Pilgrimage of Joy …

THE CALL OF THE SOUTH
W. Carl Ketcherside

The year of 1949 was an eventful one historically and personally. On January 20, Harry S. Truman from Missouri was sworn in as President, with Alben W. Barkley as his Vice-President. They had been elected November 2 in a stunning upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey and Earl Warren. On April 4 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was signed into being, and on April 14 the German war crimes trial was ended with the conviction of 19 of 21 former Nazi officials.

We began by dropping the word “Missouri” from the name of the paper. It had long since ceased to be merely a journal recording news from our state and henceforth would be known as Mission Messenger. We coined the slogan “The paper with a mission and a message.” We signaled the change by introducing open forums upon such subjects as “The work of Women in the Church,” and “Marriage and Divorce.” I published the divergent views in articles and letters exactly as they were written and without editing. It was a new day for fairness and apparently the people liked it. In ninety days we received a thousand new subscriptions. Our writers demonstrated a considerable amount of “unity in diversity,” especially since most of them denied there was such a thing.

I rather suspect the year marked a new kind of “high” for our particular segment of the restoration movement. This was reflected in the attendance and enthusiasm shown in the “annual meetings” which had long been a part of our life. Some of these were anniversary gatherings marking the date the congregation had been planted. Others, such as the Labor Day meeting at Hammond, Illinois, were scheduled to take advantage of the freedom from work on holidays. There were 256 at the 39th anniversary meeting at Bonne Terre, Missouri, June 12; 330 at Hartford, Illinois, June 26; 200 at Sullivan, Illinois, July 17; 350 at Richmond, Missouri, July 24; and 452 at Hammond, Illinois, September 5. The latter embraced brethren from 51 congregations in 8 states.

A part of the attendance was due to the presence among us of Albert Winstanley from England. Albert and Jean, with their little son David, a babe in arms, arrived in New York on the liner Queen Mary, on June 20. Nell and her older sister Nova went to New York to accompany them to Saint Louis, where the stifling heat of the midwest was almost too much for them. Although still a young man, Albert was an excellent student of God’s Word, clear and lucid in his thinking, and articulate in his presentation. He visited scores of congregations with Hershel Ottwell as his guide and travel companion. They covered many states. Wherever Albert went, God used him in a marvelous manner and the six months he spent among us seemed to fly.

In September I returned to Windsor, Ontario, for a Bible Study which I taught every night with an average of more than sixty in attendance. On Sunday I spoke to the edification of the saints gathered for the breaking of the bread, and that night proclaimed the good news in the gospel meeting. It was during the study of the Word that I met William Keenan, an atheist and former Communist organizer. He came to my meeting through the influence of a former alcoholic, now a fellow-member of Alcoholics Anonymous. After three nights of attendance at my class they asked me if I could come and talk with them the following day.

I went at 9:00 a.m., and was ushered into the drab quarters, a “bachelor pad” with sparse furnishings. We sat down in the kitchen with its single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were just three battered chairs and we pulled them up to the table with its chipped enamel top. As we talked an occasional mouse made a foray across the floor to pick up a crumb, dashing back to safety when someone shuffled his feet. I watched a huge cockroach crawling around on a rickety cabinet.

When I requested the privilege to pray the two former alcoholics and I bowed our heads, while the cold autumn rain coursed its way in rivulets down the outside of the unwashed window-panes. I told the men we must start where we were as there was no place else to start. I asked William Keenan to tell me where he was and how he had arrived there. It was like opening the flood-gates to allow a long pent-up river of feelings to surge through. He talked for three hours while drinking cup after cup of strong coffee. I sipped a little of it and it tasted like I think varnish remover might taste. At times during the narrative his nervous hands shook until he had no use both of them to lift the cup to his lips.

As a boy he was turned from the Christian faith by a preacher in the Established Church, whom he idolized, and who had formed a boy’s club which was the height of his joy in the small English town where he lived. He had resolved to grow up and become a clergyman and devote his life to helping under-privileged children when he discovered that the man he revered was a homosexual and the boy’s club was a cover for dealing in seduction. The night after the rector made an indecent proposal to him, he shook and cried all night. The next morning when he tried to tell his quarreling parents who were heading for a divorce they only berated and abused him verbally.

He ran off and ended up in an English city where he was taken into the home of a Communist labor infiltrator. Here he was shown kindness and love. he was treated daily to the idea that religion was a means by which wealthy exploiters enslaved the sweating masses for their own profit. The term God became a dirty word to his mind. God was the designation of on ogre conjured up in primitive minds. When he was sent to Moscow he already hated God and regarded the Christian faith as a retreat from reality by weak persons. He was trained as an infiltrator of youth groups in the English speaking world, but after several years began to “hit the bottle.” He became useless to Moscow and they kicked him out, convinced he would end up in a drunkard’s grave. But he had gone to Alcoholics Anonymous and found understanding and compassion, and his friend had brought him to my meeting where we were friendly and kind to him.

What I said that night made sense if there was a God. If not, it was merely a house of straw. I had listened for three hours without interruption. At one o’clock I began the real struggle for the soul of a desperate and destitute man. The minutes ticked away while the rain lessened in force. Three more hours passed, and at four o’clock he said, “That’s enough. I believe that God is, and that Jesus Christ is His Son.” Just as he said it, the sun broke through for the first time that day and cast a shaft of light across the dingy table where we had been sitting for seven hours. That night I baptized him into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When I arrived back home in Saint Louis there was a letter written on lined notepaper asking if I would come for a series of meetings in Beech Grove, a little Arkansas village clustered around a cotton gin a few miles from Paragould. I assumed that it resulted from my reply to a letter received in March, from Herbert Johnson, a humble farmer near Beech Grove. He wrote to encourage me to continue my opposition to the one-man hireling ministry system which was foisting a special clergy caste upon the congregations. I agreed to go to Beech Grove for a meeting in July 1950, if God willed.

