Through the autumn of 1963 the Christian Chronicle has published a selection of letters responding to its call to "discuss the Negro issue." Almost all of these letters have supported the idea--if not the reality--of racial desegregation in church and society. The editors claim that the spectrum of opinions they have printed reflects what they have received. Not everyone wants to believe that. Here then is the CC's managing editor, Lane Cubstead, with yet another editorial about yet another letter.

The editors of the Christian Chronicle received a letter recently from a Christian brother in Memphis, Tenn., concerning the space we have been giving in the pages of this newspaper to a discussion of the Negro question.

We would like to quote his letter in full, and then make a few comments about it:

"Dear Brethren:

"Since the Negro issue has been brought up, I am amazed that several weeks have gone by and not one letter has been printed defending social segregation. It was my understanding that the Chronicle was going to give both sides.

"I particularly resent so much space being given to those who sit in judgement on their southern brethren and accuse them of prejudice, hypocrisy, etc. One letter from California was even printed twice.

"Are we to understand that not one sensible letter worthy of printing has been received supporting southern traditions?

"Is the southern way of life so bad that no one can defend it? It also seems foolish for these writers from other parts of the country to be answering something they didn't even get to read.

"I really don't think the paper has done any good in the way it has handled the question. Why not let two good brethren who hold different views, write a series of articles? These would get the real problem in focus."--name withheld.

The brother who wrote this letter is sincere and his spirit is good. We would like to answer several of his points, and he makes some legitimate ones.

In the first place we are trying to be impartial in allowing space for the discussion of this issue. The reason that the letters have been predominantly pro-integration has been that most of the letters we have received have been of this persuasion, both from northerners and southerners.

One or two "crank" letters were received on both sides of the question. They were not written in any kind of a Christian spirit, and were promptly filed in the waste-basket. But there has been no attempt to push one side or the other, merely a great desire to see us all search our hearts on the matter.

We now have several well-written, intelligent letters from brethren supporting the southern view of segregation. So, soon, we plan to publish these letters in full, along with some others on the other side of the fence. We are still receiving four times as many letters for integration of the churches as we are letters against. This doesn't prove anything, other than more people who want to see the churches fellowship Negroes fully, have taken time to write.

We hope in the December 6 edition of the Chronicle to devote two more full pages to these letters, and even then we cannot begin to publish all we have received. We appreciate so very much the response we have had to our previous editorial, and the fine Christian spirit in which most of these letters have been written.

One explanation: The letter from California was printed twice, and this was a mistake. We cannot explain how this happened, except in the rush and hurry of editing several editions each week, somehow we used that material twice. This is not an excuse, but only an explanation. We regret that this happened, and it was not intentional.

The fact that the two articles which prompted the whole discussion in the first place were only seen in the Mid-South Edition, has nothing to do with the issue. The men who wrote the articles do not want to become embroiled in a controversy, and their names are not important in the issues here. The gist of their articles was reported in the editorial anyway.

We hope that an impartial publication of representative letters on both sides of the question, through the pages of the Christian Chronicle, will serve to make us search our hearts more deeply, and we pray to God that he will guide us all--each of us, individually--to find and obey His will.
(L.T.C.)

Reading the complaint of the sincere brother from Memphis, we may wonder whether he would have preferred that the "Negro issue" had not "been brought up" at all. Yet the CC has brought it up, and this reader is not happy with what he has read. "Is the southern way of life so bad that no one can defend it?" Obviously there are many "defenders" of that worldview, but there are now few who will defend it openly on "Christian" or "biblical" grounds. Their numbers are rapidly decreasing. In the aftermath of Birmingham and the March on Washington, it is at last becoming clear to many people of good will that segregation and subjugation of Americans of African descent are morally indefensible.

i have not been able to locate the "letter from California" that was "printed twice." Perhaps it appeared in as filler in the Mid-South edition of the CC, based in Memphis. In my original research in the Mid-South edition i did not note or copy this redundant letter. Craig Churchill has recently surveyed ACU's copy of the national edition in an effort to identify it, without success.

This editorial appears on a momentous day in American history. The events of this day will seal the fate of de jure segregation and official racial repression, when that great Disciple, scoundrel, and master of social legislation takes the oath of the nation's highest office aboard Air Force One. The 1950s may have ended on 31 December 1959, but the 1960s, as we remember them, begin on 22 November 1963.

May God have mercy.

dhaymes, his mark +