A VISIT WITH PAT AND SHIRLEY BOONE

On March 27 it was my pleasure to share in the Restoration Workshop, a one-day unity meeting that brought together leaders from four different wings of Christian Churches --- Churches of Christ, in Los Gatos, California. Stan Harbour, who ministers to the Blossom Hill Church of Christ, directed the workshop. Since Pat Boone and his family were to be in the area presenting a concert of religious music, Stan invited Pat to be present. While his commitments kept him from accepting the invitation, he kindly arranged with Stan for me to meet with him the evening of the concert.

The concert was given at the First Baptist Church in San Jose, whose building sets magnificently on a hill overlooking the city, looking more like the Taj Mahal than a church building. Seating some 2500 people, it is equipped for dramatic productions as well as preaching, including a revolving stage. It is the most impressive church edifice I’ve ever seen. Our brethren who like to invest millions in brick and steel, but have little aesthetic imagination, could learn from those Baptists. In approaching the place we were surprised to see such a crowd. Cars were everywhere and folk were lined up a country mile waiting to see the next performance. The Boones packed them in, upwards of 5,000 for the two rounds.

Pat had sent word that I was to visit with him backstage between performances, but because of his public I had trouble getting to him. He is popular in his own state as well as throughout the nation, for they had him surrounded with requests for everything from autographs to more spiritual testimony. But once I found Shirley and the girls and made my identity known, I was ushered into the dressing room where I finally had an exciting visit with the entire family.

The four girls had joined their parents in giving this concert, one punctuated not only with Pat leading the family in spiritual songs, but with a personal testimony as to the family’s dedication to Jesus. “It is one thing to know about Jesus, but something else to know him,” he told the audiences. And Shirley explained that she believed this was a new direction that the Lord was leading them in their professional career-religious concerts that point to the solidarity and togetherness of the family. This was their first, but others are scheduled. On stage Pat makes it clear that the family is performing together in devotion to God and not simply to entertain.

I especially enjoyed the girls, all four of them, for they bubble over with youthful enthusiasm and spiritual awareness. Laury is the youngest at about 13. She told me of how she met with other kids at her school each morning and prayed for their teachers. Cherry, at 16, is the oldest and as lovely as a lily, talked at length about her school and family life, explaining that the only musical training she has had has been in the home. I was eager to know how she felt about the Church of Christ now that her parents had been withdrawn from at Inglewood, and whether they would leave us and go elsewhere. “I believe I am in Christ and therefore in his body,” she said softly, “so I don’t need to join anything.”

The other two girls, Lindy and Debby, were busy watching out for their costumes, so I did not get to visit with them much. But I could see that they were no less lovely and interesting than the others. This family is a tribute to the church and a glorious testimony to the love of God.

Pat finally escaped from his admirers and took refuge in the dressing room where we could meet each other for the first time. In this TV and movie world of ours we feel that we sort of know famous people even when we haven’t met them, and I felt this way about Pat, especially since we had corresponded. And yet nothing is a substitute for personal sharing, and this is what our visit was, a sharing of our experiences in the Lord. Only when our visit was over did I realize that most of our conversation was about Jesus and the Bible. That was one thing that impressed me about Pat, his knowledge of the Word and his ability to communicate it. I got the notion somewhere along the line that Pat could use some help in defending himself against all the onslaught of criticism, but I saw that he was fully capable of taking care of himself.

I was also impressed by the gentleman that Pat Boone is. He has a way of looking somewhat younger than his years, and there is a buoyancy of spirit about him that confirms his devotion to things that matter most. Even though he has a rightful claim to fame, he has the gift of setting his visitor at ease and making him feel that he is the celebrity. He is gracious, generous and gentle, as well as genteel On this occasion he not only wore his famous white shoes, but was dressed in a white suit as well, with a dashing tie. They would jail me if I appeared in such an outfit, but it was most appropriate for Pat Boone, accentuating as it did not only his good looks but his good heart as well. And he was dressed for work!

