An Editor’s Struggle

for a Free Baptist Press

By Walker L. Knight

August 11, 2002

In the summer of 1942 I was eighteen and at Training Union week at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly when C. Oscar Johnson, longtime pastor of Third Street Baptist Church in St. Louis and once president of the Baptist World Alliance, preached a series of messages on the beatitudes. On Thursday night his text was "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." The New English Bible, from which Ron read, translates this, “Blessed are those who hunger to see right prevail…for they shall be filled.” Through C. Oscar Johnson’s message I heard God's claim on my life, hardly realizing this verse would characterize my life's work or that the calling was not to preach but it was to be nothing more than a journalist--something I did not sort out until after WWII and an eight-month pastorate while a student at Baylor University.

The verse still fills my soul, for I continue to hunger and thirst to see right prevail, and while right has not always prevailed by my standards, I have experienced a measure of being fulfilled and the recent recognition by the Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society reaffirmed that feeling.

When my longtime good friend, playwright Gene McKinney read the creatively written article by Journalist Marv Knox about my career and the fact I was to receive the Whitsitt Courage Award he sent me an e-mail.

It began, "I have tried to gird up my loins to write you, but I failed. I discovered that after years of wear and tear caused by girding, I now have only one loin left. Just as it takes two to tango, it takes two loins to gird. So I have to give up girding. Just as I've had to discard my breastplate because its buckle broke. I am aging post-maturely. Not only did my shay fall apart, so did my horse. All the king's men couldn't put either of them back together again.

"I read your eulogy, and I regret that I missed your funeral, but even if I had been notified, I could not have made it there due to the lack of transportation (as noted above)."

I have found that awards usually come with a price—a speech. When asked to speak on the subject of “An Editor’s Struggle for a Free Baptist Press,” my first question was: What is a free Baptist press? How do you recognize it when you see it?

My answer is that a free Baptist press occurs when the editor of a publication or news service has the sole responsibility to determine the news and editorial contents, and the publication is supported (by supported, I mean allowed to be published) by the institution that supports it and by the audience which receives it. It is my view that if the editor does not have this freedom of responsibility he/she should have another title, and the person or group who does determine the content should be listed as the editor in order that the reader understands who is making the decisions.

First, an editor must struggle with his/her self

Not unlike most of us who struggle for integrity in our work, the editor’s struggle for a free Baptist press is first and foremost with his/her self. Not only does this struggle involve one’s personal integrity, but an editor must consider the effect of his/her actions on members of the family and also how one deals with those gray, ambiguous areas where one’s direction is not clear?

I worked in my teens as a reporter for a small daily newspaper under my editor father. I edited a weekly while serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and I secured a degree in journalism from Baylor University after finding out that God actually did not call me to preach. I edited a Texas country weekly during my senior year. But I was still in for some surprises when I observed Baptist journalism up close and personal.

The first surprise, even disappointment, came in the 1950s when I became the associate editor of the Texas Baptist Standard. I discovered how fearful the religious press was of reporting all the truth. Editors avoided most controversy because they feared it might be divisive and they feared publishing other sides to an issue for the same reason. By reading most Baptist publications one would not have known there was a civil rights movement or that anyone objected to the Viet Nam war. It is possible that editors misuse their freedom more often by what they leave out than what they include in their publications. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, as most editors were former pastors who had worked hard to keep all controversy in check within their congregations, a curse Oakhurst has escaped during the last three decades.

Neither had anyone told me how controlling denominational leaders could be. At best, you could say, they were not risk takers. Most editors walked a thin tightrope between reporting the news, expressing opinion, and pleasing both their readers and executives; and not without reason, for more than one editor was fired and others lived amid restricting tension. In one state the editor and the state executive director did not use the same exit for their building lest they have to face each other. Most state papers (with rare exceptions like the Baptist Standard in Texas), then and now, function as departments under state executive directors who live with short-term goals of promoting programs. And most pastors accept restrictions upon these papers, being unwilling to give to editors the same freedom they demand for their pulpit. They want freedom of Baptist speech, but not freedom of the Baptist press.

