Word: church
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...word of God. Born in Chautauqua, N.Y., the son of a Presbyterian minister, he went to Presbyterian-supported Wooster College in Ohio, then to Union Theological Seminary. In his spare time at the seminary, he worked on the staff of Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, at Manhattan's Riverside Church. He was finally ordained in the Congregational Church in Florida. His first parish was Miami Shores, and he started work there the day after his wedding...
Last Straw. When he started, the church had 150 members. Now there are 744; an extra hall and loudspeakers are needed to accommodate the congregation on Sundays. Last month, ground was broken for a new $100,000 church which will seat 600 people. But for all these tokens of success, Pastor Douds's conception of Christianity has riled some influential members of his flock...
...thing, there were his sermons on taking the profit out of war. Says he: "One or two people always stomp angrily out of the church whenever I intimate that anybody ever made a profit out of war." He also preached against "the obsession with making money," and "sharp practices in business." Some of his critics thought it was the last straw when, in celebration of this year's "Brotherhood Week,"* Pastor Douds invited a Negro minister, the Rev. Edward Graham, to preach from his pulpit...
Safe Play. The church board, by a vote of 28 to 9, approved the invitation. But some of the congregation's embittered minority, which includes both retired Northerners and native-born Southerners, helped to stir up the community. Anonymous midnight phone calls threatened Douds with violence. A whispering campaign was started to the effect that both he and Graham were Communists. Fiery crosses began to blaze-two on the church lawn and one before the home of Baptist Minister Graham...
...trustees played safe by canceling Negro Graham's invitation to speak. According to one board member, there were rumors that some of the wealthier church members might withdraw their financial support if Graham appeared in the pulpit. "The only issue confronting the Miami Shores Community Church," said the board member, "is whether it can afford to have a minister who has caused a serious division in its membership...