rejection. which Mississippi Presbyterians used in the As late as 1964, Central Mississippi Presby- 1954 reunion debate.41 tery issued accusatory interrogatories re- Leadership for Mississippi’s Presbyterian garding the infallibility of scripture to the “orthodoxy” came from First Church in Jack- Union Seminary faculty in Virginia. The son—by far the state’s largest and wealthiest presbytery voted against every major PCUS PCUS congregation. Located in the state’s constitutional change prior to the vote for largest city, its members included many reunion with the UPCUSA in 1983.40 influential leaders, including founders of the Influences from the North played a part powerful White Citizens’ Council. Two in- in the formation of a continuing Southern stitutions allied with the First Church— Presbyterian Church. These came from Belhaven College and Reformed Theologi- Westminster Seminary, founded after cal Seminary—sought to counter the Princeton Seminary’s reorganization in 1929. influence of Columbia Seminary, some of J. Gresham Machen, seminary founder, and whose graduates, espousing a gospel of de- Cornelius van Til, apologetics professor, segregation and broader theological inter- spoke at Synod of Mississippi youth confer- pretation, had angered congregations. Re- ences in the 1930s, creating popular support formed Seminary sought to bolster the for Machen during his trial by the General doctrine of biblical inerrancy as taught by Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., nineteenth-century Princeton theologians in 1936. J. B. Hutton, pastor of Jackson’s First Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield, and to Church and editor of the Mississippi Visitor, emphasize with new vigor Presbyterianism’s backed the northern conservatives and Calvinistic creed, including the doctrines of brought Westminster graduates to Central “absolute predestination” and unconditional Mississippi, giving that already conservative election. Faculty were required to affirm presbytery a distinctly militant cast. Minis- “that God has ordained a form of church ters from Westminster found their way to government presbyterial rather than congre- Mississippi in such numbers that in 1957 the gational or episcopal,” and that the church, Presbyterian Outlook devoted an issue to as an institution, “should not presume to the phenomenon, citing allegations by a enter into areas of activity where it has Mississippi conservative that the Philadel- neither calling nor competence.” The semi- phia-based seminary and the Orthodox Pres- nary received the Westminster Confession byterian denomination were placing gradu- “as originally adopted by the Presbyterian ates in Mississippi with the hope of furthering Church in the United States,” that is, without their interests. Westminster received funds the 1942 chapters on the Gospel and the and students from Mississippi even after Holy Spirit or the 1959 chapter which mod- Reformed Seminary was organized and in erated the church’s policy on divorce. Be- operation. Several other ministers associ- cause ministers were viewed as likely to be ated with the most conservative portions of more liberal, the seminary’s board was made Mississippi Presbyterianism also brought up entirely of laymen. The new seminary influences from outside the Southern Pres- attracted hundreds of students. It received byterian environment, including the apart- generous gifts, including a library from the Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 77

Blackburn family of South Carolina, who ing, 19 January 1971, St. Andrew Presbytery specified that a segregated admission policy received thirty-three identical copies from be maintained. When academies sprang up sessions of a mimeographed overture against around Mississippi, the seminary offered a reunion. The resulting debate reflected near- degree in Christian school administration.42 complete polarization. On 11 August 1971, Momentum toward division grew after at the annual Presbyterian Journal rally, a 1966 when the PCUS voted to participate in Steering Committee for a Continuing Pres- the Consultation on Church Union. The byterian Church was announced, headed by Concerned Presbyterians (successor to the Donald Patterson of Jackson’s First Church. earlier Continuing Church Committee) led The committee declared: “We believe that the opposition with support from the Presby- many of the individuals, institutions, boards, terian Journal, which editorialized that the and agencies of the [PCUS] are apostate, COCU decision was evidence that recon- and we see no sign of repentance and revival ciliation among differing factions was im- among them.…”44 possible, so that withdrawal was the only Tense relations yielded to division in the recourse. To prepare for possible challenges autumn of 1972. By 1973, a trickle of with- to retention of property, congregations es- drawals in Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia tablished quasi-independent corporations to became a torrent as PCUS leaders decided hold buildings in trust for them. to postpone a 1974 vote on the Plan of A proposed union with the Reformed Union, which included an escape clause Church in America in 1969 was not opposed which conservatives planned to use. Central by Mississippi conservatives because it con- and South Mississippi presbyteries met in tained an escape clause permitting congre- midsummer. On July 17, twenty-two of South gations to withdraw with property within a Mississippi’s seventy-seven congregations year after that or any subsequent union. withdrew. Two days later, an even greater Pleased by the willingness to embrace a exodus occurred at First Presbyterian in Jack- union which would take their church be- son as thirty-eight of Central Mississippi’s yond its southern confines, the PCUS As- seventy-three churches dismissed themselves sembly immediately reopened negotiations from the presbytery meeting in the sanctuary with the UPCUSA. With this action, a direc- and adjourned to a chapel to organize Mis- tion in the church’s life seemed to have been sissippi Valley Presbytery of the National set, after which, as E. T. Thompson remarked, Presbyterian Church. In the following “The threat of division proved no deterrent.” months, ten more churches withdrew from Thompson believed that as the PCUS came Central Presbytery and twelve from the South into the 1970s, it was moving “ever more Presbytery. With the exception of the East fully into the mainstream of the nation’s Alabama Presbytery, no other region of the religious life.” Yet, as he wrote in the final PCUS experienced such loss, including many sentence of his Presbyterians in the South: of the most influential congregations of the “Opposition…intensified, and there were region.45 Losses in north Mississippi were organized bodies anticipating, some…com- not as great, but involved more local divi- mitted to, a final division of the church.” He sion. St. Andrew Presbytery received word was prescient, for had Thompson published that fourteen congregations had attempted the volume a few years later, the final chap- to renounce the authority of presbytery. ter would no doubt have been titled “Divi- Congregations that were unanimous or nearly sion—and Reunion.”43 so were dismissed. A “Church of the Pil- grims” was organized for loyal PCUS mem- V bers whose local churches had left the presbytery.46 Mississippi sessions were circularized The first General Assembly of the Na- for and against reunion. At its winter meet- tional Presbyterian Church (later named the 78 Journal of Presbyterian History