Another reason I should not have been surprised was I had seen my editor father wrestling with some of the same fears. In the late 1930s Henderson County in Kentucky was adrift in illegal gambling. Slot machines operated in most gas stations; every pool hall had card and dice games in the back rooms, and big time gambling flourished at nationally known nightclubs. My father once told me, "I could blow this town wide open over this gambling," intimating he knew a lot he would not tell me or the readers. And the paper never, in news or editorials, attacked the corruption. Interestingly, it remained for the ecumenical ministerial association in the 1950s to demand the cleansing the county needed.

Editor E. S. James, whose fiery pen at the Texas Baptist Standard in the late 1950s and early 1960s, did more to strengthen the role of the Baptist state papers than anyone during my lifetime. As his associate I not only found in him a father figure, but a model of openness, fearlessness and aggressiveness.

Under Dr. James subjects that once were only discussed in convention hallways were splashed across our news and editorial pages, creating the liveliest letters to the editor page in Baptist Standard history. On occasion, as editor he published material with which I strongly disagreed, such as a series on evolution by W. A. Criswell and once a favorable article on “The Trail of Blood” (that one can trace Baptists historically to Jesus.) To his credit Dr. James later apologized for the article after professors at Southwestern Seminary invited him to a dinner to discuss the subject.

One of James’s consuming passions was the separation of church and state. It is around this subject that Dr. James provides us with an example with national implications of an editor wrestling with his own conscience. During the Nixon-Kennedy campaign for president Dr. James filled his editorial pages with his opinions on how each candidate stood on the need to keep church and state separate and the dangers inherent in their positions. During this period Kennedy made his famous visit to Houston to meet with religious leaders of the state and to assure them he was not and would not be subject in any way to the dictates of the Vatican. Nixon on the other hand was courting the strong Catholic vote and leaned toward appointing an ambassador to the Vatican. James wrote each candidate questioning them on the subject, but only Kennedy replied and his reply was published in the Standard.

In that election, you may remember, Texas was a swing state and Kennedy—who did not receive an endorsement from James—nevertheless credited James as being one of the factors aiding him to win in Texas, for the Standard at the time had a weekly circulation of more than 370,000. Kennedy in gratitude even invited James for a personal visit to the White House.

I had left Texas to become editorial director at the Home Mission Board, which included being editor of Home Missions Magazine. My friend, Don McGregor succeeded me at the Standard and was serving as James’s associate at this time. After the election, Dr. James told Don that despite all he had written on the campaign and despite getting the credit for aiding in the outcome of the election, he could not bring himself to vote for John Kennedy because he was a Catholic and he was worried about the influence of the Pope. He voted for Nixon.

Of course, I struggled with my own gray areas. We withheld news and information when our missionaries were imprisoned in Cuba in fear they might be harmed physically because information we released might be interpreted as evidence toward their supposed guilt. I did not deal forthrightly with the subject of homosexuality in the 60s and 70s as I did later. On the other hand, I often angered Home Mission Board associates because we treated subjects, such as the Crusade for the Americas, with pro/con reporting. Which brings me to a second area in the struggle for a free Baptist press.

That is, an editor must struggle with the institution

I had not been at the Home Mission Board long before I came face to face with the institution’s felt need to control information. The most sensitive subject was civil rights, an area where I, and many others in the denomination, felt Southern Baptists were not only acting incorrectly--we were downright sinning. My writings raised the wrath of state executive directors who wrote, called and otherwise communicated to the agency’s executive director that I had to be curtailed. I was called to the CEO’s office, along with my supervisor, and I was told (there was no discussion), “We have all of the integration we can tolerate here (the Board had one African-American secretary), and if you want the kind of freedom you are exercising, you need to go somewhere else.”

I only acknowledged that I had heard what he said and later decided my conscience would not allow me to comply. I would run the risk of being fired—I was arrogant enough that I thought I could always find another job in the secular field. This was in the early 60s, when Victor Glass, director of our work with African-americans, was trying to teach the staff how to pronounce “Negro”—Pointing to his knee, he would say, “It’s knee-grow, not Nigra.” And a time when the black secretary was not invited to the annual employee’s luncheon, so staff member Nathan Porter took her to a fancy lunch at the same time.

