A Rare Day
By Marion D. Aldridge
“What is so rare as a day in June?” James Russell Lowell
June 1, 1974, was my first day on the job, and I was grossly under-qualified for the task I had been called to do. My title was family minister. I was 27 years-old and had been married for a year-and-a-half. Sally was expecting our first child, but that didn’t qualify me. I was ordained, but had not yet attended seminary. That happens in Baptist life. It doesn’t always work out well. I had worked for a fine ministry to teenagers called Young Life, and had experienced success in that role. The senior pastor of the church thought those skills might transfer successfully to working with young adults. My assignment was to provide ministry to the young families becoming a part of our congregation. I was in over my head.
That first day, I was the “pastor on call.”
First Baptist Church of Columbia, South Carolina, claims a long history as a distinguished and venerable downtown congregation, the spiritual home of many of the state’s prominent citizens, including governors, senators and, maybe more importantly, head football coaches at the University of South Carolina. The Greek revival sanctuary, built in 1856, was located strategically in the center of a busy inner city. The pastor’s secretary joked that someone would probably come across the street from the courthouse wanting to get married that day. Before noon, it happened. An interracial couple, gripping their marriage certificate tightly, wanted to be wed — right now, this morning.
I had never officiated at a wedding and was clueless about the process. While I had attended weddings, including my own, I had no idea where the words of the marriage ceremony came from. Caddy-corner to the First Baptist Church, on a different corner than the Richland County Courthouse, was a Christian bookstore. The church secretary entertained the couple while I went across the street and bought a worship handbook to guide me through the progression of a wedding.
A different issue: Our 4000-member church may have had African Americans attend worship services occasionally, but the balcony that had been built before the Civil War to give slaves a place to sit was a reminder of our heritage. This congregation had never been a center for progressive Christianity. Certainly, interracial marriages were unknown in our congregation.
Furthermore, other aspects of First Baptist Church’s history were hard to ignore. Our sanctuary was the location where the secession papers had been signed in 1861, the goal being to remove South Carolina from the Union. In fact, it was a matter of some congregational pride that the small antique desk on which the secession documents had been signed still held a place of prominence in the church’s beautiful chapel. Sitting right in front of the pulpit, it served as a kind of altar.
On this occasion, I decided the setting could give this young couple a story to tell their grandkids someday. As this man and woman made their vows before God, they spoke the words across the historic table.
It seemed fitting. Maybe a few deceased Confederates were uncomfortable in their graves that fine June morning, but their time was past. This was a new day, and it belonged to the newlyweds.
Baptist churches like to talk about the redemption of human souls, but on that day, I think maybe an old table was somehow redeemed.
Marion Aldridge is a writer, former SC-CBF leader, and currently interim pastor at Trinity Baptist Church, Hanover, N.H