Presbyterian Church in America) was held 4 pend, at least in part, upon nurturing unhap- December 1973—112 years to the day after piness in the congregations, sessions, the General Assembly which constituted the presbyteries, synods, and the General As- Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States sembly of the [PCUS], and in wooing away of America. Like the 1861 Assembly, it pub- from its loyalty and support members and lished a “Message to All the Churches of congregations of this denomination.”49 Jesus Christ Throughout the Earth,” modeled While PCA leaders insisted that doctri- after James Henley Thornwell’s missive of nal considerations were paramount, most 1861. It stated: congregations that withdrew were in areas We are convinced that our former denomination where the population majority was black as a whole, and its leadership, no longer holds and where whites had left public schools. those views regarding the nature and mission of Most PCA churches were located along a so- the Church, which we accept as both true and called “Black Belt” (termed by H. L. Mencken essential. When we judged that there was no the “Bible Belt”), about one hundred miles human remedy for this situation, and in the absence of evidence that God would intervene, on either side of Interstate Highway 20 (from we were compelled to raise a new banner bear- Greenville, South Carolina, through Atlanta, ing the historic, Scriptural faith of our forefa- Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, and Jack- 47 thers. son, Mississippi). Here the southern black While many in the withdrawing party population is concentrated and the resulting drew parallels to 1861, a major difference pressures are said to be most intense.50 was that in that rupture, presbyteries with- drew, whereas the 1973 division was ac- VI complished by individual ministers and con- gregations. Critics pointed out that in The 1973 withdrawals did not resolve Presbyterian polity, divisions and reunions questions of division and reunion in the among churches are ratified by vote of PCUS or Mississippi Presbyterianism, where presbyteries. No presbytery voted to with- twenty-five UPCUSA congregations minis- draw in the PCUS split in the 1970s. Many tered alongside their PCUS counterparts. noted similarities between this and the 1936 Further controversy in the PCUS frustrated rift in the U.S.A. Church led by J. Gresham remaining conservatives. In 1980, the PCUS Machen.48 authorized admission of baptized children The 1974 PCUS Assembly, which elected to the Holy Communion prior to confirma- the Reverend Lawrence Bottoms as its first tion of their baptismal vows. Proponents black moderator, immediately extended an argued that the church, having long ex- olive branch to separating churches, declar- tended baptism to children of believers, ing that “We affirm our acceptance of them now followed the practice of other churches, as our brothers and sisters in Christ.” The welcoming little ones to the Lord’s Table. PCA was invited to send fraternal delegates Conservatives generally opposed the change, to PCUS Assemblies (as all Reformed bodies although a few argued in its favor.51 were invited to do), but the invitation was Further tension resulted in 1976 when declined. Attempts in succeeding years by an attempt was made to revise the PCUS commissioners at PCA Assemblies to have constitution in line with changes made by their church either recognize or condemn the UPCUSA in 1967, adding to the the PCUS as apostate were tabled; mean- Westminster standards several ancient and while the PCA began to recruit congrega- Reformation creeds, as well as a contempo- tions from the PCUS, placing ads, contact- rary statement, “A Declaration of Faith,” ing members and sessions, holding meetings, creating a Book of Confessions. Changes in and distributing literature. The 1974 PCUS the wording of ordination vows were also Assembly warned that “there are specific contemplated—revisions which some saw groups whose future life and growth de- as weakening adherence both to the author- Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 79

Pre-1960 Post-1960 1986

Five, then three, then two: the loss of members and churches Presbyterian Church in the United States in Mississippi as shown by the shrinking number of PCUS and PC(USA) presbyteries, 1959–1986. ity of infallible scriptures as well as to doc- against the plan, but Central and St. Andrew trine set forth in the Westminster standards. presbyteries approved it. According to This These proposals, along with measures for Week in the PCUS, the Reverend Samuel C. union presbyteries with other Reformed bod- Patterson, retired president of Reformed ies and a plan for “weighted” voting to give Seminary and a member of St. Andrew urban presbyteries more influence, were Presbytery, startled conservatives when he seen as means to union with the UPCUSA said: “Twice over a 42-year ministry I have “through the back door.” Court battles led to voted against the reunion of these two efforts to amend the PCUS Book of Church Churches. I think fear prompted me because Order to specify the denomination’s right to fear plays it safe and thinks in the negative. determine disposition of congregational The scriptures propose faith and love. These property. This created further anxiety among discount self-protection, think in the posi- already-nervous opponents of reunion, and tive, and will dare much to achieve our in 1980, seven years after the initial seces- Savior’s ideal for the evident unity of His sions, a second round of divisions occurred.52 Church in the world.” He cast his vote for Local clashes also became sharper. In reunion in 1983.54 