In my favor, besides the support of many of the staff of the agency, was a bit of recent history. A mission study book—The Long Bridge-- had been published concerning the present and historic work of the agency with African-Americans. The negative reaction among Southern Baptists had been so strong that the book was withdrawn from that year’s study and taken out of circulation. For this action, the Board had been roundly chastised by some of the state Baptist editors. I’m certain this criticism was in the mind of the administration. They did not want a second episode on racism.

I was not fired and I continued my aggressive reporting and writing on the subject with photographs and text, attempting to be as responsible as possible. I believed change would occur more through a pro/con approach of newsgathering than through “preachy” articles. I believe that when people grasp the truth about a situation, they will know God’s will for that situation. The editor’s and the journalist’s role in bringing about change is to discover and report the truth. I have long treasured a thought by the monk Thomas Merton who wrote: “How am I to know the will of God?… The very nature of each situation usually bears written into itself some indication of God’s will. For whatever is demanded by truth, by justice, by mercy, or by love must surely be taken to be willed by God. To consent to God’s will is, then, to consent to be true, or to speak truth, or at least to seek it.”

I came to see that there was a deficit among Southern Baptists in many other areas of national missions, and I began to devote an entire issue to one subject in order to handle adequately the complexity of subjects and to provide enough information for the reader to make his/her own decisions. We expanded the coverage into areas where one CEO was asking more than once, “What’s that got to do with Home Missions?”

My attempt was to give readers an understanding of the context in which missions took place. We wrote and photographed not only the missionaries’ work with Indians but the Indians struggle as a people. The same went for the Spanish-Americans, the Braceros in South Texas, the poor in Appalachian and in the cities, Women’s Role in the Church, Speaking in Tongues, Church Renewal, Pastoral Burnout.

We were one of the first publications to report nationally on the phenomenon of the Jesus Movement, and our issue became a book by Tyndale House, Jesus People Come Alive, that was translated into seven languages and sold more than 100,000 copies, as did the follow-up, The Weird World of the Occult. Others of our issues were also published in book form, and one non-Baptist seminary professor being interviewed on church growth and was told what all we were doing, said, “We give doctor’s degrees for a lot less work than that.”

Our openness and thorough reporting, once again brought me to the CEOs office when a supervisor demanded that I pull articles from an issue. He said I was insubordinate. The CEO heard both sides and said, “If I were editor I would probably handle things differently, but Walker is editor, and as editor has the responsibility of determining the contents of the magazine.” To his credit, when we were leaving his office, the CEO motioned for me to come back to hear him say, “Walker, I made this decision for the future, for I feel you represent the future; but I want you also to be responsible to keep the lines of communication open between the two of you.” I tried to honor his request.

The struggle with the institution did not end when I left the Home Mission Board. During the early years of the struggle for the political takeover of the SBC, I became restless with what was happening both at the agency and with Southern Baptists. A group of moderates learned of my restlessness and my dream of establishing a national autonomous newspaper for Baptists. At our first meeting, I addressed my dream explaining that it included an editor who would determine the content of the publication, but that I was as concerned as they were with the fundamental-conservative message, tactics and unfounded charges. News would be presented as fair and objective and opinion would be labeled as such. My vision extended beyond the current struggle. The moderate leaders agreed to raise funds for the paper. With the help of volunteers and funds from the Oakhurst continuing fund, we founded SBC TODAY here at Oakhurst.

We had not been publishing SBC TODAY (today known as BAPTISTS TODAY) much more than a year when a committee of moderate leaders visited me with the news that many wanted me to take a stronger position attacking fundamentalists. I told the group that I would have difficulty making attacks on personalities, but I would publish articles they might write as long as accusations could be documented and the articles would be published under the writer’s byline. They never questioned my right as editor and continued their support. I do regret I was not more aggressive, and had I had the resources would have published more thoroughly researched articles in their areas of concern. We certainly published everything available at the time, including a series of articles later published as a book under the title The Takeover of the SBC which probably reached 150,000 in number published.

