Introduction by Don Haymes

Early in his meteoric career among Churches of Christ, Dwain Evans has somehow come to possess a copy of The Cost of Discipleship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's reading of Mark has shocked the young preacher to the core of his being. From Abilene Christian College he has come away knowing a very little about how to preach and nothing about what. This is not, exactly, the fault of his teachers. Dwain Evans has fallen into his vocation as one might fall into a ditch, seeking something that would give direction and meaning to a confused young man from a troubled family. Bonhoeffer's martyrdom and his words, as cast into English by Eberhard Bethge, reach into the formless void that is Dwain Evans and shape both his message and his mission.

When Christ calls a man,
he calls him to come and die.

Dwain Evans hears that call and, with singleminded zeal, begins learning how to answer it. He enters the seminary of experience and soaks up everything that comes his way. He reads widely and voraciously. With every challenge he enters into dialogue. By the beginning of 1966 he hasreached the summit of his prominence as an evangelistic entrepreneur. He has organized and carried out a unique mission effort--Exodus Bay Shore--which will ultimately transplant hundreds of members of Churches of Christ from the South to West Islip, Long Island, and inspire many attempts to duplicate its successes. He still writes out any sermon or public statement by hand, always preaching from manuscript, but he has learned how to use remarkable physical gifts: imposing height, large, expressive hands, and deepset, burning eyes. Were we to seek a Billy Graham among Churches of Christ in 1966, we should turn first to Dwain Evans.

In the fall of 1965 Dwain Evans is invited to deliver a major address at the 1966 Abilene Christian College Lectureship: "Exodus with the Bible." The Lectureship organizers may expect a straightforward description of the origins and mechanics of Exodus Bay Shore, with perhaps an inspirational peroration urging others to go and do likewise. For Dwain Evans, however, this invitation is an opportunity to say some things that need to be said, and he is determined to say them. His address is an electrifying performance, rivaling that of Carl Spain six years earlier. Out of his experience, out of his reading, out of his study of the Bible, Dwain Evans speaks to the church's social responsibility and of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Even before the lecture can be delivered a second time, there is an organized effort to censor or cancel it altogether. With rumors in the air, the impact of the second performance is greater than the first. But Dwain Evans is about to learn the truth of the saying of Jesus that "a prophet is without honor in his own country."

In the aftermath of the lecture at ACC, while inflammatory rhetoric and innuendo are building everywhere against him, Dwain Evans begins contributing regular columns to the Christian Chronicle. This is the last of them.

A few years ago while preaching for the Parkway Drive church in Lubbock, Texas, I received a copy of The Pulpit Digest with a sermon in it by Will D. Campbell, Southern Baptist minister who was living in Nashville, Tenn., at that time. I was amazed to note that he began his sermon with this quotation:

We believe that it is sinful to have two congregations in the same community for persons of different races. That race prejudice would cause trouble in the church we know. It did this in the apostolic days yet not once did the apostles suggest that they should form separate congregations for the different races. Instead they have admonished them to unity, forbearance, love and rotherhood in Jesus Christ.

Mr. Campbell then said:

The casual observer of the reams of resolutions and statements which have been issued on the subject of church and race since 1954 might assume that those words came from the subversive presses of the denominational houses; or from some Communist dupe preacher who doesn't understand our problems down here and who is trying to take us too far too fast; or some left-wing easy bleeder from the north country trying to speak 50 years ahead of his time. If any of these were your guess, you were wrong.

They were spoken by a man representing a group far from notorious for its social liberalism. These are words of a Church of Christ evangelist. The place was Nashville, Tennessee. The year was 1878. The preacher was David Lipscomb, for whom the local Church of Christ college was named.

Mr. Campbell pointed out that there were many churches who would fire their preacher for a message like the one David Lipscomb spoke. He quoted Brother Lipscomb still further:

We mean simply this: A church which cannot bring such prejudiced individuals to see their rebellion against God must withdraw from that individual as one who, with their heart full of pride, bitterness, and treason, fights against God.

Mr. Campbell preached this sermon several years ago in a Baptist church in Nashville, Tenn. I don't know how well the Baptist churches are coming in accepting the Negro in churches where the membership is predominantly white. I do know there are many Churches of Christ where a preacher would be in peril of his job should he quote Brother Lipscomb, and especially if he should go so far as to quote our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is one of the tragedies of our time that twenty centuries after Jesus gave us His teaching racial prejudice should still afflict His church. The New Testament teaches plainly that the man who harbors racial prejudice in his heart commits sin. In The Acts, chapters 10 and 11, we read of Peter's struggle with the sin of race prejudice. As far as he was concerned the Gentiles were not a fit people to receive the gospel of Christ. He had never preached the gospel to this heathen race and, as far as we can tell, he had no intention of doing so.

The Lord showed him a vision on the housetop and instructed him, "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." Peter was required by the Lord to change his thinking and to change it immediately. The Lord did not say to him, "You may take five years to change your thinking." He required Peter to change his thinking immediately.

The truth of this matter dawned on Peter as he said, "Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him." Far too many of us would today bargain with the Lord and say "Lord, you just have to give me more time. I can't immediately accept the Negro as my equal."

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We must remember that the Lord did not give Peter the kind of time we are asking for. Besides this we have had 2000 years to get rid of this race prejudice. We must recognize the seriousness of this sin, and that our soul may be lost because of our race prejudice. We will let negroes cook our food, care for our children, clean our houses and play ball with our sons. But there are some who would bar them from worshipping God with us.

We seek to justify this on grounds of tradition. We say tradition forbids us to invite the negro into our houses of worship. There are harmless traditions and then there are those traditions which violate the will of God. Jesus said "So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God."

The solution to the sin of race prejudice lies in the Lord's command of love--love for God and for our fellowman. We must not forget that in the kingdom of God "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." All distinctions of nationality, social rank and sex disappear when one becomes a member of God's family.

It may not be wise to disband congregations that are predominantly Negro, but we must be prepared to offer the right hand of fellowship to any Negro brother or sister who presents themselves for membership in any congregation of God's people anywhere on the face of this earth. God help us to be obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ!

This is the last column that the prophetic Dwain Evans will publish in the Christian Chronicle. On 19 August 1966 James Walter Nichols will retract his "firm and vigorous editorial policy" in a lengthy, heartbreaking editorial as painful to read as it must have been painful to write. The columns by Gary Freeman and Dwain Evans, Nichols tells us, have engendered "increased readership and circulation." The mail response to the columns and revitalized news coverage has been "immediate and overwhelmingly favorable." The letters are running "30 to 1" in favor.

What then could possibly be wrong? James Walter Nichols has received 15 letters, some of them from "my close friends," demanding an end to the columns and a return to business as usual. These letters are, by Nichols's own account, abusive and threatening; they retail "false and slanderous charges" against Freeman and Evans; they speak of launching "a campaign" against the Chronicle. Nichols, superintendent of a growing empire dependent on doing business with Churches of Christ, "knows when to fold 'em." There will be no more expressions of independent opinion in the Christian Chronicle.

On 9 September 1966, a full-page advertisement appears in the Chronicle, sponsored by R. B. Sweet Co., Inc., Publishers. In the midst of an ocean of white space there are four lines of type, small but brave and bold.

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truths,
From the laziness that is content with half truths,
From the arrogance that thinks that it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us.

These are words worth committing to memory. Three months hence Ralph Sweet will order the burning in Austin of Warren Lewis's book on The Lord's Supper. But that is another story for another time. Ralph Sweet's prayer is yet to be answered.

May God have mercy.
dhaymes, his mark +