Methodist Church

Methodist churches in the South were, and had always been, what you would call white congregations. There were exceptions, but for the most part, white. Most of its members were also, those of  means, families who didn’t necessarily have to worry about paying the bills and buying clothes for their kids when schools started each fall. The desegregation crisis challenged this in many ways for many families, and for many pastors.

According to Michael Cartwright's research given in his writings in Crisis of Conscience, the Methodist Church's 1948 Book of Discipline stated that "racial discrimination as a clear violation of the Christian belief in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the Kingdom of god...We therefore have no choice but to denote it as unchristian and to renounce it as evil. This we do without equivocation.^"

Churches in the northeast and northwest parts of Arkansas in the 1940s were more open and more willing to integrate than the mid and southern parts of Arkansas, according to Bob Bearden, a Methodist minister who served small and larger churches in various parts of the state. Public schools in those areas had integrated even before the 1954 Supreme Court order. In 1960, Bearden was posted to a large Methodist church in Little Rock and immediately recognized a change in attitude. Bomb threats had occurred just before his arrival. Students from Philander Smith College, which was a few blocks from the church, attended one Sunday morning were not seated and asked not to return. There was a small number of people in the church who thought this was wrong, and then there were some who just left the congregation entirely.

There were pastors and many people with the more liberal views who tried the best they could encourage, openly or more quietly, integration. For example, pastors with more open-minded views became known as such in the state's many church districts. It was not uncommon for pastors to invite other pastors to preach in their pulpits on a Sunday morning. Some pastors had to be un-invited to a pulpit because parishioners had gotten word of the visiting pastor's views  on integration and racial responsibility.

Many pastors were often caught in the middle during this time; some saying they did not do enough and some saying they did what they could, but in looking back it was not enough. For many pastors it certainly could be called "a time of crisis of conscience," as John Workman wrote in the book with the same name. He explains it as the “ever-present, ever-gnawing, ever-overwhelming challenge affecting almost every aspect of daily ministry.”

Many pastors were aware of the how many of their congregants felt about race relations and integration and agreed, for it was the status quo, the way it always had been. The races should be separate. But for those whose convictions held them to what was unpopular, often even untolerated, it was a devastating role to be in. Certainly, there were clergy who lacked the courage to help race relations and to help their parishioners understand the necessity and Christian value of integration. There were some who did so quietly. There were also pastors and parishioners who spoke out deliberately about the value of social justice, and continued to do so under great threat to themselves and their families. There are two sides in every argument, and each person takes his or her place.