Religion: Segregation & the Churches

In the crowded sanctuary of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church on staid, tree-lined Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. last week, a pro-segregation clergyman rose and heralded the defeat of his faction in singular language. Said the Rev. Alton J. Shirey: "You flattened us like a steam roller yesterday. Let's not cut the puppy's tail off an inch at a time."

Shirey, pastor of a Cullendale. Ark. church, was asking the 95th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern) for a quick vote on the most disputed issue facing its six-day convention: a request that the assembly "reconsider and rescind" its 1954 pronouncement that "segregation is un-Christian." Pastor Shirey and six others had signed a minority report charging that the assembly erred in asking its 3,776 local churches to accept Negroes.

The temper of the assembly had already become evident, and it was not in tune with the temper of Pastor Shirey. On opening night it elected as its new moderator Dr. James McDowell Richards, president of racially integrated Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga., and an outspoken antisegregationist. In a series of parliamentary moves it had blocked consideration of the minority report, had defeated anti-segregationists' efforts to delay a vote. Two hours after Shirey's plea, it reaffirmed, by a vote of 293 to 109, its year-old stand against racial segregation (last year's vote: 236 to 169).

The factional dispute among Southern Presbyterians pointed up a problem that faces every Christian church in the South, now that the Supreme Court's ruling on education has turned the spotlight on segregation in every sphere of life. "The churches . . . are not responsible for the ordering of society through government," said the Christian Century, "but when government makes a move that sustains and supports Christian principle . . . the church will be judged for its support for or opposition to this action." Throughout the South, racial integration was being both supported and opposed by the churches. Items:

¶The Methodist Church is under strong and specific injunction from the Method ist General Conference to oppose racial discrimination, allow Negroes to participate in church activities as equals. But a fortnight ago the Alabama Methodist Conference adopted a resolution demanding that the General Conference pass no legislation that would interfere with Methodists' rights to maintain segregated churches, schools and assemblies.

¶Roman Catholics are under episcopal instructions to welcome Negroes to white churches in accordance with papal pronouncements on discrimination and racism. In some areas, white and Negro Catholics attend the same church and send their children to integrated public schools. But practice varies in different dioceses, and most Catholic Negroes still go to segregated schools (including parochial) and attend Negro churches.