DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/dissenterinbaptiOObrya DISSENTER IN THE BAPTIST SOUTHLAND ) William Wallace Finlator in action, chairing a public hearing of the North Car- olina Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in August 1977. (Photo by Images Unlimited, from the collection of G. McLeod Bryan. DISSENTER IN THE BAPTIST SOUTHLAND Fifty Years in the Career of William Wallace Finlator BY G. McLeod Bryan MERCER UNIVERSITY PRESS MP — ISBN D-flbSSM-17b-D Dissenter in the Baptist Southland Copyright © 1985 Mercer University Press, Macon GA 31207 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America All books published by Mercer University Press are produced on acid-free paper that exceeds the minimum standards set by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bryan, G. McLeod. Dissenter in the Baptist southland. "Essays and articles by William Wallace Finlator": p. 185. Includes bibliographies and indexes. 1. Finlator, William Wallace, 1913- 2. Baptists—North Carolina—Clergy—Biography. 3. Southern Baptist Convention—North Carolina Clergy—Biography. 4. North Carolina—Biography. 5. Church and social problems—United States. I. Title. BX6495.F46B78 1985 286'.132'0924 [B] 85-13752 ISBN 0-86554-176-0 (alk. paper) 1 4*5 CONTENTS A FINLATOR CHRONOLOGY ix FOREWORD xiii PREFACE xv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix Chapter One DEVELOPING A POLITICAL THEOLOGY 1 Chapter Two ENJOYING CONTROVERSY 33 Chapter Three CULTIVATING THE PRESS AND LABOR 65 Chapter Four FIGHTING RACISM 93 Chapter Five MAKING PEACE 123 Chapter Six SEPARATING CHURCH AND STATE 149 vi G. McLeod Bryan Chapter Seven CHOOSING BETWEEN AMOS AND ERASMUS 169 ESSAYS AND ARTICLES BY WILLIAM WALLACE FINLATOR 185 INDEXES 193 To Honora Creativity Excellence Beauty A FINLATOR CHRONOLOGY 1913 19 June, born in Louisburg, North Carolina. 1930 Entered Wake Forest College. 1934 Entered Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louis- ville, Kentucky. 1935 31 July, ordained a Baptist preacher. 1937 Began ministry to Pittsboro, Bonlee, and Liberty Baptist churches. 1938 4 May, published first article in Biblical Recorder. 1940 15 May, published first "Festus Erasmus" column. 1941 Began ministry to Weldon (NC) Baptist Church. 1 October, married Mary Elizabeth Purvis. 1946 Cofounded and edited Christian Frontiers. 1946 Began ministry to the First Baptist Church, Elizabeth City, North Carolina. 1948 25 August, resigned from the board of the Southern Confer- ence of Human Welfare. 1950 Opposed dog racing and gambling at Moyock, North Caro- lina. 1952 January, published "The Prophetic Ministry" in Crozer Seminary Quarterly. G. McLeod Bryan 1954 Attended World Council of Churches assembly in Evans- ton, Illinois. 1955 Publicly supported desegregation order of United States Supreme Court. 1956 Began ministry to Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Ra- leigh, North Carolina. 1958 Chided Wake Forest College trustees for their failure to de- segregate the institution. 1959 21 October, spoke in support of organized labor during tex- tile workers' strike in Henderson, North Carolina. 1960 27 May, spoke to state labor convention for the first time. 1961 Spoke in support of student sit-ins to desegregate public ac- commodations. 1962 Presented resolution against capital punishment to the Baptist state convention. 1963 Sent open letter to Senators Sam Ervin and Everett Jordan urging them to support human rights legislation. 1965 Sent open telegram to President Lyndon Johnson opposing the war in Vietnam. 1966 Joined peace marches at the Pentagon. 1967 Presented antiwar resolution to Baptist state convention. Resigned from the national board of Protestants and Other Americans for the Separation of Church and State in pro- test of its anti-Catholicism. Wrote Christmas letter to Pullen congregation retreating from his vigorous antiwar campaign. 1968 January, published first article in Churchman. 1969 29 October, wrote letter to George Meany challenging AFL- CIO support of the war in Vietnam. 1970 Marched with Coretta King in opposition to death sentence imposed on an eighteen-year-old black woman. 1971 Began serving as chairman of the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Civil Rights. 1973 Published open letter refusing to join Billy Graham's cru- sade in Raleigh. 1974 Proposed abolishing tax exemption for church property. Dissenter in the Baptist Southland xi 1977 25 March, sent open letter to President Jimmy Carter re- minding him of historic Baptist concerns for peace and hu- man rights. November, elected vice-president of newly organized Southerners for Economic Justice. 1978 3 April, challenged Wake Forest University because of the antilabor bias of its Institute of Labor Policy Analysis. 