Shirley is a study in contrast from her husband, not that she is any less glamorous or attractive as a person, but I detected that she needs the strength of others more than Pat does. Shirley certainly has resources of power that have sustained her through all these trials, a strength centered in the indwelling Spirit, and yet she has a way of causing her friends to feel that she needs them, which endears her all the more to them. It is a virtue that a woman has best. Pat bears his self-reliance with humility, Shirley her dependence on others with dignity.

I might add that they both have charisma (what else! ) .

I was eager to learn if the Boones were planning to leave the Church of Christ now that they had been kicked out. I was there to tell them that I knew of many who loved them and were praying for them and who hoped they would stay with us. And I wanted to welcome them to the club, to that swelling number of heroic souls among us who have chosen to be free rather than dead. Earlier I had mailed to the Boones a fistful of responses, mostly favorable, to the editorials and articles by them and about them that appeared in this journal. This they deeply appreciated, and they are using these to show their critics that there is more than one side to the attacks being published against them among Churches of Christ. I pointed out to them that all those responses not only came from their own Church of Christ folk, but they were written by people who were expressing their views, not to them, but to me, and that they were therefore less prejudicial. I also pointed out that while there were the bitter critics there were also the loving admirers, who, while they may not agree with all the conclusions that Pat and Shirley reached, they are encouraged by their determination to be free people in Jesus.

As to whether they planned to leave, Pat was unequivocal in his assertion that he had no plans other than to be where he has always been, in the Church of Christ. I was impressed by his and Shirley’s love for our people and the fact that they have no bitterness as to what happened at Inglewood and in the brotherhood press. They understand, and they are both sweet and reasonable about the whole thing. They are presently visiting at various congregations in the area, especially in San Fernando.

On my way out I was buttonholed by Pat’s manager, who, upon hearing that I was a Church of Christ minister,” demanded that I explain how the Church of Christ could treat Pat and Shirley the way they have, “after all he’s done for them.” Well, no one can deny that Pat has been used a great deal through the years in youth rallies, fund-raising programs, etc. Nor can it be denied that no one dreamed of kicking him out back in those days. It was only when he began taking Jesus seriously and “walking by the Spirit” that he was disfranchised. But I found it difficult to explain this strange mentality to an outsider like Pat’s manager.

I explained first of all that many, many people in the Church of Christ do not agree with what Inglewood did, for they love and respect the Boones a great deal and believe they have the right to be different, whether they agree with them or not. And as for good folk like the Boones, people who really love God, being kicked out of the church, I pointed out to the gentleman that the only perfect man that ever lived, one that loved God absolutely, was killed by his own people. It was the church leaders who destroyed Jesus, probably because they feared him. He was different and had to be disposed of. So we need not be surprised when leaders of the modern church seek to destroy those who love Jesus, especially those who for some reason are a threat to their system. As Niebuhr puts it, “Whenever love and truth are incarnated, they are crucified.”

Maybe I got through to him, for he replied “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

The thing about all this that impressed me most was that when the word got around among the congregations I was visiting that I had talked with Pat and Shirley Boone, everybody wanted a report as to how the Boones were doing and what they were thinking. It made me feel like a celebrity!

Pat and Shirley are writing an exciting chapter in the history of our people, and they are helping us to grow by forcing us to face up to issues that are not easy. It is not a question of how right or wrong they may be in their new affirmations, but a matter of whether we are going to allow a person to be his own free man in Jesus. “It is before his own master that he stands or falls,” is the way Paul chose to resolve such matters. We are slow in maturing to the place where we no longer assume that it is before us that he is to be judged. Fortunately, Pat and Shirley can be “Jesus people” (a term they like) even if somehow we see to it that they are no longer “Church of Christ people.”

Oh, yes, I must add that I had to have my fun out of this episode. When Shirley gave me a fond, sisterly embrace upon my departure, I took full advantage of it when I called Ouida back home that weekend. ‘I’ve been in California but one night,” I told her, “and already I’ve been hugged by a movie actress.” — the Editor