The Beginnings of the Texas Baptist CLC

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The Beginnings of the Texas Baptist CLC
By Bill Jones

In 1950 Texas Baptists with the founding of the Christian Life Commission became the first state convention to establish an agency dedicated specifically to addressing moral and ethical issues. But we cannot have a full appreciation of the beginnings of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission without first having some understanding of Texas Baptists’ efforts with regard to social ethics and moral issues in the first 50 years of the 20th century. Texas Baptists and Social Ethics – 1900-1950

In the early 1900s the battle for prohibition against alcoholic beverages expanded Texas Baptists’ grasp of social problems and motivated them to join in the political process as preachers and laypersons alike embraced political action as a means of achieving moral objectives.

In 1914 Joseph M. Dawson then pastor of First Baptist Church Temple preached what is believed to be the first formal series of sermons by a Texas Baptist on the social applications of the Gospel.

In 1915 the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) established two standing committees. The Civic Righteousness Committee initially concerned itself explicitly with prohibition whereas the Social Service Committee dealt with a broader range of matters. These two committees were eventually combined into one. In 1918 Wallace Bassett pastor of Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas explained the Social Service Committee’s mission as being a natural outgrowth of simply following Jesus. “We do not need a new theology for social service ” he said. “We only need to use his words as he intended we should use them.”

In the 1920s and 1930s Texas Baptists were generally reluctant to dip into issues involving the ethics of

society. However through the Social Service Committee as well as a few BGCT pastors like Dawson they occasionally addressed matters such as abuse of prisoners by the penal system; the harm caused by predatory profit-seeking; the morality of warfare; and – believe it or not – women riding men’s bicycles. Go figure!

The women of the BGCT generally went further than the men in addressing social problems. In 1929 the Woman’s Missionary Union singled out industry for special scrutiny to safeguard women and children from long and dangerous hours of toil and to protect the public from disease-causing practices detrimental to community health. They also recommended the creation of local interracial committees to pursue racial justice. In 1927 the WMU had published the first of Southwestern Seminary Professor T. B. Maston’s writings on the Bible and race a pamphlet entitled “Racial Revelations.” Initial Impetus – J. Howard Williams A. C. Miller & T. B. Maston

The three men who are considered to have provided the key impetus for establishing what became the Christian Life Commission are J. Howard Williams A. C. Miller and T. B. Maston. And the key issue driving that impetus was race.

In 1934 J. Howard Williams – who had become executive secretary of the BGCT in 1931 (today his title would be executive director) – recommended that white congregations create a Committee on Colored Work which would assist black Baptists in Texas with various church-related programs. He also suggested that the BGCT employ someone white or black to work with black ministers conducting interracial conferences throughout the state.

In November 1942 Charles T. Alexander – whom Williams had appointed in 1936 as a liaison to the black community – reported to the BGCT that he had forged meaningful relationships with black leaders and recommended the creation of a Texas Baptist interracial commission. In November 1943 the Convention established the Department of Interracial Cooperation ultimately appointing A.C. Miller as director assisted by an advisory council of 12 associates including T.B. Maston. By the end of 1945 the Department of Interracial Cooperation had established local interracial committees in 47 of the 113 Baptist associations in Texas. In 1949 Foy Valentine who had recently received his Th.D. in Christian ethics under Maston at Southwestern was hired to work among black college students. In 1948 Foy had pioneered in an interracial youth revival in Brownwood.

During Miller’s tenure leading the Department of Interracial Cooperation his views evolved from a stance that might be described as “separate but equal” to ultimately a stinging denunciation of racism in the 1949 BGCT annual meeting urging Texas Baptists to challenge racial discrimination in the areas of education housing and jobs.

The greatest influence on Miller’s racial stance was likely his association with T.B. Maston. In 1946 Maston published Of One a candid and controversial study which established Maston as the leading spokesman for racial justice among Texas Baptists.

Maston’s own social consciousness had been planted within him when he was young. Growing up in poverty with a father who worked hard and was a loyal member of a labor union Maston said “has explained to some degree what I hope has been a genuine sincere interest in the underprivileged the poor and the disinherited in general in our society.”

In 1933 he wrote a series of lessons for the Southern Baptist

Sunday School Board including “The Young Christian and Social Problems ” “Christianizing Economic Life ” “Improving Society Through Legislation ” and “The Christian Attitude Toward Other Races.”

