Pilgrimage of Joy …

ARKANSAS ANTICS
W. Carl Ketcherside

I feel certain that many of my readers will be inclined to sit in judgment upon me for spending so much time detailing events surrounding one little semi-rural congregation in Arkansas. If I need to justify my own conscience I can do so by recalling that it is in such places the Spirit always works to turn the tide of sectarianism. It cannot be done initially in large metropolitan areas where pride and tradition, those twin evils which oppose all reformation, have entrenched themselves. No one in the restoration movement of which we are heirs, who remembers Washington, Pennsylvania. or Cane Ridge, Kentucky, should ever “despise the day of small things.”

The struggle of men to free themselves from the encroachment of a System seeking to destroy their freedom needs to be chronicled so that future generations basking in the warm sun of liberty will not forget the price that was paid to drive the ominous clouds away. And the names of those who warred upon one side or the other need to be engraved on the pillars of history since movements are but men in action. Before I went to Beech Grove, Arkansas, there had gradually developed a kind of super-church mentality which tended to elevate to dominance large congregations whose preachers and elders were promoters and who could control rural congregations and’ use them as feeder units to enhance their own image.

One of the congregations in Paragould had actually proposed to all of the rural and village churches in the county that they send their finances in to it, and allow them to arrange for a stable of preachers who could be assigned to various places and paid for from the central fund. The argument was used that since the Paragould congregation had elders and many of the smaller places did not, these elders could oversee the preachers and assure that country congregations would hear “better preaching.” It is to the eternal credit of the rural congregations that they rejected this blatant attempt to take over their rights and violate their autonomy.

But what a proposed centralized presbytery could not accomplish was then attempted through “area preacher meetings.” In such monthly gatherings needs were discussed, plans were devised, and machinery set up to accomplish what a professional clergy wanted to see done. Smaller congregations without preachers on their payroll had no representation. They did not know of the plans until they were already being carried out and they received a letter or visit from someone asking them to send finances to help “bear the burden.” Such little places had to submit or be ostracized and castigated for refusal to cooperate in “the work of the Lord.”

When W. L. Totty, who lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, heard that I was going to Beech Grove he fired a letter to the church in Paragould to tell them how to handle the matter. He advised his brethren to assault the ramparts and go in a body to Beech Grove each night. As soon as I finished my message they were to arise and take over and hold another meeting in which they could defeat anything I said. He also recommended that the Paragould brethren publicly (withdraw from the two brethren at Beech Grove who had first suggested to the congregation to have me come. By some quirk of the mail service his letter was delivered to the church in Beech Grove instead of to the one in Paragould. One of the brothers whose exclusion was recommended stood up and read it publicly to the saints.

In desperation, the preachers published a notice in Firm Foundation at Austin, Texas, under the heading “Ketcherside Invades the South.” It called upon all preachers and members everywhere not to give aid or comfort to the brethren at Beech Grove until they repented of the grievous sin of inviting me to speak to them and renounced me and what I advocated. It was signed by J. A. McNutt and Emmet Smith, among others.

As soon as the notice appeared preachers began to enter the fray. Some called long distance. Others drove to Beech Grove. All frantically urged the brethren to cancel the work before it was too late. Sinclair Slatton, Joe Blue, George Dehoff. G. C. Brewer, W. Curtis Porter, and James D. Bales, were but a few of those who injected themselves into the business of the congregation and vainly tried their hand. The more pressure that was brought to bear from the outside the more determined did the little group become not to be shoved around.

It was about this time I began receiving crank letters from some of the brethren in Paragould. A few of them contained overt threats and implied I might even suffer bodily injury. One said if I did not cancel the meeting and hurry up about it a group of men from all over that section would meet me as “a welcoming committee” and make it so hot for me I would wish I had never come. I sent the letters to the brethren at Beech Grove who called me by telephone to say that it was they who invited me to come and only they had the right to invite me not to come. They told me to come on and pay no attention to letters from the congregations at Paragould or Commissary.

On Saturday, July 15, I went to Beech Grove with Allen Phillips and his good family. They had lived in the vicinity of Lafe, Arkansas, for a number of years and knew most of the saints at Beech Grove. They took their vacation to go with me to help in the meeting and they were a real strength and blessing. I went to the home of Herbert and Ruby Johnson where I was to stay. I have never found the hospitality which they extended to me surpassed. I had no(been there an hour until brothers and sisters began to drive in from all around. None of them had ever seen me and they had come to “size me up.” They were sincere, humble and unpretentious. It was easy for me to love them every one.

We began the next day under auspicious circumstances. There was a large crowd in the morning and at night the building was filled. The attention was perfect in spite of the heat. On the final night the audience overflowed the building and many could not get in. Everyone came except the preachers. They were conspicuous by their very absence. Always before they rallied to a “big meeting” and were on the front seats. Now they had resolved to lie low and allow me to hold the meeting and after it had all “blown over” they would move back in and straighten the congregation out. When I announced that I would return in six months and conduct a study of the Word for two weeks, open to all in the area, it began to dawn upon them that a boycott would no more serve their purpose than open attack.

The day our meeting began the church in Paragould started one with E. R. Harper, of Abilene, Texas. It was calculated to keep their members away. On the first Sunday morning Brother Harper went on the air and made an attack upon Beech Grove and upon me personally. The next day three of us went in to the station, met with the manager, and requested time in which to reply. It was granted us at the regular station rate. We announced it well in advance and publicized it in the Paragould paper. It is possible we may have had the largest listening audience in the history of the station. We were particularly fortunate in that our program was aired live just after the noon news broadcast.

