Bill Lytle interviewed by Charles Quirk, 1981, side 1.

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    Charles E. Quirk conducting an oral history interview with Bill Lytle on May 26
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    1981 in Houston Texas. Bill what is your
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    own racial ethnic identity? White.
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    Anglo.
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    Saxon. Now you were born in Pittsburgh, is that correct? right. In July
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    July 3rd 1923. As I understand it your
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    father was a Presbyterian minister?  United. The old U. P. church [United Presbyterian Church of North America] Old U. P. What are your
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    own ethnic origins? Where is your family?
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    Out of. Ireland Scotland. That kind of tracing goes
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    back on both sides.
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    And you grew up in Ben Avon primarily? Right.
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    During this early period in your life in grade school, highschool, Did you have any
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    significant contact with
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    people of racial ethnic identity?
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    No significant contact other than friendship
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    with one black in my class
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    through all of my schooling, George Farmer.
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    I have reflected on that.
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    Sad to say that without any sensitivity at all. I am now aware
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    looking back on my childhood. I walked to school over
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    the ravine in which the black families apparently lived.
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    And we called it Coon Hollow. That was the terminology
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    used. And, I said I had no,
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    no sensitivity to that at all, even though, in my home my early
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    recollections of my mother
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    are of her deep interest in Tuskegee Institute. And, I remember her doing
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    programs and the like so that
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    that was about my only orientation to race.
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    You went to the College of Wooster. Started in 1941. What were
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    your academic interests at Wooster?
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    Well I majored in Greek philosophy. That was my. Had you
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    decided to go into the ministry by then? Yes. I made my
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    decision in college. Had really given consideration to it before.
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    What about Wooster? Was there much racial ethnic diversity in that student body,
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    faculty? I can't remember.
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    How did you happen to choose Princeton Seminary for your divinity work?
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    My father was the pastor of a church in Ben Avon that was the seminary
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    church of the old U. P. denomination, in the sense that all the professors, or most, a majority of them.
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    had their homes in that neighborhood and attended the Ben Avon church.
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    My folks encouraged me early on to do something different.
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    So that I would be out of that. So, I joined the Presbyterian Church while I was at Wooster and went to Princeton.
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    I looked at Union and Princeton, those were the two schools that I looked at seriously.
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    OK. Well, while you were at Princeton,  were there some subjects or some areas that were particularly
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    exciting to you
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    academically? Mackay's [Mackay, John Alexander]  course in ecumenics  was a mindboggler fo
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    r me early on. The Bible courses with Dr. Fritsch [Fritsch, Charles Theodore] were of real significance. And, Hromadka's  [Hromadka, Joseph L.] course in
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    ethics. I guess those are the three that
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    stand out. As you think back to those Princeton years,
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    I know that you went to Princeton in two different segments, but as you think back to your
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    first stint at Princeton, what was the racial ethnic composition
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    of the student body and the faculty? Was there much diversity at that time?
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    I do not recall any racial-ethnic persons. There were some
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    Europeans on the faculty, which were. But, that would still
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    be of the Caucasian background. I don't remember there being anyone of other racial ethnicity there.
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    When you left Princeton, did you go directly into what I would call
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    missionary work in Mexico? How did you choose this? Your entire
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    orientation thus far had been northern and intellectual. And then, you headed down to New Mexico.
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    That happened through summer exposure to
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    mission, working under the auspices of the Board of National Missions. My first
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    summer at Princeton, I went down to the mountains of Tennessee. The next summer w
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    ent out to a little church in Chama, New Mexico and pastored that church  [Chama Presbyterian Church]. You
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    know Ralph Hall [Hall, Ralph J.]. During that summer time. He came back to the campus during our senior year and presented to m
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    yself the challenge of
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    the particular need that they had for a person in New Mexico.
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    Now. You were in New Mexico for what? Fifteen years. fifteen years. In that period what
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    was your particular contact now with other racial-ethnic groups?
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    We lived in Reserve, New Mexico for the first seven years. Reserve is a small town of about 150 people. County seat of Catron County.
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    The
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    predominant. The predominant.
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    Racial group within the area would be Mexican American.
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    Really Hispanic, they call themselves probably in that area. They would see
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    themselves as the original settlers in
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    New Mexico area. These people. There. I. Few of them are in
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    the church. And we certainly don't a lot of the youth of the
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    Spanish background. No blacks in the area at all.
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    But our work was primarily with white
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    Anglo-Saxon persons, again ranching families.
