The little town of Ozark is the county seat of Christian County, Missouri. It is built around the courthouse square, and is a lovely and peaceful community except when a trial of note takes place in the courtroom. Perhaps the most exciting of such events was when the leader of the "Bald Knobbers" was sentenced to death a number of years ago. The Bald Knobbers were a lawless element ruling the hill country by threats and violence. They took their name from the rock-strewn treeless crests of hills where they hung their signal lanterns when getting ready for a foray. When the law finally caught up with them, the leader was sentenced to "hang by the neck until dead" and the sentence was carried out on an open scaffold erected in the courtyard. It attracted about the largest crowd ever seen in Ozark.

It was in Ozark I debated Rue Porter four nights, March 23-26, 1937. The debate resulted from a chain of circumstances. The congregation at Ozark had only one elder left, Charles F. Boyd, a respected attorney, and for a number of years the County Superintendent of Schools. In 1933, while I was in a meeting at Nixa, he arranged for me to conduct a similar meeting at Ozark the following year. As the date for the meeting was approaching he was visited by several members of the congregation who had recently moved into the area and who demanded that he cancel it. They objected that I was not a "loyal preacher," being an opponent of orphan homes and colleges, created and maintained by the brethren. They did not want their names associated with that of an "anti." Brother Boyd firmly insisted he would not dispense with the meeting purely on the basis of their protests.

As time for the meeting drew near a number of them walked out and formed a rival congregation which began meeting in the Klepper Funeral Home. I conducted the meeting for which I had been scheduled, and while I was there announcements were posted about town to the effect that Rue Porter, of Neosho, Missouri would hold a meeting at the other place. Meanwhile I received a letter from Elton Abernathy who had graduated from Abilene Christian College and was associated with the Speech Department of the University of Iowa, suggesting that we discuss the whole question of "extra institutions" at Springfield, Missouri. He proposed a public debate there during the Christmas holidays of 1936.

I accepted at once and secured the promise of wholehearted cooperation from the brethren in Springfield who opposed the institutionalizing of the teaching and charitable functions of the body of Christ. While I was preparing for the encounter I received a letter from Brother Abernathy bowing out of the discussion and apologizing for even suggesting it. The brethren whom he purposed to represent had notified him they did not want these matters discussed in their area and would vigorously oppose such a debate. It was at this time word was conveyed to me that Brother Porter had publicly stated in a meeting at Ozark, held under the auspices of the brethren who were meeting in the Klepper Funeral Home, that we did not have a man among us who would dare to stand on the same platform with him and debate these matters.

I immediately wrote to him and told him I was picking up the gauntlet he had flung down and would gladly engage in a discussion with him. We agreed upon all of the details without lengthy correspondence. The Works Progress Administration had erected a lovely large Community Hall in the center of Ozark and we decided to use its spacious auditorium. There was no other place large enough to accommodate the audience . Excitement ran high and almost a thousand people crowded into the little town each night for the event.

Although I had never met Brother Porter, I knew a great deal about him and all of it was good. He was in the generation preceding mine, being twenty years older than myself. He was approaching his forty-eighth birthday, and I was less than two months away from my twenty-ninth. During the debate he constantly referred to me as "the boy." Brother Porter was one of a special class of preachers produced by the Churches of Christ in Arkansas and the Missouri Ozarks during that era. Many of these had no college training, but they knew the text of the Bible so thoroughly they could reel off whole chapters of it in one sermon, giving "book, chapter and verse," for every point of emphasis as they constantly reminded the audience.

They made great sacrifices of time and comfort, going often into remote rural areas for meetings, and being away from home for weeks on end. They held meetings in schoolhouses, brush arbors, and in the open air, as well as in little white meeting-houses. Often they were underpaid, sometimes taking a side of bacon, a gallon of sorghum molasses, or garden produce as part of their remuneration. Many of them gratified their hearers by "skinning the sects" and nothing pleased them more than to goad the Baptists into a free-for-all, and a verbal tug of war! Of course there were Baptists who loved it also, and men like Ben M. Bogard of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church held there was no closed season on Campbellites. These country preachers on both sides were as "keen as a briar" and each one knew exactly what his opponent would say in reply to his arguments.

When Brother Porter and I met he had already engaged in twenty-five debates, all but one with Baptist preachers. He chose as his moderator, Joe Blue, another well-known hill country preacher and debater. I selected as my moderator W. G. Roberts. He was always ready to tangle with anyone in debate but specialized on Mormons. His favorite proposition was: "Resolved that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, a thief and a liar." He was ready to affirm it at the drop of a hat and if no one dropped a hat, he would throw down his own and affirm it anyhow.

My initial meeting with Brother Porter was when I shook hands with him on the platform the first night. In appearance he reminded me of Abraham Lincoln. His was the first affirmative, so he would both open and close the debate. The proposition he affirmed read: "The erection and maintenance of orphans homes, such as Tipton Orphans Home, Southern Christian Home, and others of like character, for the purpose of housing and otherwise caring for orphan children, is authorized by the New Testament scriptures." When the hour arrived to begin Brother Blue called on Brother H. H. Kiestlekamp of Rolla, Missouri to lead in prayer. Each side always called on a visitor favorable to their position. Neither side recognized an opposing preacher as worthy to talk to the Father.

After his preliminary remarks during which Brother Porter defined the terms of his proposition, he turned to the scriptures which he insisted authorized the building and maintenance of orphan homes. They were James 1:27, Ephesians 2:10, Galatians 4:18, Hebrews 13:16, and Romans 12:13. He declared that James 1:27 "will be the rallying ground and the center of controversy, as the place around which every argument I shall make will be built. I propose to make but one argument on this entire proposition. One argument!"