In the December 22 issue of Gospel Advocate, John Allen Hudson unleashed a four-column blast against me in an article titled “The Divisive Leadership of W. Carl Ketcherside.” In it he used such terms as “Carl’s diocese” and “archbishopric.” He spoke of my cantankerous spirit and referred to accusations made against me by members of the Sommer family and by Fred Fenton, who once wrote for Mission Messenger and was very complimentary of my efforts, until he dropped out to start a short-lived periodical of his own called Radiant Truth. Brother Hudson made dire predictions of my rising power and influence, and warned that if the brethren listened there would be great changes come about in the churches.

I was amazed when I read the article, not only by its appearance, but by its harsh and caustic tone. I immediately wrote B. C. Goodpasture, the editor, and asked for space to reply to the personal attack upon my motives and integrity. After a number of days had gone by I received a curt reply consisting of four lines in which Brother Goodpasture said that he did not think an article from me would contribute to the peace or well-being of the brotherhood. To this day I cannot figure out why Brother Hudson reacted so bitterly in print in an attempt to destroy me unless it was because the British brethren had ignored his letters generally circulated among them urging them not to hear me. Their willingness to hear for themselves, coupled with the coming of Brother Winstanley, was probably more than our brother could take.

As the year of 1949 drew to a close we had just concluded a six-weeks Bible Study on December 6, which brought together capable students from ten states. Many of these were young, being just out of high school, but a goodly number were older men seeking to improve their knowledge so they might render better service as elders of their congregations. The study was greatly enhanced by the presence of Brother Winstanley who contributed much to our spiritual knowledge as well as to our understanding of the work of the brethren in Great Britain. Our hearts were sad as the time drew near for the departure of this little family. Nell and I were especially touched because they had made their home with us. It had been good to have a baby in the house once more.

On Saturday night, December 24, we had a farewell gathering for them. The next day, Christmas, Albert spoke in the morning for the congregation on Manchester Avenue. That night he addressed the Lillian Avenue congregation for the last time. The next day they left us but not before Albert had agreed to contribute an article each month under the heading “As Others See You.” His discussion of his impressions of America and the congregations he visited provided interesting reading for those who had come to love him for his work’s sake. Long after he had gone to labor in Tunbridge Wells and Ilkeston, the congregations over here continued to pray for him by name. He had drawn us close to those of like precious faith in Great Britain “whom having not seen we loved.”

Early in 1950, while in Indiana, I went to the office of the American Christian Review, to discuss our differences with Allen R. Sommer, and Bessie, his sister. Our visit was amicable and gracious, despite the rifts which had occurred in the past. The same afternoon I went to Butler University for a talk with some of the faculty members. I was received in a spirit of courtesy and kindness.

Meanwhile in Arkansas the exact opposite attitude was being manifested toward the little congregation at Beech Grove. When word of the forthcoming meeting was released the machinery of opposition went into high gear. There were two congregations in Paragould, the county seat. The one at Second and Walnut had J. A. McNutt as minister, the one at Seventh and Mueller had Emmett Smith. George W. DeHoff of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was in a meeting in Paragould when the announcement of my coming was made. He immediately launched an attack against Beech Grove from the pulpit, demanding that they cancel their arrangement with me forthwith.

When the brethren at Beech Grove declined to do this it was decided to bring in reinforcements, and a call was made to Harbert Hooker at Poplar Bluff, Missouri, who had several times held meetings at Beech Grove and was generally well liked. Brother Hooker did not even consult the brethren as to whether they wanted him to come. One of the leaders at Beech Grove found a note in his rural mailbox that Brother Hooker would speak at Beech Grove the next Sunday afternoon and wanted all the members present. It was announced on Sunday morning and all of the members went. Brother Hooker delivered a talk on supporting preachers, then asked everyone to leave except the Beech Grove members.

He told of his deep regret at learning that the brethren were making the saddest mistake of their career in bringing in the worst extremist in the whole United States. He said I was so opposed to women speaking in the church that when a woman wanted to make a confession of her faith we took her out on the front porch of our meetinghouses. The brethren asked him if he would sign a statement to that effect so they could go to Saint Louis and investigate. He refused and told them he was not signing anything, but they would be sorry if they did not listen to him. He then shook the dust off his feet and departed.

Two weeks later a preacher showed up on Sunday morning and announced he had been sent to warn the brethren not to go through with their plans for me to come. He warned them I was so liberal I believed in women preachers. After the meeting they “collared him” and told him that either he or Brother Hooker was guilty of falsehood and perhaps both were. He excused himself and fled the scene, and never returned.

Sterl Watson then entered the fray by writing a booklet filled with diatribe under the silly title “Ketcherside and Killebrew Keeled.” Fred Killebrew was then working with a small congregation in Senath, Missouri, after having renounced the clergy system while living in Tennessee. It was the intention of Brother Watson to wipe Fred and myself off the map with one swipe. Amazingly, Dr. James D. Bales sent out an endorsement of the book urging all to read it. Actually, it was so wild that we immediately recognized that if we could get it into the hands of brethren it would do more good than anything we could write or say.

Fred Killebrew began to advertise the books and offer them free in his meetings. It was so effective that when he went to Sterl to get a couple of hundred additional copies he refused to let him have them or to tell him where he might secure them.