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    The ministry was used to bring the church into such
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    sparsely settled areas where it otherwise couldn't go. I had little contact with Native
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    Americans. There were one or two sawmill camps in which Native American families and
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    their children worked. And, in the summertime and our vacation bible school
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    program we would be moving out into these areas. And, at that
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    time, would have a lot of children. We had very little contact with adults, who
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    were mostly of Roman Catholic background although
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    the kids would come to our youth fellowship, who we'd seldom see otherwise. So.
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    I've always regretted the fact and see it as some insensitivity on
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    my part that I did not right on pick up the Spanish language, because
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    language has always been an easy thing for me. And, for fifteen years in New Mexico,
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    living in that milieu, I did
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    not feel constrained to learn the Spanish language, which I regret, but that's the truth.
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    In the middle of that
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    experience, you chose to go back to Princeton? Why did you do that?
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    We were isolated so much in those first seven years from any
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    contact with other people. I would get to presbytery meetings once or twice a
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    year. But had no other contact and began really wondering if
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    the gospel that I was preaching was, indeed, the good news. And, I wanted
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    to
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    refresh myself in that area. So, it was primarily to look at that, and then also.
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    I lived in a Southern Baptist region Southern Baptists' approach to t
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    heir churchmanship, their whole concept of church discipline.
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    This was of interest to me, so I actually did my master's
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    thesis on Paul, Pauline discipline of the New Testament.
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    And then you went back to New Mexico for a few more years, and then you went to the College of the
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    Ozarks. What exactly was your role there?
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    I directed the Ozarks area mission, which it.
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    needs to be said that the college had just been taken over, I guess would be one
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    way of saying by the Board of National Missions in 1960. The College having fallen on bad
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    days financially. It had been related to
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    the church through the C. E., through higher education. They had dropped it, and the Board picked
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    it up at synod's request.
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    And, it was at that point that the Board of National Missions saw a college campus
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    as a possibility of a witness to an entire area, not just what happened to students who
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    would go to it against what happens to an area because a college related to the church is in that
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    area. And it was in that kind of vision that that program was
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    devised. The Ozarks Area Mission, which was an attempt to involve
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    students and faculty in off campus s
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    ervice,ministries. It started out on Sundays with youth teaching,
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    church school and youth groups in this kind of program in assisting pastors in the
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    area. But, it began then to build over the years into a program
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    where students at any discipline might find ways in which
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    that particular discipline could be used in service. P. E. would go in communities where
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    recreation was minimal and work in that. Drama students could help them
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    in school programs where drama was not a possibility. To have
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    that kind of music the same, business students still are helping elderly
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    people with their income tax forms. It's. It's an
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    attempt to really impact a neighborhood. And it's
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    also seen as the best way to get students at a
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    time at ar decision-making point in their lives to be in touch with people
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    in service. In service.
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    That was my major responsibility, three fourths of my time. One fourth, I was a professor of
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    Bible. This program. Was it basically oriented
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    for whites to whites? Or was there some racial ethnic mix? Racial-ethnic
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    mix. Was. Was, soon into it. Let me put
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    it that way. One of the happy things about that remembrance of the ten years at C. F. O. We
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    went there in 62. Was he that tcollege
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    integrated in 57. I realize that
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    integration is a poor word now. Integration was the in word then. And, it
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    was a step
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    that took. So that the same year that Faubus [Faubus, Orval Eugene, Governor of Arkansas, 1955-1967] tried to stop students at Central High
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    School in Little Rock, was the year that the Board of National Missions, or CFO  opened its doors. The Board was
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    not part of it then.
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    When we came there were still just a smattering maybe three or four black students
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    who were at the school.
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    We worked with that group and involved them in our program.
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    I think this was one of the places where they really felt like they could get
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    involved and do something themselves. So.
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    I want to say about the College that
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    I, looking back on it, still see it as one of the pioneer efforts of the church to make a dent through this
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    witness that was made there.
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    We had at that time, or the Board had, three educational counselors.
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    One Hispanic in New
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    Mexico, one Native American in Arizona and one black
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    in Atlanta, Georgia. They fed students. We
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    didn't get too many Hispanic or Native American, through the years, we only had a small number of those. But, w
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    e had during those years an amazing number of
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    highly talented, sophisticated black youth, who came to C. F. O. We put
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    them against the unsophisticated rural white students that we. That makes
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    up the bulk, or did then, made up the bulk of the C.F. O. student body.
