dventist leaders were carefully monitoring the events in the
South and across the nation while they tried to fashion a denominational response
to calls from some members for more direct participation in the protests.
Review and Herald editor F. D. Nichol, writing five weeks
after the third Selma march in an April 29 editorial, decried the emphasis on
the "social gospel" that he and other leaders saw at work in the involvement
of many clergymen in the protests.
"Now our attitude toward the social gospel has not prevented
us from a sympathetic concern for those underprivileged, either in body or in
spirit," Nichol wrote, "but it has led us to a more quiet and distinctively
Adventist approach to the problem revealed by Freedom Marches and the like."
The editor pointed to the recent unanimous declaration of the General Conference
Executive Committee's Spring Meeting two weeks earlier, the text of which was
also printed in the April 29 edition in which his editorial appeared. Arguing
that "real and constructive progress" on race relations in the church
had been made in recent years, Nichol celebrated the resolution as a "crystallization
reached without fanfare or without the too-often militant and passionate exchanges
that have marked the attempts of so many people to resolve this difficult problem."
The resolution, formulated by the church's Human Relations Committee
and urged by General Conference president R. R. Figuhr and (then) Columbia Union
president Neal C. Wilson, called upon Adventist churches and institutions to
open membership and employment opportunities to all Adventists:
"WHEREAS, It is our belief and conviction that all persons
should be given full and equal opportunity within the church to develop the
knowledge and skills needed in the building up of that church, and that all
service and positions of leadership on all levels of church activity should
be open on the basis of qualifications without regard to race; therefore,
We recommend, That the following principles and practices be
adopted and carried out in our churches and institutions:
- Membership and office in all churches and on all levels must
be available to anyone who qualifies, without regard to race.
In our educational institutions there should be no racial
bias in the employment of teachers or other personnel nor in the admission of
students.
Hospitals and rest homes should make no racial distinction
in admitting patients or in making their facilities available to physicians,
interns, residents, nurses, and administrators who meet the professional standards
of the institution.
It is further recommended that these recommendations be given
very serious consideration and that every effort be put forth to implement them
as rapidly as is consistently possible."
