Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Public response to the Christian Chronicle's editorial call to "discuss the Negro issue" begins with publication of 11 letters from readers nationwide. The previous posting transcribed seven letters from the first page of a two-page spread; this installment provides the text of four letters on the second page--letters from two older white men, a white woman, and a black man.

I have read with much interest your editorial in the Sept. 27 issue of the Chronicle. I note you ask for expression and ideas from the brethren on the Negro issue.

I have always tried to steer clear of controversial questions where my brethren differ on matters of principles rather than on scriptural matters. However, I am persuaded to say something in answer to your request for the brethren to further discuss this subject.

I may have a different view on the subject than that expressed by the brethren you mentioned but I hope what I say will in a way help to clear up some of the misunderstandings.

First I will give a few experiences I have had with my colored brethren in preaching the gospel. I have worked and preached with a number of their congregations, and have had them attend gospel meetings where I was doing the preaching.

Here in Fort Worth a number of years ago brother Thomas D. Rose and I took turn about preaching for a little group who were trying to get a congregation established.

Our work with these brethren resulted in a congregation being established and building erected, and that is today the largest colored congregation in the city with a modern brick house of worship.

Here is the thing I want to mention about these brethren. It was their desire that brother Rose and I, when we were to preach, that we were given a special seat apart from the members of the church.

I asked their minister why they desired this. His answer was that they would feel more spiritual if they were not seated with us, as they were a peculiar people by nature, and that they desired to be seated together in the worship.

I held a gospel meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio. There was a colored congregation about 20 miles out of the city and they asked if they could attend the meeting. Of course we were glad to have them in the meeting.

Now this is what was strange about their being in the meeting. They requested that they be given a special section in the building where they could all sit together, as they would be happier if this arrangement could be made.

Of course their request was granted. There were 40 who came almost every night of the meeting and we baptized three.

When I was working with the Edcouch congregation there was a gospel meeting being conducted in a town near by where brother Philips, a blind Negro preacher, was doing the preaching. Many white people attended the meeting.

Again a special arrangement was made for the Negroes and white to be seated in different sections. Again I asked why we could not sit with the colored brethren.

We were told that the Negroes of the community would be more comfortable and would be more interested in the preaching if they were seated together. We baptized three during this meeting.

By this experience I am convinced that the negroes do not wish to have mixed audiences; they are more comfortable and satisfied to have their own congregations.

Now here is my answer to the negro issue as pertaining to their worship, and I am persuaded that they do not desire to have a mixed society but prefer to have their own society.

Of course, there are possibly a few of the younger groups who would want to mix with the whites, but that is not a general rule among the older negroes.

It is not a matter of social equality which has brought on all the present day confusion, but a question of equal rights to have an education by being permitted to attend public schools, colleges, and institutions of higher education.

To have equal opportunities to work and provide for their families, have equal privileges in transportation and housing comforts.

I believe the negro child should be given the same opportunity for an education, training and development we have provided for all white children.

We agree that children of all other races have this right and the same should be recognized for the black children. I hope that what I have said will find its way in print, and some good may come for FOOD FOR THOUGHT.--W. S. Willis, Fort Worth, Tex.

I moved from Shreveport, Louisiana almost 18 years ago, and have had time to gain perspective and come to some conclusions about our Negro brothers in Christ in particular and different races in general.

I grew up with about the usual amount of prejudice, but when I came to Sheboygan and heard the different races; German, Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish, Greek and Bohemian, belittling each other, I thought, "How utterly ridiculous can people be?"

But there are no Negroes in Sheboygan, and my prejudice regarding them has lain dormant. I realize that I might have emotional difficulties with integration, especially so if I had never left the South.

But the glue of Christianity is a mighty strong substance, I'm discovering. There are only 18 Christians in our small congregation, four of us from the South but with very different backgrounds, and we're all completely different with the exception of two families who are related.

We've had any number of disagreements, several of them serious enough to lead to threats of splitting, but the glue of Christianity holds us together. We talk out our difficulties until we can reach some point of agreement and continue working together.

The point I wish to make is this: We could hardly be more different as individuals if we came from 18 different races.

If Negroes are people, subject to the invitation of Christ, I believe the glue of Christianity is strong enough to include them in our congregations.

Isn't it foolish to spend money to send missionaries to convert them to Christ so we can live with them in Heaven while we refuse to live with them on the earth?--Mrs. Vernon Arenz, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

I am a member of the Lord's Church, a native of Alabama and transplanted in the North for lo these many years. I have been on both sides of the so-called Negro question; on the fence and off it.