1979 23 March, sent open letter to President Carter on behalf of the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Civil Rights, requesting federal pressure to complete the desegregation of the university system of North Carolina. 1980 Received the Frank Porter Graham Award from the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union. 1981 May, asked to retire by the board of deacons of Pullen Me- morial Church. June, successfully presented a motion opposing "interfer- ence in religion by the government and interference in gov- ernment by religious groups" to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Los Angeles. 1982 30 June, retired from Pullen Memorial Church. 1983 31 January, obtained FBI file under the Freedom of Infor- mation Act. Gave Clarence Jordan Lectures at Southern Baptist Theo- logical Seminary. 20 April, testified before the judiciary committee of the United States Senate in opposition to use of public school fa- cilities for religious meetings. 2-8 October, gave lectures at Union Theological Seminary, New York. Presented Frank Porter Graham Award to Father Charles Milholland on behalf of the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union. 1984 May, joined Baptist Peace Mission to the Soviet Union. 1985 15 January, spoke at the convocation of Southeastern Bap- tist Theological Seminary. FOREWORD Gerald Johnson once wrote that Frank Graham found the Sermon on the Mount to be good social and economic doctrine. So it has been with Bill Finlator, Dr. Frank's companion spirit. That is why McLeod Bryan's first-rate commentary on the fifty years of Bill Finlator's ministry is important reading; these pages re- cord how one man's labor has made a real difference in the lives of migrant workers, labor union members, religious and political dissenters, and you and me. Bill Finlator has disturbed a good number of citizens, encour- aged many, motivated hundreds and made us all more sensitive to our personal obligation to establish a better and more peaceful world. And at all times he has moved among us with dignity, good humor, grace and good will. One's understanding of and appre- ciation for this turbulent era in American history is enlightened by Dr. Bryan's fair treatment of William Finlator and his time. 6 September 1984 William C. Friday President The University of North Carolina System PREFACE William Wallace Finlator was and is a preacher surrounded by controversy. A Baptist, and a Southern Baptist at that, he has labeled the largest Protestant denomination in America "provin- cial and parochial." A North Carolinian all his life, he has none- theless repeatedly called it "the most repressive state." A Southerner to the end—by birth, by education and by profes- sional service—he has continually exposed the faults of the South to the world. Believing in civil liberties set forth in the Consti- tution of the United States—he became a vice-president of the American Civil Liberties Union—he could equally defend the Ku Klux Klan and the Unification Church, the Communist Workers Party and the Roman Catholic Church, the American Nazis and the Christian academies in their legal rights. Bill Finlator became convinced that the Christian Gospel ex- poses the acculturation of religion and he has, therefore, ex- pected his words to be at cross purposes with popular values and goals. He seems to think that the more the Gospel is argued in the marketplace and in the political forum the more God may break into human history. He preached for twenty-six years to a congregation of liberal, highly educated, professional people, yet Sunday after Sunday his sermons raised eyebrows and disturbed xvi G. McLeod Bryan their middle-class complacency. For Finlator, faith in action is essentially and dramatically controversy over radical commit- ment. Politeness and good manners notwithstanding—he is a paragon of Southern courtesy—Finlator sees Christianity as a scandal. It cannot be domesticated and tamed. It cannot be pack- aged with the American Way. In spite of his criticisms Finlator is proud of his Baptist her- itage and connections, of the "Ole North State" where he has spent his entire life, of the South that he passionately loves, and of his Pullen congregation, which he accepted at the outset with a re- duction in salary. To understand Finlator one is obliged to ob- serve him within the setting that both produced him and resisted him. The patent caricature of Southern religion emphasizes the pe- jorative accusations of H. L. Mencken: obscurantism, emotion- alism, fundamentalism, moralism and antiintellectualism. Certainly the South has produced its share of this kind of reli- gion, influencing the whole nation with its crowded schools for preachers, with its continuing revivalism spearheaded by its Billy Grahams, and with its concentration