Three-fourths of the PCUS 1979, pastor W. Wilson Benton made an presbyteries supported reunion, which was issue of his Cleveland, Mississippi, church’s effected in May 1983. The plan contained stained glass window. The window, dating an escape clause, known as Article 13, giv- from 1928 and illustrating Revelation 3:20, ing particular churches the right to withdraw pictured Jesus in the sentimental Victorian if certain conditions were met. Several Mis- pose of Holman Hunt’s painting in St. Paul’s sissippi congregations formerly aligned with Cathedral, London. Benton urged that the the PCUS were dismissed. In several cases, window violated the Second Command- when divisions appeared, the property was ment of Moses. Controversy divided his con- awarded to the withdrawing majority as gregation, and amid much publicity, mem- required by Article 13, and new PC(USA) bers loyal to Benton’s interpretations congregations were organized for those who withdrew and formed a PCA church.53 wished to continue as members of the main- In 1983, a vote by presbyteries on the stream church. reunion of the PCUS and the UPCUSA was The evangelical movement of the 1970s scheduled. South Mississippi Presbytery (in which helped propel Jimmy Carter to the spite of conservative withdrawals) voted presidency had its effect on Mississippi Pres- 80 Journal of Presbyterian History byterian conservatives, where many adopted Cumberland congregations in the northern the designation “evangelical” to distinguish counties. The lion’s share were found in the themselves from what they perceived as the two largest denominations: PC(USA) and rigid fundamentalism of older traditional- PCA—communions which shared no offi- ists. Many Presbyterian congregations were cial correspondence or cooperative work, open to evangelical ministers from Reformed and which often maintained rival congrega- Seminary and others like it, including Gor- tions in communities barely large enough to don-Conwell of Massachusetts. In the late support one Reformed witness. Separation 1980s, when it was still possible for congre- brought a certain peace to both parties al- gations to leave under Article 13, most of though, especially in Mississippi Valley and these congregations and evangelical minis- Grace presbyteries, PCA (which corre- ters withdrew, citing currents in the national sponded geographically to the once litigious church concerning legalized abortion, the Central and South Mississippi presbyteries, ordination of homosexuals, and so forth. PCUS), vigorous debates were still carried When the new wave of withdrawals began on, but many in the PCA saw controversy as in the late 1980s, it was clear that some a means of faithfulness, leading the church congregations would follow a different path. toward doctrinal purity and clarity of ex- Rather than joining the PCA, several affili- pression.57 ated with the Evangelical Presbyterian The PCA emphasized three distinctives Church, a body that had originated a decade said to mark a return to historic Presby- earlier when conservatives in Colorado, terianism: elders, deacons, and ministers Michigan, and Illinois withdrew from the were male; officers generally served for UPCUSA, protesting liberal trends.55 The life;58 and chapters added to the PCUS Con- Mississippi congregations joining the EPC fession of Faith were deleted to restore tradi- followed the lead of the 3,826-member Sec- tional Calvinism and enforce prohibitions ond Presbyterian Church of Memphis and its against remarriage of the divorced.59 The pastor, John R. de Witt, a fiery preacher from PCA also eliminated the requirement of the the Dutch Reformed tradition and a former PCUS Book of Church Order that worshipers professor at Reformed Seminary. The advan- be admitted without regard to race or color. tages of the EPC were said to be that it was It added the word “inerrant” to ordination less interested than the PCA in seventeenth- vows concerning the Bible. In congrega- century Calvinism, it permitted ordination tions, effort was made to reinstate church of women (several conservative Mississippi discipline in both moral and doctrinal congregations by this time did have women spheres. Embracing a position long shunned officers), and was tolerant of charismatics, a by earlier leaders, the PCA promoted a theological trait that increasingly became a sociopolitical agenda, albeit different from kind of dual identity among Southern mainline churches. PCA leaders constructed evangelicals. Withdrawals across the South elaborate theories of economics and the soon gave the EPC a nationwide constitu- relation of faith to life. Governing bodies ency as well as a strong southern accent. As debated strict interpretations of predestina- was done when the PCA openly sought tion, mandated literal belief in the six days of PCUS members, the 1988 PC(USA) Assem- creation, affirmed the subordination of bly condemned similar efforts by the EPC.56 women in marriage, and opposed birth con- trol, drinking alcohol, and gay rights. The VII PCA became a voice on behalf of large outlays for national defense, tax cuts, and By 1986, Mississippi’s Reformed com- officially-sponsored prayer in public schools. munity was divided among six traditions: It experienced controversy over “theonomy” the former PCUS and UPUSA, the PCA and (belief that all Old Testament moral laws EPC, as well as Associate Reformed and should be written into the civil code). It Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 81 sought to ban membership in Masonic and in the PCA. Reformed Seminary moved much fraternal organizations (though not college of its operation to Orlando, Florida, and its fraternities or sororities, where its Reformed Mississippi campus increasingly served black University Fellowship carried on vigorous and international students.61 ministries). Some congregations prohibited Although both the PCA and PC(USA) women’s circles from meeting without male made efforts at new church development, supervision. In the 1990s PCA apologists membership in both communions declined became heavily involved in the ongoing in roughly equal percentages, though indi- “culture wars,” giving leadership in the 1998 vidual congregations prospered and finan- effort to impeach President Clinton. Some cial contributions in both communions re- engaged in civil disobedience opposing abor- mained high. In 1998, total membership tion. Twenty-five years after the initial rup- among the PCA and PC(USA) in Mississippi ture, PCA literature made frequent critical was 30,305, whereas in 1954, PCUS and reference to PCUS and PC(USA) doctrinal PCUSA membership in the state had been