Saint Duncan Gray: Four Times into the Fiery Furnace of Racism
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, was the focus of this rightingamerica interview. And for Kennedy’s most recent sermons and articles, see: www.theprogressivepreacher.com.
I am a preacher. As a preacher, I have a biblical text: (Daniel 3:19 – 26). According to the story, Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a blazing fiery furnace. But they were not consumed by the fire (Daniel 3:19 – 26).
Daniel may seem an odd book to choose for a reading about the life of Duncan Gray, Jr. There is a bit of historical irony here. Episcopalians are not usually apocalyptic dispensationalists, but the dispensational scheme came from a former Anglican priest named John Nelson Darby. He left the Anglican Church and founded the Plymouth Brethren. Episcopalians are not likely to check the daily Rapture Index to see if they should prepare for the return of Christ. We are more likely to read the New York Times and the stock market reports.
But since we live in apocalyptic times, I want to hold up that Christian faith is maintained by faithful women and men who know how to face the beast-kings without fear. Duncan Gray was an exemplar of this kind of Christian. In our tradition, we name such people “saints.” Gray, in word and deed, demonstrated to his fellow Episcopalians the Christian response to the beast-king of racism.
The anabaptist theologian from Shreveport, James McClendron taught me to do theology biographically. In Biography as Theology, McClendon says,
In or near the community there appear from time to time singular or striking lives, the lives of persons who embody the convictions of the community, but in a new way; who share the vision of the community, but with new scope or power, who exhibit the style of the community, but with significant differences. When such a person or persons appear, they shine a light in the darkness. They correct or reshape or enlarge the community’s moral vision. They arouse the impotent wills within the community to make it a faithful communion of the saints.
This defines Gray’s life. A person close to Gray said, “Duncan is what the Episcopal Church would be if everyone in it believed (lived by) the words they repeat every Sunday.”
Rhetorically, Gray was a dissenter. Gray remained a faithful churchman; he dissented within the bounds of the Word, the liturgy and the Episcopal Church. “To speak against the dominant ideology,” observes John Lucaites and Celeste Condit, “requires advocates of social change to speak “within [the dominant ideology’s] own vocabulary.”
Gray did not start out as a dissenter. Vaclav Havel, an expert in dissent, says that people
Do not usually discover they are ‘dissidents’ until long after they have actually become one. “Dissent” springs from motivations far different from the desire for titles or fame. In short, they do not decide to become “dissidents” and even if they were to devote twenty-four hours a day to it, it would still not be a profession, but primarily an existential attitude.
Gray is the best example I have found of the dissent needed in our current political disorder. Ours is a time calling forth the best dissent from faithful pastors.
Saint Duncan Gray: Four Times into the Fiery Furnace
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego endured the fiery furnace one time. Gray was tossed four times into the abyss.
Gray was one of those rare Christians who knew the church needed protecting from the powers and the principalities. The church needs some saints – people who seem powerless by the world’s standards. Only God produces saints. Those who try to be saints end up like priests always campaigning to be bishop, without enough votes to get out of committee.
Gray was no Luke Skywalker. He was a faithful priest of the church. He was not a social activist; he was a man possessed by the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer. The words spoke like thunder from Sinai to Gray.
Gray didn’t choose for his life to be overshadowed by the fiery furnaces of America’s racism. The winds in Mississippi blew the flames in that direction. Some of Gray’s friends called him Joe Btfsk, the little man of Lil’ Abner fame who always had a dark cloud of adversity hovering over him., following him wherever he went.
Fiery Furnace #1
Seminary days usually fill with systematic theology and selecting a theory of the atonement, rather than battling the institution over whether African American students can enroll.
In seminary on “The Mountain” – University of the South School of Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee – Gray faced the crisis of whether Black students would be admitted. He was president of the Student council his senior year and had to face his beloved Uncle, the president of the school, with his dissent. His uncle opposed the admission of Black students. The school’s board of trustees refused to admit an African American student. The battle on the mountain led all but one member of the faculty to resign.
Very few seminarians receive the baptism of fire preparing them for a ministry of fires constantly breaking out, but Gray did.