But I think I have finally, through much groping and studying and growing in Christ, come to the only logical conclusion which a person can arrive at by applying God's word to his life. This is my conclusion:

1.) That the "basic social differences" between Negro and White are real and evident. but they are not, I repeat, not, detrimental to working and worshipping together.

2. That the morals and ambitions of Negroes are generally different than whites in some areas. But the morals and ambitions of Christians should be the same, therefore, a Christian's race would not determine his character, but the application of God's word to his life.

3. That, while it would be un-Christlike to refuse to worship with colored Christians, I can see no profit in making an issue of the question in congregations where no problem exists.

That is to say, in a community where there are no Negroes, there should be no problem concerning so-called integrated worship.

My counsel to those facing the problem at present would be to stop rationalizing and to eliminate all questions and issues but the one:

Is it God's will that black man and white man worship together?

Be sure that you have God's answer to that one first. Then, be sure that you accept God's answer in your heart before you take up any of the other thousand and one questions on the Negro issue.

My counsel to those not facing the problem at present is to concern yourselves with the problems that are facing you at the moment, applying God's word to your life so that you may be strong in other areas. L. D. Hendrix, Levittown, Pa.

I have just finished reading your article in the Christian Chronicle challenging us to discuss the Negro issue. I am a Negro and I want to offer my personal appreciation for this article.

I hope that more of our brethren will face this issue and do more teaching on it. I think you have put your finger on the real problem: the Church is Southern oriented.

Instead of teaching the people, many of our preachers and elders have, seemingly, ignored or evaded this problem by going along with the trend.

I firmly believe that before the Church can be the leader in the world that the Lord wants it to be it must also be a leader in concern for human rights and dignities. I further feel that we cannot take the world for Christ as a divided Church.

Both Negro and White Christians have a responsibility in improving this condition.

I would like to see White and Negro leaders in every city sit down together and discuss what improvements can be made locally to make conditions better. May the time never come when we (Negroes) have to boycott a Church in order to get in.

I pray to God that our Brethren in Churches of Christ, who are so competent in many other areas will not pass this problem on to the next generation on the theory that "it takes time."

How much time did God give Peter on the housetop to change his attitudes toward the Gentiles??? (Acts 10) The time to obey God is NOW. Heb 3:7-8

Thanks again for the fine article prodding us to think.-- Calvin H. Bowers, Los Angeles, Calif.

In October 1963 William Stephens Willis is an 84-year-old veteran evangelist with a remarkable history. He began as a Baptist preacher in 1899 and, he says, was "thrown out . . . for preaching the gospel in 1905." He began preaching for the Christian Church in the auspicious year 1906 and continued until 1939, when at age 60 he was converted to Churches of Christ and baptized by Christopher Arthur Norred. The Cincinnati experience recounted in his letter probably occurred during his ministry there in 1940. Students of intellectual history may wish to ponder his distinction between "matters of principles" and "scriptural matters."

Mrs. Vernon Arenz writes with refreshing honesty and insight; perhaps, like many another lass from northwest Louisiana, she has married a Barksdale airman and moved with him to his home ground in the frigid northern climes. However she got to where she is, her continuing struggle to hold together that tenuous confederation of expatriate gnat strainers in a strange land has taught her some valuable lessons, and we may be glad that she shares them. Sister Arenz is seeking a "glue" to cement Christian fellowship rather than a solvent to dissolve it.

L. D. Hendrix, another wanderer far from home, writes with candor of "groping and studying and growing in Christ." He has found himself, in his groping, "on both sides . . . on the fence and off it." His counsel to apply God's word to one's life leads him to recommend one crucial question that he does not exactly answer: "Is it God's will that black man and white man worship together?"

Calvin H. Bowers is ready to answer that question and to move beyond it. In October 1963 Brother Bowers is an associate of R. N. Hogan at the Figueroa Street congregation in Los Angeles, where today he is the venerable Hogan's de facto successor. At age 31 in 1963 Brother Bowers has completed a Master's degree at Pepperdine with a thesis focusing on leadership development in the black church. He is an advocate of educational opportunity and interracial cooperation. Today those commitments have not changed: Calvin Bowers is Equal Opportunity Officer at Pepperdine University.

These 11 letters are. an editor will soon tell us, "the best written, most logical, most clear-headed" of the letters the CC has received. We may not doubt that there are other letters that will not be published, and more to come.

May God have mercy.

dhaymes, his mark +