During the week letters were mailed to every box holder on the rural routes near Beech Grove. They were signed by the elders and preachers at Paragould and demanded that I debate W. L. Totty or Sterl Watson. I read one of the letters from the pulpit and over the radio station and stated I had already debated both men publicly and did not consider either of them a representative man on the issues at hand. I countered by offering to meet either N .B. Hardeman, G. C. Brewer, or George Benson, as top men in the college ranks. But the meeting closed without a debate being arranged. In spite of the tension I immersed four souls in the nearby drainage ditch. Two more made public acknowledgment of wrongs and asked to be restored to the active service of the Lord.

When the time came for me to leave, all of us realized that we had simply gone through the first skirmish and the real battle lay ahead. But I knew the cause was in good hands. Men like James King, Avery Cunningham, and Herbert Johnson had been tested by fire for a year. They were ably assisted by a number of others, among whom special mention should be given to Louis Kappelman, Ellis Hots and Franklin Cunningham. Not a person left the congregation, even under pressure from relatives in Paragould. Every time I thought of the brethren as I made my way back to Saint Louis a phrase from Emerson kept ringing in my mind, “Here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world.”

In August I went to Midland, Texas for a Bible Study which was held in a room at the Air Terminal where so many men had received their flight training during the war. The parachute jumping platforms and the dummy bombs were still in evidence. Our meetings were in Building T-284, which was formerly used for storing ammunition. Here where men had been taught to kill we sought to teach others how to live. From Texas I returned to Windsor, Ontario, where our series was blessed of God and several were immersed into Christ. The congregation was growing in grace and knowledge as well as in number, under the guidance of Adam Bruce and William Horrocks as shepherds. But now there were consecrated younger men such as William Brown and Robert Liles who were developing rapidly.

When I returned from Canada there was a letter urgently requesting me to come to Belfast, North Ireland. I postponed a reply for a few days in order to give thought to all the ramifications involved since I was leading a busy life. While I hesitated another letter arrived pleading that I come. I finally consented to go in mid-February after the annual Saint Louis study and the follow-up meeting at Beech Grove. Our daughter, Sharon Sue, who had recently finished high school and was attending the Gradwohl School of Laboratory Technique agreed to edit the paper during my absence. Jerry would look after the mailing and Nell would continue to take care of the subscription and address files.

Arvel Watts, Ellis Crum and Bob Duncan taught special subjects during the Saint Louis study which reached its conclusion on December 15. Students were in attendance from Kansas, Missouri. Illinois. Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Pennsylvania. We were particularly blessed in having with us two capable black brethren — Leroy Durley and William Baker.

I arrived back in Beech Grove on January 7, prepared to begin our two weeks of study the next day. The opposition had been busy during the interim. The latest prepared “bomb” was a tract by J. A. McNutt attacking O. C. Dobbs. Sr., of Birmingham. Alabama. and myself. I had never met Brother Dobbs but had heard a great deal about him. He was in the first graduating class of the original Alabama Christian College when G.A. Dunn was president. He came away from the school convinced that the gravest threat to the primitive order of things was the growth of the one man preacher-pastor system.

Brother Dobbs developed a hernia and in order to contain or control it, cut a piece of material from an old automobile tire, out of which he fashioned a truss. The hernia corrected itself with this assistance. This led him to experiment until he invented trusses for various types of hernia after which he created the Dobbs Truss Company to market his product. Since this was prior to the time when surgery was used for the condition, the company soon became international in scope with representatives in the major cities of the world. During the years when the business flourished Brother Dobbs became quite well-to-do. With characteristic enthusiasm he plunged into the fight against the “growing pastor system.”

When he learned of the growing storm at Beech Grove he mailed the brethren a bundle of his booklets which they passed out with considerable eagerness. This injected a new political angle into the fracas. It had been previously hinted that I was leading a “Yankee invasion” into one of the strongholds of the “Old South” and bringing in northern doctrine. It was purposely made to appear that I was a “religious carpetbagger.” But O. C. Dobbs was from Birmingham, only a little way from where Jefferson Davis had been named President of “The Confederate States of America.” He spoke with a southern accent and even wrote with one.

Brother McNutt knew he had to act quickly. He printed a book for general distribution in the area under the heading “Pastorating and Evangelizing.” While a lot of it was devoted to trying to patch up what Brother Harper had said and my reply to him on the radio, quite a little space was devoted also to Brother Dobbs. He was accused of being one-sided, biased and prejudicial, and also of being “beside himself.” Coming from the source it did, Brother Dobbs felt highly complimented and fired off a letter inviting Brother McNutt to a written debate which he would print at his expense.

All of this had kept the interest from waning and when I came for the Bible Study excellent audiences gathered every afternoon and night. We did not dwell on the troublesome issues but concentrated on teaching the Word. One afternoon the class was visited by Brother McNutt and the elders from Paragould. Sterl Watson had been imported from Saint Louis to bolster the cause. As soon as I had finished the lesson he arose and demanded that I debate either Rue Porter, W. Curtis Porter, or G.K. Wallace. I agreed to meet either one or all of them. They asked me to write out propositions and submit them. I did so that week. But they could not agree upon them and the attempt fell flat.

One thing that gave me a great deal of hope was the eagerness of the people to know the Word. At each session we had folk from the community who were not members of the Church of Christ. The leaven of peace seemed to be working and I left feeling that good was being done in spite of outside agitation. Arrangements had been made that when I returned from Ireland I would hold another meeting, if the Lord willed. It was a great prospect!