and ethical positions.60 34,143.62 Many factors were involved in this For its part, the PC(USA) carried on in change, yet it could not be denied that much Mississippi with much-reduced numbers, positive energy had been consumed in the finding itself in a new kind of ministry after protracted controversies. what some called its “thirty years’ war.” Often PC(USA) congregations found a dis- NOTES tinct role as the only “mainline” witness in a 1The PCUS reported 241 Mississippi churches in community. Its ministers downplayed theo- 1971, with 34,668 communicant members. logical controversy, stressing the grace and 2Charles Reagan Wilson, Judgment & Grace in compassion of God over against the “legal- Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), 8; Charles Reagan ism” which prevailed in fundamentalist pul- Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost pits. Congregations valued thoughtful Cause (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), 16; preaching in a quarter of the South where an Samuel S. Hill, Jr., Southern Churches in Crisis (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), 21, 30–31; cf. educated ministry was not particularly Samuel S. Hill, Religion in the Southern States (Macon, prized. The presence of female clergy dra- Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983); Charles Reagan matically showed that the PC(USA) was a Wilson, Religion in the South (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985). church where women could play leadership 3Although proposals to rename the Presbyterian roles. New members often came from the Church in the Confederate States of America in a way ranks of the “fundamentalist wounded.” that would specifically indicate its sectional alignment were rejected in 1865, the term Southern Presbyterian PC(USA) presbyteries pointed to the increas- for the PCUS became a semi-official alternate name. ingly cordial role that members played in The corresponding use of “Northern” for the General denominational affairs, as well as healthy Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. was a designation of convenience for southerners, although church finances and the establishment of not accurate, for the U.S.A. Church eventually had endowments for a number of congregations congregations in all states. and causes. Conversations were held with 4Central Presbyterian, 13 Aug. 1873, 2; Lyon had been moderator of the 1863 Confederate Presbyterian Cumberland Presbyterians concerning co- General Assembly; see R. Milton Winter, “James Adair operative work and the possibility of a union Lyon: Southern Presbyterian Apostle of Progress,” Jour- presbytery. nal of Presbyterian History 60 (Winter 1982): 314–35; Presbyterian Church in the U. S., General Assembly, Ironically, evangelically oriented Pres- Minutes, 1870, 529–30. Hereafter cited as GAM; Peyton byterians (perhaps by influence of more H. Hoge, Moses Drury Hoge: Life and Letters (Rich- racially open charismatic members) dealt mond: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1899), 281. more effectively with racial inclusiveness 5North Mississippi Presbytery, Minutes, 17 Apr. 1884. than did old-line Presbyterians. John Perkins, 6J. B. Mack, “The Union Question,” Presbyterian a black Mississippi evangelical, began Voice Standard, 26 Sept. 1906, 14; 7 Aug. 1907, 4; see Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3 vols. of Calvary Ministries, which won national (Richmond: John Knox, 1963–73), 3: 288–89; Ernest attention from evangelicals, including many Trice Thompson, “Presbyterians North and South— 82 Journal of Presbyterian History

Efforts toward Reunion,” Journal of Presbyterian His- Mind of the White South,” Religion in Life 26 (1957): tory 43 (Mar. 1965):1–15; North Mississippi Presbytery, 361–67; see James H. Smylie, “The Bible, Race, and Minutes, 16 Apr. 1930, 28. See Robert Milton Winter, the Changing South,” Journal of Presbyterian History Shadow of a Mighty Rock: A Social and Cultural History 59 (Summer 1981): 197–217. of Presbyterianism in Marshall County, Mississippi 14“Southern Presbyterians Reaffirm Anti-Segregation (Franklin, Tenn.: Providence House, 1997), 375–76. Stand,” Religious News Service, 30 April 1958; “Racial 7W. A. Gamble, “Union with the Northern Presby- Declaration,” The Christian Index, 8 May 1958. terian Church Would Spell Doom for Our Church and 15Sara Barry, “The Role of the Presbyterian Church Its Ideals,” Mississippi Visitor 28 (May 1940): 1, 11; in the United States in a Segregated Society” (M.R.E. Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3:564. thesis, Biblical Seminary in New York, 1955); Dwyn 8“Continuing” assemblies of Presbyterians opposed M. Mounger, “Racial Attitudes in the Presbyterian to unions voted by their denominations are well known Church, U. S., 1944–1954,” Journal of Presbyterian having been formed in Scotland, Canada, and Austra- History 48 (Winter 1970): 38–58; Hodding Carter, Jr., lia, and by Cumberland Presbyterians in the U. S. after “Racial Crisis in the Deep South,” Saturday Evening the majority of their churches were received by the Post, 17 Dec. 1955, 75; Will D. Campbell, Providence Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in 1906. Thompson, Pres- (Atlanta: Longstreet, 1992), 3–16; James C. Cobb, The byterians in the South, 3:564; W. H. Frazer, “Why I Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta Favor Preserving the Southern Church,” Southern Pres- and the Roots of Regional Identity (New York: Oxford byterian Journal, 23 July 1952, 7; cf. similar articles in University Press, 1992), 222–24; Elizabeth Spencer, the same publication, 26 April and 2 May 1972, by a Landscapes of the Heart: A Memoir (New York: Ran- later Belhaven president, R. McFerran Crowe. The vote dom House, 1998). and underlying issues were studied by the Laboratory 16“Christians in the Crisis Hour,” Baptist Record, of Social Relations at Harvard, which concluded that 11 Oct. 1962; Ellis Ray Branch, “Born of Conviction: the segregation controversy was the major source of Racial Conflict and Changes in Mississippi Methodism, the opposition vote. See Sanford M. Dornbusch and 1945–1983” (Ph.D. diss., Mississippi State University, Roger D. Irle, “The Failure of Presbyterian Union,” 1984); Alvis, Religion and Race, 110; James W. Silver, American Journal of Sociology 64 (Jan. 1959): 352–55; Mississippi: The Closed Society (New York: Harcourt, Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3:574–75; cf. Brace & World, 1964); Sessional Records, First Presby- Dwyn Mecklin Mounger, “Racial Attitudes in the Pres- terian Church, Holly Springs, Mississippi, 14 Sept. byterian Church, U. S., 1944–1954” (B.D. thesis, 1960; St. Andrew Presbytery, Minutes, 16 Oct. 1962, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1965). 