My reply will be obvious to the reader, and I made it! When we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, Brother Porter denied that the word "go" included a missionary society. By the same kind of reasoning, when we are told to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, I denied that the word "visit" included a charitable organization or society. Moreover James 1:27 not only enjoins one to visit the fatherless but to keep himself unspotted from the world. I asked Brother Porter what kind of organization he would recommend for the last half of the verse.

The reporter for the Springfield newspaper who covered the event did a lengthy write-up after the first night. It featured the debate on the front page with headlines and carried over to the back page in a kind of blow-by-blow account. The cartoonist who accompanied the reporter did caricatures of both debaters. As a result of the publicity the feeling was a little more intense the second night. As I pressed my respondent, Brother Blue interposed several times while I was speaking. Brother Porter and I never "lost our cool" but some in the audience were not so calm. After the discussion for that evening was ended the people refused to leave. They stood about in small groups assessing the merits of the speeches. An elder passing by one small knot of brethren, overheard one remark, "That Ketcherside ought to be taken out and tied to a tree and whipped."

On the third night it was my time to lead out. The proposition read: "The erection and maintenance of schools or colleges, such as Abilene Christian College, David Lipscomb College, and others of like character, for the purpose of teaching the Bible and other branches of learning in connection, is contrary to the New Testament, and should be opposed as an innovation in the church" My moderator collaborated with Brother Blue in urging the hearers to leave the debating to the men on the platform and not to "get warm under the collar" as some did the night before. He called upon D. Austen Sommer to lead the prayer and then introduced me for the first affirmative.

After defining my terms in formal fashion I said, "I shall demonstrate that the Bible College is the introduction of something new into the Church of Jesus Christ and should be regarded as something not apostolic, and therefore, contrary to the New Testament Scripture." I then proceeded with a chain of scriptural passages which had about as much bearing on my theme as the ones cited by Brother Porter did on his. I reinforced my charges with quotations from Alexander Campbell, J. N. Armstrong, David Lipscomb, the Freed-Hardeman College Bulletin and the Abilene Christian College Bulletin. Some of these were a little careless and unguarded in their statements and played right into my hands. I had researched them meticulously and had them indexed like a Philadelphia lawyer.

Brother Porter was indeed a worthy respondent. He placed the questions we were discussing in the realm of opinion, saying, "These are questions of an individual nature. They are for the Christian to decide as an individual. It is a matter of opinion not a matter of law. No sir, it isn't a matter of law." His position was that a teacher in one of the schools was simply an individual exercising his right and duty to teach the Bible as he would in the home or on the street. Brother Porter told who did not own the schools, but he never told who did.

When the fourth night of discussion was ending and time was celled on Brother Porter, he said, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, the debate is over. May God bless every one of you. Carl, I want to shake your hand as a manifestation of my friendliness toward you. I love you, and will be your friend for as long as we live."

I replied, "Thank you! I appreciate greatly the opportunity of discussing these issues with you, and I hope the time will soon come when all of God's people may be one in Christ." When I said it, I knew there would never be oneness until Brother Porter and all who stood with him reached the conclusion that I was right and they were wrong, and came to do obeisance and confess their error for endorsing such things as the orphans homes and Christian colleges.

But my respect for Brother Porter, already great, increased with the passing of the years. When he grew old and was unable to continue in active labor in the vineyard because of his infirmities, an appeal for financial assistance was made to pay for his heavy doctor and hospital expenditures. Nell and I wrote him about our prayers in his behalf which were fervent and sent a check to help in his time of distress. His reply was gentle and gracious, and when I heard that he had been summoned to meet the Lord I felt a real sense of personal loss. I expect to meet him some day in a land where there will be no further challenges and fellowship will not be judged upon the basis of earthly knowledge or of human conformity.

I doubt that the debate changed many minds. People left with the same prejudices they had when they came. The same congregations remain in Ozark although four decades have come and gone and most of the principals in the original cleavage are asleep with their fathers. The division has taken on new dimensions with the passing of time. It has solidified and crystallized. There is little remembrance that the saints once ate together at a common table.

But the discussion launched me as a debater in a factional orbit. I think now that I thought more highly of myself than I ought to have thought. This feeling was no doubt enhanced by the fact that congregations with which I had labored in Springfield, Saint Louis and Kansas City publicly challenged Brother Porter to meet me in their cities. He at first indicated he would but then declined to do so. This stimulated my unholy egotism, especially when I learned from a reliable source that several preachers told Brother Porter that if he debated the issues with me in these centers he would set their cause back fifty years.

I confess with some little regret, and even a sense of shame, that I delighted in such confrontations. I liked being the "gun-toter" for a small party and taking on the best that the big "mainline" churches had to offer. Before I became convinced of the detrimentality of debates to the cause for which Jesus died I debated most of the recognized gladiators of that era — G. C. Brewer, G. K. Wallace, Sterl Watson, W. L. Totty, Flavil Colley, and others.

We were lawyers for the prosecution seeking to interpret as a legalistic code the revelation of God given in love. All of us, without realizing it, were casuists, justifying what we did and condemning what others did, and doing so arbitrarily. We were defending a pattern which was not there and seeking to impose a binding dogmatism which God did not impart. But we had to go through this stage. It was a part of the maturing process for a movement seeking for status in a world made up of ancient religious forms which were hallowed and respected because of their age. We could, like children, call attention to our presence by fighting one another. I suspect the world looked on with amusement at our antics. I now look at them the same way! — 139 Signal Hill Dr., St. Louis 63121