In 1937 the area of ethics was moved at Southwestern from education to theology and in 1942 Maston began teaching ethics full-time. In 1944 he offered a course entitled “The Church and the Race Problem.” For this class Maston took students on field trips through black neighborhoods where they investigated specific aspects of the city’s race problem such as public schooling. He also invited prominent black leaders to address the class.

By the late 1940s Maston was searching for a way to apply Christian principles to all aspects of daily life. So was J. Howard Williams who said at the 1949 annual meeting of the BGCT “. . . this convention should initiate some plan by which we can help our people to understand the grave issues of our day in terms of Christian faith and practice. . . . the help that we can give to labor . . . the help that we might give to race . . . We ought to have some agency by which we could promote this phase of the Christian life.”

Founding of CLC and reaction to it

Messengers to that convention appointed a Committee of Seven to study the needs and bring a recommendation as to how to help people to understand and apply the principles of Christian living to issues of daily life.

In 1950 the Committee of Seven reported to the BGCT meeting in Fort Worth that “the major need of our day is an effective working combination of a conservative theology an aggressive constructive evangelism and a progressive application of the spirit and teachings of Jesus to every area of life.” In his report to the Fort Worth convention Maston originally referred to the new body as the Commission on Problems in Christian Living. That changed however the next night. A speaker

from the evangelistic department expressed his fear that any emphasis on social involvement would detract from evangelism and warned the convention against appointing a commission on the Christian life. In the audience A.C. Miller turned to T.B. Maston seated next to him and whispered “That’s our name! Why not call it the Christian Life Commission?”

Maston’s influence was evident in the founding committee’s declaration in 1950 that “any program of social change should not only be Christian in its goals but also in the methods it uses to achieve those goals.”

Maston saw social ills as an indication of inequities within the social structure that must be addressed. He urged that the Commission be strategic in dealing with sensitive issues. If one moved too rapidly and aggressively local churchmen would becom
alienated and all chance for improvement would be lost. One must “start where the people are and keep the pressure in the right place ” Maston insisted “pointed in the right direction.” This became the guiding strategy of the Christian Life Commission and its directors.

There was early criticism that the CLC fashioned by leaders who were ahead of their constituents on social issues was basically out-of-step with the sentiments of rank-and-file Baptists in Texas. Maston agreed that the CLC was primarily the result of constructive Baptist leadership but saw that as a positive rather than a negative. “. . . that’s not only true of the Christian Life Commission ” he said “but almost everything else.”

At first the CLC was assigned to work under the State Missions Commission and heads of the other BGCT departments were members of the CLC. As time went on the CLC achieved full commission status in fact as well as in name.

Arthur B. Rutledge pastor of First Baptist Church Marshall – and later the executive secretary of the SBC Home Mission Board – became the first chairman of the new Christian Life Commission serving from 1951

to 1955. Rutledge had been nudging his congregation toward racial justice since the late 1940s.

Also members during the CLC’s formative years were Herbert Howard pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church Dallas who had studied under ethicist Jesse B. Weatherspoon at Southern Seminary and William R. White president of Baylor University.

In 1953 the CLC addressed head-on the criticism that an emphasis on ethics would detract from a focus on evangelism. Practical Christianity it declared was “boldly proclaimed throughout the Bible ” from the Genesis declaration that Cain was “his brother’s keeper” to the proclamations of the eighth-century prophets to the ministry of Jesus Himself.

Members of the CLC have been drawn from the ranks of not only pastors but educators homemakers lawyers state legislators journalists physicians and business professionals. T.B. Maston himself served on the commission at various stages for a total of 18 years attending meetings helping to write pamphlets always emphasizing the necessity of a biblical basis for social involvement and establishing the tradition of having an ethicist serving on the commission.

A. C. Miller

In 1950 J. Howard Williams named A. C. Miller as the first director (then called executive secretary) of the CLC. Williams and Miller had first met each other in 1919 as students at Southern Seminary in Louisville. Williams believed that Miller’s leadership of the Department of Interracial Cooperation – which was by this time called Our Ministry with Minorities – made him the logical choice to direct the new Christian Life Commission.