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    You really had built in the dynamics of tension. During
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    summer in our program. We would encourage these students to go into all kinds of ministry, using
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    again the Board of National Missions VIM program for the most part. So that
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    there were times when C.F.O. had 40 students in the summertime out in summer
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    projects across the country. We had them in Kodak in Rochester. We had them in
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    Los Angeles. We had them in Laurinsburg in North Carolina.
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    And these students would really get caught up in the middle of what was going on in the
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    summertime. And then, we'd come back to a sleepy college campus
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    one that where the rest of the students had been out
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    at home doing the normal thing and making money. And, in time, it did build to a tension point, and we
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    had 40 of our black students walk off the campus. Did they come back?  They did not come back. They didn't.
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    Well, in 73 then you went from Madison Square Presbyterian
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    Church in San Antonio. And your church has a reputation for
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    involvement in the community. Could you describe for us what
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    kinds of things go on at Madison Square Church?
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    I don't know that we. Say that we have a reputation. At least, I'm
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    not aware of it at this point. I think we've been a fairly staid congregation.
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    We are involved, as other churches are, in the normal ways
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    of ministering to people in need. The kinds of
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    things that people quickly respond to in the way of emergency help.  We are able to find downtown cooperative ministry that way, which
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    touches a lot of people. This is an ecumenical venture? This is an ecumenical venture. That
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    takes Roman Catholic through Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist.
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    We're one of the churches that is in that program. The thing that
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    we're getting into, as a congregation, I have been into it personally I
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    think we're getting into his congregation now is a metropolitan-wide parish
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    development program, using as our consultants the Industrial Areas Foundation people.
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    There are now seven congregations who have elected to become a part of that
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    organizing group. Madison Square will be voting on that actually next Tuesday, a week from tonight. Our session has it on the agenda as to
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    whether or not we will be a part of it.
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    I look forward to it to pass. It's gone through quite a process of personal interviewing and the like. But that would
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    be, would be a group, an ecumenical group of
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    people, interracial. Primarily, at the present time,
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    Hispanic and Anglo, with the hope that it will in time
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    include black congregations as well. It will simply
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    be a consciousness-raising, civic awareness type of thing to try to emp
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    ower people of middle class status in San Antonio
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    to become a part of the decision-making process, so that we don't sit helplessly by as
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    neighborhood deteriorate, as problems at the schools that we think are too big for us, as televisions programs overwhelm us. That t
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    here will be a forum where we can begin talking about what are the things that are pressing us as families, individuals, congregations,
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    neighborhoods. And then find a network of other people in the city who have like concerns and we may join forces.
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    Is your congregation overwhelmingly white? Yes there are. Are there any
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    Hispanics or black?
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    Yes there are. But, I have to say, it is still overwhelmingly white.
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    We're not a large congregation. We are 500 for a downtown church.
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    We do not begin to reflect in our congregation as
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    such the mix of San Antonio. We do  Vietnamese
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    family that has now in-laws and so on in it. That has been a part of that
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    congregation. We sponsored a family that just has really been well-received into the life of the
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    church. We do have what? five
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    six Spanish surname families in the congregation.
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    We have one black family in the congregation.
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    That's. When you were elected moderator of the
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    hundred ninetieth General Assembly in 1978. You. The newspapers said
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    that you billed yourself as a conservative evangelical. I was wondering if you ncould upackage
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    that language. What do you mean by it?
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    What I meant by it then and what I still would say now is, "I hate labels."
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    I just don't.
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    think that you can pick turns. I don't like to give terms away.
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    I consider myself a conservative theologically, biblically. I see
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    myself as one whose roots are very deep in a very
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    Orthodox. And, if we want to say, in a conservative orthodox tradition where
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    I see myself in that tradition. Not I. That is my roots. I
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    have never backed away from them. Evangelical, in
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    the sense in which I said I know evangelical. It is to believe that Jesus Christ is
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    Lord of my life. To be desirous of seeing
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    the Lordship of Christ. Be owned not only in my
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    life but in society. In every facet of life.
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    I see that as evangelical. I'm charismatic.
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    I don't want to give that word away either. I believe that each of us have gifts
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    that are special. That, indeed, we're we are empowered by the
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    Spirit of God. I'm just saying I do see myself in that strain.I'm
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    not. I don't have some of the gifts that others claim to have. I don't have some of the, the evangelical
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    zeal that others have. I admit
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    that. But I still want to own
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    and not give up some things that are part of me.  Now I'm also a liberal in my
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    own persuasions and orientations. I am aware of that. People would say that I am a liberal strain.
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    Would you say that you're fairly typical of United Presbyterian Church leadership.
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    In the late 70s? Yes

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