20–21; “Oxford, Mississippi Pastors Appeal to Repen- 9Mississippi did not ratify the Nineteenth Amend- tance,” Presbyterian Outlook, 22 Oct. 1962, 3; Russell ment to the U. S. Constitution giving women the right H. Barrett, Integration at Ole Miss (Chicago: Quad- to vote until 1984. rangle, 1965); Nadine Cohodas, The Band Played 10William Childs Robinson, “Reunion of the Pres- Dixie: Race and the Liberal Conscience at Ole Miss byterian Churches U.S.A. and U.S,” Christian Ob- (New York: Free Press, 1997); Donald W. Shriver, Jr., server, 24 June 1940; see Joel L. Alvis, Jr, Religion & ed., The Unsilent South: Prophetic Preaching in Racial Race: Southern Presbyterians, 1946–1983 (Tuscaloosa: Crisis (Richmond: John Knox, 1965), 65–66, 131–37. University of Alabama Press, 1994). 17Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resis- 11Willie Morris, a Mississippian and a perceptive tance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s critic of southern manners and morals, wrote in 1981: (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969). “The churches will be the last institutions to integrate, of 18Board of Deacons, First Presbyterian Church, course.” Terrains of the Heart and Other Essays on Home Holly Springs, Mississippi, Minutes, 22 Sept. 1964. (Oxford, Miss.: Yoknapatawpha, 1981), 33; cf. Edwin 19Shriver, The Unsilent South, 72–74. Sixteen Harrel, Jr., White Sects and Black Men in the Recent months later, Stanford accepted a pastorate in Ken- South (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971). tucky. The congregation later called a strongly conser- 12G. T. Gillespie, “A Christian View on Segrega- vative pastor from Reformed Theological Seminary; in tion,” reprint of an address before the Synod of Missis- 1974 a minority of the members withdrew with him to sippi of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., 4 Nov. 1954 form a PCA congregation. (Greenwood, Miss.: Citizens Council, n.d.); G. T. 20Ann Waldron, Hodding Carter: The Reconstruc- Gillespie, “Defense of the Principle of Racial Segrega- tion of a Racist (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin, 1993), 248. tion,” Presbyterian Outlook, 14 Mar. 1955, 5–9; Alvis, 21Ben Lacy Rose, Racial Segregation in the Church Religion and Race, 53–55; Thompson, Presbyterians in (Richmond, Va.: Outlook Publishers, 1957); Rachel the South, 3:540; Ernest Trice Thompson, “Southern Henderlite, “The Christian Way in Race Relations,” Presbyterians and the Race Problem,” Austin Theologi- Theology Today 14 (1957): 196–99; Jane Hines, ed., cal Seminary Bulletin 83 (1968): 5–28; Kenneth K. The Bob Walkup Story Book (Nashville: Hart Street Bailey, Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Press, 1995), 11; Dwyn M. Mounger to R. Milton Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1964): 145–46; T. Winter, 12 April 1999. Erskine Clarke, “The History of Ecumenical Relations 22Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality, in the Southern Presbyterian Church,” GAM (PCUS), 1954–1980 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1981), 169–77; 1976, 473. Beauty for Ashes, pamphlet, Mississippi Baptist Con- 13Neil R. McMillen, The Citizens’ Council: Orga- vention Committee of Concern, Mississippi Council on nized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction (Ur- Human Relations Papers, Mississippi Department of bana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1971); “The Archives and History, Jackson, Miss. The Mississippi Synod of Mississippi,” Presbyterian Survey, Jan. 1956, Baptist Convention had not participated in the NCC 36–37; Presbyterian Outlook, 3 Mar. 1958, 2; Warner Delta Ministry, and hence, could take a stance of L. Hall, “Race Relations and the American Church: The aloofness from the incidents that caused the churches Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 83 to be burned; Mark Newman, “The Mississippi Baptist Church also suffered a minor spate of withdrawals with Convention and Desegregation, 1945–1980,” Journal disaffected members citing prayer book revision and of Mississippi History 59 (Spring 1997): 14–15. women’s ordination as chief reasons for establishing 23James F. Findlay, “The Mainline Churches and “traditional” Anglican congregations. Byron de la Head Start in Mississippi: Religious Activism in the Beckwith, of Greenwood, later convicted of the mur- Sixties,” Church History 64 (June 1995): 237–50; Bruce der of Medgar Evers, a prominent civil rights leader, Hilton, The Delta Ministry (Toronto: Collier-Macmillan, was identified with the schismatic movement among 1969); James F. Findlay Jr, Church People in the Mississippi Episcopalians. The Episcopal Church grew Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the steadily in Mississippi after the PCUS-PCA division Black Freedom Movement, 1950–1970 (New York: (from 17,000 communicants in 1971 to nearly 23,000 Oxford University Press, 1993). in 1999), while the combined membership of the PCA 24“The Churches Speak,” New South, Aug. 1954, and PC(USA) does not equal the membership of the for- 1–4; “The Churches Speak,” New South, Oct. 1956, 5– mer PCUS and UPCUSA churches prior to 1971. 7; Hodding Carter III, The South Strikes Back (Garden 28Carter, The South Strikes Back, 166. See Donald City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959): 164–65; and Branch, Cunnigen, “Men and Women of Goodwill: Mississippi’s “Born of Conviction,” 42–46; “Grenada First Dis- White Liberals” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1987): sents,” Baptist Record, 17 June 1954; Baptist Record, 359, n. 150; “Mississippi Parochial Schools Will Not 24 June 1965); Branch, “Born of Conviction,” 181–93; Offer ‘Refuge From Integration,’” Religious Herald, 22 David M. Reimers, White Protestantism and the Negro Jan. 1970. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 145–57; 29Mississippi Presbytery, Minutes (UPUSA), 25 Jan. Jack Winton Gunn, “Religion in the Twentieth Cen- 1964, 80. tury,” A History of Mississippi, ed. Richard Aubrey 30GAM (PCUS), 1964, 1:79; John H. Leith, “The McLemore, 2 vols (Jackson: University & College Press Church and Race,” Presbyterian Outlook, 27 July 1964, of Mississippi, 1973) 2:484–85; Branch, “Born of Con- 6; “Memphis 1965,” Presbyterian Outlook, 27 April viction,” 292–320; Newman, “The Mississippi Baptist 1964, 8; “Bars Up at Memphis Second,” Presbyterian Convention and Desegregation,” 9; see Samuel S. Hill, Outlook, 11 May 1964, 8; “Memphis Second,” Presby- Jr., Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the terian Outlook, 18 May 1964, 8; Carl Pritchett, “What Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville: Uni- Happened at Memphis,” FOCUS—Newsletter of A versity of Tennessee Press, 1987); “Southern Baptists Fellowship of Concern, 22 May 1964, 9; K. W. Cook, Survey Negro-White Cooperation,” Baptist Press, 18 “General Assembly Is Moved from Second Presbyte- Oct. 1968. rian,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, 27 Jan. 1965; 25Thomas L. Connelly, Will Campbell and the Soul Felix B. Gear, “The 1965 General Assembly,” Presby- of the South (New York: Continuum, 1982); Newman, terian Outlook, 8 Feb. 1965; Charles Conner Gillespie, “The Mississippi Baptist Convention and Desegrega- History of Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, tion,” 1–32; Wilmer C. Fields, “On Jordan’s Stormy 1844–1971 (Memphis: Second Presbyterian Church, Banks: Religion in a Changing South,” Dixie Dateline: A 1971); Marthame E. Sanders III, “‘A Fellowship of Journalistic Portrait of the Contemporary South, ed. John Concern’ and the Declining Doctrine of the Spirituality B. Boles (Houston: Rice University Studies, 1983), 65. of the Church in the Presbyterian Church in the United 26[Charlotte Capers, et al.], The Episcopal Church States,” Journal of Presbyterian History 75 (Fall 1997): in Mississippi, 1763–1992 (Jackson: Episcopal Dio- 184–85; Alvis, Religion and Race, 101–03. cese of Mississippi, 1992), 122–23, 130. See Joel L. 31“Congregations Barring Negroes Condemned by Alvis, Jr., “Racial Turmoil and Religious Reaction: The Assembly,” Religious News Service, 27 April 1966; GAM Rt. Rev. John M. Allin,” Historical Magazine of the (PCUS), 1967, 149–50; Alvis, Religion and Race, 96–99. Protestant Episcopal Church 50 (March 1981): 88–96; 32James J. Kilpatrick, “Back to Segregation, By Will D. Campbell, And Also With You: Duncan Gray Order of the Courts,” National Review, 16 June 1970, and the American Dilemma (Franklin, Tenn.: Provi- 611–26; Presbyterian “Day Schools” were organized dence House, 1997). When Gray was shunned be- by the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, the Second cause of his support for civil rights during his ministry Presbyterian Church of Memphis, and also in the in Cleveland, Mississippi in the 1950s, Richard A. Mississippi communities of Clarksdale, Cleveland, Bolling, an elderly PCUS pastor, took a risk giving Gray Columbia, Columbus, Greenwood, Gulfport, symbolic public support: he was the only one who Hattiesburg, and Laurel. See Holly Springs South Re- would sit beside Gray at meetings of the Rotary Club. porter, 6 Jan. 1983, 1, 3. The Episcopal and United Duncan Gray to R. Milton Winter, March 1, 1990. Methodist churches in Mississippi supported public 27Twenty-eight young Methodist ministers in Mis- education and condemned establishment of private sissippi signed a statement supporting school desegre- schools to evade desegregation, and the various Epis- gation in line with the policy of the national denomi- copal parochial schools within the state quickly adopted nation; however, all but seven of the ministers left the racially inclusive admissions policies. “Creed and Color state within a year, either fired or pressured into in the School Crisis,” Christianity Today, 27 Mar. resigning. The pastor of First Baptist Church in Belzoni, 1970; Branch, “Born of Conviction,” 269–72. Mississippi was similarly forced to resign after twenty- 33Morton H. Smith, How Is the Gold Become Dim: one years. “Methodist Ministers Shatter Vacuum,” The Decline of the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (n.p., Christian Century, 20 Feb. 1963, 229–30; Branch, Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian “Born of Conviction,” chapter 5; Baptist Press, 28 Oct. Church, 1973), 153; cf. Morton H. Smith, “The Racial 1964. During this period a few Baptists, upset at their Problem Facing America,” Presbyterian Guardian 33 congregations’ refusal to adopt inclusive seating poli- (Oct. 1964): 127–28. cies, either changed churches (often becoming Episco- 34The college board took action to open admission pal) or gave up church going altogether. The Episcopal so that federal funds for student loans could continue. 84 Journal of Presbyterian History

Its action was unsuccessfully challenged by conserva- 1962, 64–65; Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, 8 tives in the Synod of Mississippi. Synod of Mississippi, June 1962; Central Mississippi Presbytery, “The Re- Minutes (1967), 65–66; Alvis, Religion and Race, 90– examination of the Reverend A. M. Hart” (transcript, 9 91; Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3:549–51; July 1964) Presbyterian Historical Society, Montreat, John M. Mulder, “Is White Racism Declining?” Theol- NC, GAM (PCUS) 1964, 50–57; Synod of Mississippi, ogy Today 29 (1972): 318–22. Minutes, 1965, 133–57; Alvis, Religion and Race, 66– 35Winter, Shadow, 409; Thompson, Presbyterians 68. For details of Hart’s views on race, cf. A. M. Hart in the South, 3:488–91, 516–18. to Alice Thomason Walkup, 22 Sept. 1995, reprinted 36See, for example, Marion A. Boggs, What Does in Hines, The Bob Walkup Story Book, 119–22; Th- God Require—In Race Relations? (Richmond: CLC ompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3:502–3; Faculty Press, 1964). Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Minutes, Union Theological Seminary, 15 May 1964, 3:463–64. The word “Southern” was dropped from the 1133–34; Alvis, Religion and Race, 137. title of the Presbyterian Journal in 1959. Frank J. Smith, 41During the 1920s and ’30s, the pages of the The History of the Presbyterian Church in America: Mississippi Visitor, the synod newspaper, were full of The Continuing Church Movement (Manassas, Va.: references to Machen and his battle with the General Reformed Educational Foundation, 1985), 19; See Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. “Infiltra- Mark A. Noll and Darryl G. Hart, “The Language(s) of tion—To What End?” Presbyterian Outlook, 17 June Zion: Presbyterian Devotional Literature in the Twen- 1957, 5–7; Memphis Commercial Appeal, 4 and 5 June tieth Century,” The Confessional Mosaic: Presbyteri- 1958; Jackson Daily News, 4 June 1958; James O. ans and Twentieth-Century Theology, ed. Milton J Chatham, Sundays Down South: A Pastor’s Stories (Jack- Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks (Louis- son: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 85–87. ville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 187–207. Ironi- 42James F. Gordon, Jr., A