In Miller’s first year the CLC developed a body of literature entitled “The Bible Speaks.” Three pamphlets in this series begun before Miller resigned in 1952 were “The Bible Speaks on Race ” “The Bible Speaks on Economics ” and “The Bible Speaks on Family.” Maston said that this series which quoted Scripture verbatim was largely

responsible for giving “the Christian Life Commission its good start.” These brief tracts were distributed by the millions placed in churches throughout the state and used as sermon outlines by hundreds of preachers all over the state.

During Miller’s tenure Christian life committees were organized in many associations throughout the state and Miller worked to gain slots at the monthly workers’ conferences in the associations for “the associa-tional committee on the Christian life to bring a brief report . . . followed by a speaker and discussion.”

In June 1952 Miller announced his resignation as he prepared to move to Nashville in January 1953 to become executive secretary of the Social Service Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention the forerunner to the SBC Christian Life Commission.

Foy Valentine

J. Howard Williams considered 29-year-old Foy Valentine pastor of First Baptist Church Gonzales the obvious choice to replace Miller because of his training his obvious interest in applied Christianity and his close ties to prominent denominational leaders.

Foy Valentine had grown up in Edgewood a small rural community in northeast Texas during the Great Depression. He had seen poverty up close and believed that government as exemplified by various New Deal programs could and should be used to ameliorate human want. He credited his parents for helping him “to recognize the social imperatives of the Christian faith.” His parents faithful members of the local Baptist church taught him that religion was to be applied to everyday affairs and specifically that black people were to be respected.

He originally planned to attend the University of Texas study law and enter politics. However shortly after graduating from high school Foy

accepted a call to preach and his plans changed.

Instead of UT he entered Baylor where he met visiting speaker Clarence Jordan whom he later called “one of the great Christians of our time.” In 1944 following graduation from Baylor he spent the entire summer at Koinonia Farm the racially integrated community established by Jordan near Americus Georgia.

That fall he enrolled at Southwestern Seminary and was soon taking Christian ethics classes under T.B. Maston. He later said that Maston “opened up new vistas and new understandings of what the church ought to be doing and what I as a minister of the Gospel ought to be attempting.”

In 1947 Foy completed the requirements for his Masters in Theology and two years later obtained his Th.D. writing a dissertation entitled “A Historical Study of Southern Baptists and Race Relations 1917 to 1947.”

From 1947 to 1948 he served the convention as a special representative on race relations and from 1949 to 1950 he directed Baptist student activities at Houston colleges. After he was called as pastor of First Baptist Church Gonzales in 1950 he was elected to serve on the convention’s executive board and soon thereafter was appointed to the nine-member Christian Life Commission.

So in 1953 J. Howard Williams called to ask Foy to succeed A.C. Miller as executive secretary of the CLC. Foy initially said “no” but ultimately relented and in June 1953 became the second director of the Texas Baptist CLC.

During Foy’s tenure as director of the Texas CLC he tirelessly traveled the state attending local associa-tional meetings conducting seminars addressing college audiences and visiting regional Baptist encampments. He built a statewide network of local contacts for the CLC. In 1956 there were

only 14 associational Christian life committees; by 1960 there were 110.

Under Foy’s leadership the volume and distribution of tract literature grew from 25 000 pieces annually in 1953 to over 1.2 million pieces annually by the time he left in 1960. He continued adding new topics to “The Bible Speaks” series but also introduced new series entitled “Christian Answers to Family Problems ” “Christian Principles Applied ” and “Teen Talk.” It was in the midst of Foy’s tenure at the Texas CLC in 1956 that he persuaded Broadman Press the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention to print its first work on social ethics: Christian Faith in Action a compilation of sermons.

In 1957 Foy launched an annual CLC workshop to focus attention on social ethics. This is yet another legacy of Foy’s of course that continues today in the annual Christian Life Commission Conference.

In 1960 Foy once again succeeded A.C. Miller this time at the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville. Before he left he encouraged fellow Maston grad Jimmy Allen to assume leadership of the Texas CLC. As Foy had been in 1953 Jimmy was reluctant but he ultimately agreed to become director of the Texas CLC in June 1960.

Bill Jones is Chair T. B. Maston Foundation for Christian Ethics and Executive Director Texas Baptists Committed. This paper was presented to the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission April 1 2014

Primary sources:

Texas Baptist Leadership and Social Christianity 1900-1980; by John W. Storey; 1986; Texas A&M University Press; pp. 1-156.

Texas Baptists: A Sesquicentennial History; by Harry Leon McBeth; 1998 BaptistWay Press; pp. 244-246.

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