Fiery Furnace #2
After graduation, Gray’s first parish was in the Delta in Cleveland and Rosedale, MS. He arrived on the eve of the Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. the Board of Education. Gray was a member of the Department of Christian Social Relations of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi, a little known department not known for troubling the waters.
Gray was drawn back into the fiery furnace of race for a second time. Gray wrote the document, “The Church Considers the Supreme Court Decision,” 3,000 words that would rock the diocese. Gray basically added to the words, “Thus saith the Law,” the affirmation, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Many considered the document blasphemy and heresy. The document was reprinted in the diocesan paper, The Church News, published as a pamphlet, but the publisher wouldn’t put his stamp on it out of fear of reprisals. Gray mailed a copy to members of the Mississippi legislature. A spunky priest!
Fiery Furnace #4
I will return shortly to the third and most significant fiery furnace.
When he came to St. Paul’s Church in Meridian, he faced the fierce resistance of the White Citizen’s Council and the presence of the KKK. It seemed there were charred houses of worship, dynamited dwellings, and dead bodies littered everywhere.
A year before Gray arrived in Meridian one of the most heinous crimes of the civil rights era was committed nearby. Three young men, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered. The FBI came. The bodies were found in the levee of a pond, and Neshoba County deputies were involved in the killings. Perhaps you have seen the movie Mississippi Burning starring Gene Hackman and William Dahoe.
At a vestry meeting, Gray had an item on the agenda to present an African American couple as members of the church. The vestry was also considering a request by union organizers asking the church to host a meeting. Gray put the union request first. The arguments lasted for over an hour. The last item was admitting the African Americans. It passed without a single “No” vote. Shrewd priest!
Fiery Furnace #3
September 30, 1962, James Meredith was brought to the campus of Ole Miss on this Sunday night. He would be the first African American ever admitted to the University of Mississippi. The night erupted into a battlefield.
This one Sunday night encapsulates Duncan’s career. He was 36 and was clinging precariously to the side of the Confederate monument at the entrance to Ole Miss. He was trying to address the mob gathered there but was drowned out by cries of “Kill him, kill him, kill him!”
Gray’s life hung in the balance. He came as close to being murdered for his faith as is possible.
I love the conversation Will Campbell reports between Gray and General Walker, the retired general from Texas who had come to aid those protesting James Meredith’s entrance to the University of Mississippi. Gray is pleading with the general to use his influence to stop the riot, but instead Will reports that Walker turned on the priest and demanded, “Just who the hell are you anyway? And what are you doing here?” “My name is Duncan Gray. I am the rector of the local Episcopal Church,” the priest replied. “This is my home and I am deeply hurt to see what is happening to the university and the state. I am here to do anything I can to stop the rioting and keep any more people from getting hurt or killed.” The general became even more angry, moving toward Mr. Gray and exclaiming, “You’re the kind of minister that makes me ashamed to be an Episcopalian!” Mr. Gray, realizing that he was on the verge of losing his temper, tried to remain calm, explaining that he was on home ground. “I have a proper concern and interest in keeping law and order. You, sir, are a Texan and have no business here. Your very presence here is making matters far worse. You should have stayed in Texas. We have enough problems of our own.”
As the mob grew more violent, Gray was grabbed from the monument and thrown to the ground. Two large men had Gray pinned to the ground.
“No, no, no,” one kept saying. “Let’s not hurt the preacher.” “You heard what he said on TV. Let’s kill the s.o.b.” “I know, I know, I know. But he’s a preacher. He really believes that stuff.”
Evans Harrington, an English professor, and a few others came to Gray’s defense. One believes again in miracles when English and rhetoric professors brave a howling mob like King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table. Somehow they got Gray away from the mob.
Federal troops finally arrived. The local National Guard unit, Troop E was commanded by one of Gray’s parishioners, Captain Murry Falkner, nephew of William Faulkner. Captain Falkner was an ardent segregationist and vocal critic of his rector’s sermonizing. But this night he did his duty. He and his troops roared over the bridge into a hail of bricks, planks, bottles and bullets. They stopped the mob from lynching James Meredith.
The registration of James Meredith at eight o’clock the morning after the riot was not the end of the crisis for the university, James Meredisth, or Duncan Gray, Jr. It was only the beginning.
May the Lord be with y’all. And also with you.