History of Belhaven cally, a PCA congregation in Saltillo, Mississippi formed College, 1894–1981, ed. Linda M. Hill (Jackson, Miss.: in the 1980s took the name Covenant Life Presbyterian Belhaven College, 1983). Although Reformed Semi- Church. nary eventually became the most important institution 37Synod of Mississippi, Minutes, 1921, 28. In the for the education of PCA ministers, the greatest number aftermath of the Scopes trial, the state of Mississippi, of ministers entering the denomination in its formative along with Arkansas and Tennessee, passed laws pro- years held degrees from Columbia Seminary in Decatur, hibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools; Georgia; Reformed Theological Seminary Catalogue, George L. Bitzer, Re-Thinking for Today (Austin: Aus- 1973–1974 (Jackson, Miss.: Reformed Theological tin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 1931), 3–25; Seminary, 1973), 5–7. also published as “The Changeless Gospel in a Chang- 43The RCA union was approved by the PCUS, but ing World,” Union Seminary Review 42 (July 1931): failed in the RCA; Thompson, Presbyterians in the 411–21; Thomas White Currie, Jr., Austin Presbyterian South, 3:580–82; cf. John W. Kuykendall, “Presbyteri- Theological Seminary: A Seventy-Fifth Anniversary ans in the South Revisited: A Critique,” Journal of History (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1978), Presbyterian History 61 (Winter 1983): 445–59. 6, 8, 253; Winter, Shadow, 356–59; Cecil V. Crabb, 44St. Andrew Presbytery, Minutes, 19 Jan. 1971, 6– “Creative Thought in the Southern Church,” Union 12, 20–26; Presbyterian Journal, 25 Aug. 1971, 14; 27 Seminary Review 43 (July 1932): 419–20; Thompson, June 1973, 12, 18. Presbyterians in the South, 3:500–501. 45Losses through withdrawals in South Mississippi 38In 1931, Central Mississippi Presbytery memori- Presbytery amounted to 3,993 members during 1973, alized the board of Southwestern at Memphis, a col- and 7,055 in Central Mississippi for the same period. lege supported by the Synods of Mississippi and Ten- 46“Factions Form New Presbytery,” Memphis Com- nessee, questioning the orthodoxy of its president, mercial Appeal, 17 November 1972; Presbyterian Jour- Charles E. Diehl, who had formerly served without nal, 21 Feb. 1973, 4–5; St. Andrew Presbytery, Min- complaint as pastor of one of Central Presbytery’s utes, 31 Aug. 1973, 20–37; 15 Jan. 1974, 10–11. St. congregations (Greenville, Mississippi). A committee Andrew Presbytery’s loss through withdrawals and appointed by the directors of Southwestern, including divisions in 1973 amounted to 1,489 members. Ironi- members of the Central Presbytery, expressed full cally, the withdrawing congregations depended upon confidence in his leadership and views. Ten years goodwill of “liberal” members who remained in the later, Central Presbytery overtured the PCUS Assembly PCUS presbyteries to dismiss them with their property, to appoint a committee to investigate the teaching of E. since most conceded that dismissal with property was T. Thompson of Union Seminary, Richmond, who was not absolutely guaranteed—hence the concern to have reputed to hold liberal views of biblical inspiration and the escape clause in the 1974 Plan of Union. Missis- social policy. Waller Raymond Cooper, Southwestern sippi churches were dismissed with property in all but at Memphis, 1848–1948 (Richmond: John Knox, 1949), two or three cases where congregational divisions 133–36; Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 3:338, arose and civil litigation resulted. 320. The PCA and Orthodox Presbyterians later joined 47At its second General Assembly (1974), the Na- forces to produce Christian education materials, with tional Presbyterian Church changed its name to Pres- the PCA using literature from the Orthodox Presbyteri- byterian Church in America, due to a challenge from ans’ Great Commission Publications in Philadelphia, the National Presbyterian Church, a UPCUSA congre- Pa. The Rev. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr., a graduate of Belhaven gation in Washington, D.C., which was incorporated College and Reformed Seminary, who served the Pres- under that name; Addresses Delivered During the First byterian Church at Tchula, Miss., became editor of General Assembly of the Continuing Presbyterian Great Commission Publications. Church (Birmingham: Continuing Presbyterian Church, 39Presbyterian Outlook, 17 June 1957, 6. 1973), 6; cf. Alvis, Religion and Race, 133–35. 40Central Mississippi Presbytery, Minutes, 19 Apr. 48The story of the division is told from a PCA Division & Reunion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. 85 perspective in F. Smith, History of the PCA; John Mississippi. Cf. Christian L. Keidel, “Is the Lord’s Sup- Edwards Richards, The Historical Birth of the Presbyte- per for Children?” Westminster Theological Journal 37 rian Church in America (Liberty Hill, S.C.: Liberty (Spring 1975): 301–41. Press, 1986); and Kennedy Smartt, I Am Reminded: An 52Reformed Seminary president Samuel C. Autobiographical, Anecdotal History of The Presbyte- Patterson, a member of St. Andrew Presbytery, and rian Church In America (Chestnut Mountain, Ga.: n.p, faculty member A. H. Freundt, stated clerk of Central n.d.); Historians outside the PCA who have examined Mississippi Presbytery, gave public support to the the division include: James H. Smylie, “About Those effort to adopt “A Declaration of Faith” and the associ- Church Splits!” Presbyterian News, Sept. 1972, 3; Oct. ated Book of Confessions with its revised ordination 1972, 5; Rick Nutt, “The Tie That No Longer Binds: The vows. As a result of the second series of withdrawals Origins of the Presbyterian Church in America,” The and divisions, St. Andrew Presbytery adopted a resolu- Confessional Mosaic: Presbyterians and Twentieth Cen- tion warning its congregations against secessionist tury Theology, ed. Milton J Coalter, John M. Mulder, and efforts, particularly by ministers from Reformed Semi- Louis B. Weeks (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), nary. “Report of the Ad-Interim Committee to Investi- 236–56; and Bryan V. Hillis, Can Two Walk Together gate Actions of Those Seeking to Lead Churches Out of Unless They Be Agreed: American Religious Schisms in the PCUS,” St. Andrew Presbytery, Minutes, 5 Oct. the 1970s (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1991), 1–43. 