Finally, the editor must also struggle with the audience

Exercising one’s freedom by the publication of controversial material comes at a cost—a cost in support and in circulation.

Somewhere I picked up a theory on leadership which postulates that all leaders derive their authorityor influence through acceptance from those who follow them. A pastor’s authority/influence with the members of a church comes from the amount of acceptance given him/her. An editor’s authority comes from those who subscribe and read the publication. When a leader asks followers to change, he/she loses a degree of acceptance or influence, especially from those resistant to changing. Some leaders spend most or all of their time gaining acceptance, and never use that power to change the followers. Others too quickly dissipate the power and soon find themselves without followers.

Believe me, I experienced a degree of this. Arthur Rutledge, one of the greatest leaders we have ever had in national missions, once told me, “Walker, at the rate you are going, in a few years we won’t have a publication.” But he didn’t ask me to change. The circulation was above 100,000 when I started, and at that time it was down to 30,000.

I talked earlier how strongly the reaction came on the issue of civil rights, but there were many other examples. One was when we published an extensive series on the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The series’ frankness caused one wag’s comment that the youth were hiding the magazine under the mattress.

At the annual meeting of an association in Mississippi, a motion was made that the association vote to censor the magazine for its publication of the sexual material. A heated discussion ensued until the guest speaker for that evening, Mrs. Allegra LaPrairie, the director of the Sellers Home for Unwed Mothers, asked for the privilege of speaking to the issue. Her request was granted, and she simply said, “This is a subject very much in need of open discussion. Most of the girls who come to Sellers Home are from the families of pastors like most of you.” The motion was defeated.

One cannot separate the struggle for a free press from the struggle for a free pulpit. Some pastors were willing to sponsor a free Baptist press and they also used their free pulpit to call for change. I regret to say that many of them took courageous stands on civil rights and other issues and in the process lost their pulpits or continued to serve under duress. We have had many of them join Oakhurst after losing their pulpits. I’m sure there were complex reasons why they lost their positions, as it is with editors: timing, lack of support or acceptance, no denominational support, and even an improper or misguided approach, or a misreading of the context. The story and sacrifice of these courageous pastors may never be adequately told.

Communication by definition is a two-way street. As we touched on the theory of a leader’s influence and authority being related to acceptance, there is also another side to consider. Communication is not completed simply with the accurate writing and reporting of a situation. The writing must be read before communication takes place, and the most accurate communication occurs when there is feedback from the reader to the writer/editor. The best publications have lively letters-to-the-editor sections. Editors need to know if the reader understands what the writer attempted to communicate, as well as helping correct misinformation.

But there is an even deeper level in the struggle with the audience. In the long run, we (and I write not just of Baptists but of humanity)—we have the type of press we will accept and support. Could it be that we get what we deserve? These struggles for a free press and a free pulpit continue even as we speak. Editor’s are placing their careers on the line as they wrestle with the gray areas, institutions are wrestling with whether or not to support a free press or a propaganda sheet, and audiences daily make decisions about the type of press they want in their lives—all affecting the future of not only our faith but our world. Do we believe the truth makes us free? Do we believe adults need to be protected from the truth—all of the truth?

All that to say, I knew that I was not alone in the struggle, and I wish I had the time to pay tribute to all those who struggled with me who deserved the credit I often got, among them were my outstanding associates. I have had so many great associates whose gifts exceeded my own and who have gone on to do outstanding work in their fields in the ministry, in government, in publications, in economics, and in banking. Let me name just a few who worked on SBC TODAY and were members at Oakhurst: Susan Taylor, Amy Greene, Michael Tutterow, Dick Fuller and Michael Usey.

My greatest debt is to Nell, who always understood the struggle and backed me 100 percent, even though our family’s well being was often at risk. She told me this morning on our way to the church that every time I came home early, she thought I might have been fired.

I also owe a debt to Oakhurst Baptist Church--our church of 43 years--because of your love and support and the support of my pastors, and Oakhurst’s willingness to struggle with the same issues about which I was writing. Had I not seen these ideals fleshed out despite their costs here, I might have despaired in my own struggle. Thank you.