RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

that is like a Bach fugue—lifting, floating, flying! For
the first fourteen years of our life as a Council, Peter
Ainslie, pastor of Christian Temple of Baltimore,
served as president.
Dark days came to the Council in the 1920s. The
Disciples were in the often angry agony of dividing.
Peter Ainslie was in the spotlight of contention. He
felt he had to remove himself as president of the
Council. The days were so dark that Professor
Willett of Chicago voiced the fear in many people’s
hearts: Can the Council survive without Ainslie?
More than a church fight, it was the very wounding
of the body of Christ. The music in the heart of
those who loved God’s one church was Bach’s “O
Sacred Head now wounded, with grief and shame
weighed down; . . . mine, mine, was the transgression,
but thine the deadly
pain.”
A dozen years earlier Peter
Ainslie had been a mentor to
a young student he met in
New Haven when he was there
to give the Yale Lectures.
Soon H.C. Armstrong was
on the staff of Christian
Temple with his portfolio primarily focused on the
work of the Council. God had given us a prophet in
Ainslie. Now God gave us a healer. H.C. Armstrong
led the Council from 1925 to 1931. We can thank
God for H.C. Armstrong that we are still here.
George Walker Buckner was one of the volunteer
leaders who guided us through the lean depression
years of the 1930s. When the financial recovery
began, he was named the executive director on a
halftime basis, along with serving as editor of World
Call magazine. Through him we Disciples were
present and contributing when the provisional
committee was forming the World Council of
Churches and when plans were drafted for the
National Council of Churches. The love and
commitment of George Buckner to our Council’s
calling was like a Bach toccata. It was the music for
us to anticipate and prepare for the fugue that
followed it and sent us soaring again.
Soar we did. George Beazley came to the presidency
like Bach’s great Fugue in D Minor. In 1961, after the
controversies and the lean times we again were lifted
and floating and flying! George Beazley gave us the
gift of contagious enthusiasm. His ministry is
remembered for the “Beazley Buzz” and Midstream
Morgan • Celebrating 100 Years as a Movement for Unity
The celebration is not primarily
your celebration. It is the church
celebrating once again God
trusting it to propagate the gospel.”
2
journal and his pioneer work of bringing Disciples
on board with the Consultation on Church Union.
Dr. Beazley died on World Communion Sunday—
during an ecumenical trip to the Soviet Union.
In God’s providence the great soaring fugue continued.
However, with Paul Crow you get more than
a fugue: you get the whole Bach repertoire. Our
longest serving president brought us to prominence
in the worldwide ecumenical movement of the late
twentieth century. A colleague once shared with me
of being in the Soviet Union for the millennial
celebration of the Christian witness of the Russian
people. An orthodox priest made a friendly inquiry
about her church in the United States. She said, “Oh,
you wouldn’t know us. I’m a Disciples of Christ.” He
replied, “Oh, yes, I know you. I know Paul Crow.”
I recently led a retreat of
Roman Catholics and Disciples
in West Virginia. One of
the first priests I met asked,
“Do you know my friend Paul
Crow?” Far away Russia,
remote West Virginia—the
Disciples ecumenical witness is
known.
Let me recite a very abbreviated list of the Council’s
accomplishments with Paul’s leadership: International
Commission for Dialogue between
Disciples of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church,
full ecumenical partnership of the Disciples and the
United Church of Christ, the creation of the Peter
Ainslie III Lectures, and the Joe and Nancy Vaughn
Stalcup Lectures on Christian Unity, and the work of
the Disciples Commission on Theology which led to
the publication of the major volume, The Church for
Disciples of Christ.
For this last decade we have been led by Robert
Welsh. Robert’s leadership has connections to the
legacy of Peter Ainslie. Ainslie called Disciples again
to our founder’s frontier vision to be a people of
unity. Ainslie mentored H. C. Armstrong so that a
new generation could ably take its place in ecumenical
leadership. Robert and the Council are
calling us again to form a new generation of leaders
as we go to new frontiers of exploring interfaith
dialogue and healing the wounds among those who
share the legacy of Barton Stone and Thomas and
Alexander Campbell.
Robert and Peter share another gift, the solid