1982, 24–30. St. Andrew Presbytery, Minutes, 1 Feb. 49“Pastoral Letter Concerning the National Presby- 1983, 16; “PCA Asked to ‘Cease’ Intrusions,” Memphis terian Church,” GAM (PCUS), 1974, 1:198; advertise- Commercial Appeal, 14 June 1983. ment, “What To Do If You’re Presbyterian And Can’t 53Benton’s effort exemplifies neoconservative Pres- Live With Your Church And Can’t Live Without It,” byterian efforts in Mississippi to reassert a “regulative Presbyterian Journal, 9 Apr. 1980, and Christianity principle” in worship enunciated by J. H. Thornwell Today, 18 Apr. 1980; “Answering Hard Questions and others before the Civil War. about PCA,” PCA Messenger, Apr. 1981, 3, 6–7; “Re- 54See Albert H. Freundt, Jr., “An Approach to Open cruits from Our Roots,” PCA Messenger, Apr. 1982, 3– and Honest Political Decision Making in the Presbytery 4; “Report of the Committee on Mission to the United of Central Mississippi in Connection with the Vote on States,” GAM (PCA), 1980, 173; GAM (PCUS), 1974, Presbyterian Reunion,” (D.Min. major project, 1:198–99; cf. GAM (PCUS), 1975, 1:126; Presbyterian McCormick Theological Seminary, 1984). St. Andrew Outlook, 14 July 1975, 9–10. Presbytery, Minutes, 8 Feb. 1983, 30; This Week in the 50Flynn V. Long, associate stated clerk of the PCUS, 31 Jan. 1983. Patterson had urged conserva- PCUS, studied the “PCA-Black Belt” phenomenon. tives not to leave the PCUS. In 1972, he prepared a Some have argued that the increasing urbanization of study paper and visited wavering sessions urging fidel- the upper South increased tension within the PCUS, ity to historic ecclesiastical alignments. He was cred- leaving rural areas of the deep South increasingly ited with preventing or delaying withdrawal of many isolated, theologically conservative, and pro-segrega- churches in the northern part of the state. See Samuel tionist, while the urban areas were more open to C. Patterson, “Seeking a Biblical Basis for the Conduct of theological liberalism and racial integration. Flynn V. Believers who are in an Erring Church” (Jackson, Miss.: Long, Jr., to R. Milton Winter, 23 Mar. 1983; David M. priv. pub. 1972); Jackson Daily News, 22 May 1982. Reimers, “The Race Problem and Presbyterian Union,” 55Losses from withdrawals and divisions from the Church History 31 (June 1962): 203–15; cf. Wilson, Mississippi PCUS and PC(USA) presbyteries after 1973 Religion in the South, 168; Presbyterian Outlook, 25 involved forty-two churches and 5,314 members. Oct. 1971, 10; 20 Dec 1971, 2; 3 Sept. 1973, 9; R. 56See Martin E. Marty, “The Revival of Evangelical- Milton Winter, “Bible Belt,” New 20th Century Ency- ism and Southern Religion,” in Varieties of Southern clopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. J. D. Douglas Evangelicalism, ed. David E. Harrell, Jr. (Macon, Ga.: (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 75–76; L. H. Whiteaker, Mercer University Press, 1981), 7–21. EPC influence “Review of Religion and Race: Southern Presbyterians found its way to the South through Central Presbyterian 1943–1983, by Joel L. Alvis (Tuscaloosa: University of Church of St. Louis (formerly PCUS), which became a Alabama Press, 1994),” Journal of Mississippi History union congregation with the EPC and was dismissed to 58 (Winter 1996): 424–26. PCA historian Frank J. the EPC under Article 13. It sponsored the Covenant Smith, analyzing the factors which lead to the emer- Fellowship of Presbyterians which rallied Southern gence of the PCA, states that “It was not…social or conservatives, as well as CFP’s lay renewal ministries, political questions per se which drove the movement. which were charismatic in thrust; GAM (PC(USA)) Nor, we would add, was it racism….Presbyterians 1988, 1:121. historically have fought over doctrine, and this polemi- 57Two other Reformed communities are also rep- cal battle was no different.” The History of the Presby- resented with small Mississippi constituencies. A Chris- terian Church in America: Silver Anniversary Edition tian Reformed mission was established in the 1980s at (Lawrenceville, GA: Scholars Press, 1999) 541. Clinton, to serve CRC faculty and students at Reformed 51PCUS-UPUSA cooperation in Mississippi was Seminary, and congregations of the United Church of well established, with members regularly exchanged, Christ with roots in the New England Congregational along with shared pastorates, congregational mergers, tradition exist at Tougaloo College—historically black etc. David Ng, “The Case for…the Lord’s Supper and and affiliated with the UCC—five miles north of Jack- Children,” Austin Theological Seminary Bulletin 91 son, and in the Back Bay area of Biloxi, originally a (1976): 11–15. Despite support for admission of bap- mission to shrimpers. tized children to communion from a theologian in one 58When organized, the PCA granted permission of Presbyterianism’s most conservative journals, reser- for churches already rotating officers to continue, vation of the table to those in full membership became although almost all chose not to do so. Smartt, I Am a distinction between PCA and PCUS Presbyterians in Reminded, 108–9. 86 Journal of Presbyterian History

59When organized, the PCA adopted the Westminster developed in Mississippi, so also there was friendship Confession of Faith, with the text used by the PCUS in between PCA and Associate Reformed Presbyterian 1881, thus deleting three controversial added chapters as churches in the state, as ARP churches turned to well as reinstating original 1647 wording in the chapter Reformed Seminary for pastors. PC(USA) presbyteries “Of the Church,” (removed by the PCUS in 1938) which sent candidates and lay preachers to Memphis Theo- specified the “pope of Rome …as antichrist.” Although logical Seminary of the Cumberland Church, which the 1881 text was essentially the same as that adopted by had several PC(USA) professors. the first American General Assembly (1789), the PCA 62GAM (PC(USA)) 1998, pt. 2, pp. 249–51, 388–90 underscored its regional role as the continuing Southern (Mississippi and St. Andrew presbyteries); Presbyterian Presbyterian Church by specifying a nineteenth-century Church in America, General Assembly Minutes 1999, date relating to PCUS changes. Part V., Statistical Reports for 1998, pt. 5, pp. 36–37, 60“Strict Theonomists Set Up ‘Embryonic’ Presby- 64–65, 144–145 (Mississippi Churches of the Cov- tery,” Presbyterian Journal, 16 March 1983; Smartt, I enant, plus Grace and Mississippi Valley Presbyteries); Am Reminded, 151, 189, 199, 180, 185; Richards, The GAM (PCUS) 1955 (statistics as of 31 Dec. 1954), pt. Historical Birth of the PCA, 281–83; Nutt, “The Tie that 2:150 (Synod of Mississippi); GAM (PCUSA) 1954, No Longer Binds,” 254–56. 3:27–28, 174 (Mississippi Presbytery, plus Mississippi 61Just as a PC(USA)–Cumberland Presbyterian tie churches of Birmingham Presbytery).