About My Father's Business: A Father's Day Remembrance

For Father's Day, I am reposting a blog entry that first ran on September 10, 2010, on the 100th anniversary of my father's birth. I post this every few years, and this year seems to be a good year to tell it again. ~ CK

About My Father's Business

"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.” – Albert Einstein

Clyde Kinnaird

A friend once asked me, "What motivated your father to be different from those around him?" Certainly, that is the underlying question that motivated the essays I have written about him, and it probably influences much of my response to life. The question itself is much more effective than any specific answer that might be given. Some questions are best left out there calling to us, rather than giving definitive answers. I imagine that if my siblings were to answer that question, you would get some similarities, but many specifics would be different. So you see, any answer I give may say as much about myself and my opinions (by what I choose to remember) as it does about my father. With that in mind, I will tell you a little more about my father, "Pop," as we called him.

On Baptismal day

Clyde Kinnaird was a Baptist minister and educator. He pastored small churches in Alabama. Later on his career he became "bi-vocational" when he began teaching in the public school system while continuing as pastor in rural churches. Unlike most Baptist preachers, his sermons were more often taken from the sayings of Jesus than from the teachings of Paul. In fact, when I picture my father in the pulpit, I have a simultaneous image in my mind of Jesus teaching on the hillside. To this day, when I think of Christ, I see the teaching Jesus and the compassionate Jesus rather than the crucified Christ. I can thank my father for that image.

Pop bringing me down to the waters of baptism at Lake Martin, August 1964

After my father died in 1996, I became especially conscious of the influence he had in his own unpretentious way. When I delivered the eulogy at my mother's funeral, three and a half years after my father's passing, I said, "Both of my parents left the world a little better than they found it. That is their inspiration and challenge to those of us who remain." It is that realization that caused me to do some reflection and to ask myself what kind of influence my own life may have.

One reason I began writing essays was to put down in writing what I believe and what I value. My thinking is that it is of benefit to me to express it, and if nothing else, my daughter will have a written record of what is important to me. I wish that my father had written things down, but he was not one to write. I have two notebooks of sermons written by my maternal grandfather (whom I never met), but not a single note or letter from my father. He was not one to write things down. I have to rely on memories and recollections of what he said and did. In reality, though, memories and recollections are all that anyone has of a loved one who has gone.

Growing up in Centreville

Pop was born in 1910, the seventh of nine children, in Centreville, Alabama. He was born 45 years after the Civil War ended. My father's parents and grandparents had current memory of living in a defeated nation and an occupied territory, while at the same time being absolutely patriotic with an undeniable love for their country. Pop spent his childhood with horses and wagons, and as a young adult, he was a mechanic who worked on Model A's and Model T's. His father, "Lud", was a rough-and-tough rascal who made a living farming, running a black smith shop, driving a taxi, and serving at least one term as road commissioner. His mother was the local midwife who was known in the community as "Aunt Claudia."

Apparently, he knew early on that he would be a minister. Pop told us of an experience he had at five years of age. He said he was out in the yard playing and was overcome by an unusual feeling, or sensation. He could not fully describe it, but he said he knew then that he would be a preacher. He recalled that he ran inside and told his mother, "Mama, I'm going to be a preacher."

To me, this sounds like a mystical experience that would have been precocious at that age. The way I interpret it is that my father became aware that he was living in the presence of something far greater than himself, and that awareness was an uplifting, comforting experience. My father's explanation would probably lie in something I often heard him say, "Sometimes God gives us a little taste of Heaven just to assure us that everything will be alright." Compare this to Einstein's question, "Is the universe a friendly place?" My father would have said, "Absolutely!" A mystic like Meister Eckhart would say, "Without a doubt."

Pop graduated from high school in 1928. I once looked through his senior yearbook that a classmate had sent him late in life. I was struck by how optimistic his class was in their statements and dreams of going out into the world. I was also impressed with the good-natured humor I found in those pages. The class prophet said of my father, "Clyde Kinnaird thought he was going to be the next Charles Lindbergh and fly across the Atlantic. He hopped into an aeroplane and made it across the Cahaba River. He landed in a field, thinking he was in Paris." It was especially poignant to me as I read the upbeat messages of that class, knowing that those graduates in 1928 had no idea what lay ahead in 1929 when the Great Depression hit.

Moving On During the Depression

My father claimed that the Depression did not have much noticeable effect on his community because most people in their small agrarian town had very little money anyway. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the Depression influenced the timing of my father's higher education. He did not go to college until six years after graduating high school. It must have been a call to ministry that motivated his going on to Howard College in 1934, in the middle of the Depression, without enough money to make it through the first year. Even then, at a time when many Baptist preachers had no higher education, my father completed college and seminary.

One person my father admired, and who surely must have influenced him, was a retired missionary to China, Dr. Napier, who came to pastor the First Baptist Church of Centreville. "Up until then, we had not had an educated pastor in the pulpit. Most pastors would come and stay for about 18 months. By then, they would have preached all their sermons and would move on." Dr. Napier, my father recalled, would carry books with him to the pulpit and share with the congregation what scholars had written about various scriptures. "We had never had anything like that before."

Dr. Napier's son, Davie, also must have had some influence on my father. They were both at Southern Seminary at the same time and would often ride home together. Many times while I was growing up, I would hear Pop comment about something Davie Napier had said. Davie Napier went on to become a renowned professor at Yale Divinity School, a United Church of Christ Minister, and chaplain at Stanford University. Somewhere along the way, my father latched onto the conviction that education and religion were vital to individual and community development. If the Napiers did not instill the idea, they surely encouraged it.

A Career and a Mission

Pop showing my daughter
how to shuck corn

Pop said late in his career that he had essentially done mission work all his life. I think that is very true. He spent his life, by deed and example, trying to bring education and religion to the farmers, mill workers, housekeepers, laborers, and merchants of Alabama. On the one hand, I could tell that my father was often frustrated by the lack of education and the dearth of thoughtful religion among his peers. One the other hand, he demonstrated a sincere respect for people whether they were rich or poor, educated or uneducated. He brought dignity to the pulpit and to the classroom, but always related to the working class and the working poor. After all, his own family were farmers and working class people and he himself had been a garage mechanic who went off to college to "make a minister." He was never interested in moving up the social ladder. Pop considered such actions "uppity and pretentious."

He was a conservative man from the Old South who took some remarkable stands and had some progressive ideas. More important, he left his corner of the world a little better than he found it. My father understood when I left the Southern Baptists after fundamentalism had become so rampant and entrenched. I think, though, that he regretted that I was living with the same frustrations that he had lived with. I may be a little more open to change than Pop was. In some ways, maybe I am a little more tolerant, but that is only because I learned from his example of granting dignity to others and showing respect for all.

Attributes of Distinction

If I may recapitulate, perhaps I can sum up my answer to my friend's question of what motivated my father to be different from those around him:

1) He saw education and religion as two avenues for improvement. Pop had a strong commitment to continuing education and a striving toward thoughtful religion (he used to say that religion should be reasonable).

2) He believed in showing dignity and respect for every person, regardless of their social standing.

3) He believed that the Universe is a friendly place.

If I can hang on to those things from here on out, I think it would do my daddy proud.

In Memoriam: Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr. 

September 8, 1910 - December 18, 1996

For more about my father, check out these other posts:

Trust Yourself: A Message from my Father

A Local Hero

About My Father's Business: A Father's Day Remembrance

(For Father's Day, I am reposting a blog entry that first ran in September 10, 2010)

"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.” – Albert Einstein

Clyde Kinnaird

A friend once asked me, "What motivated your father to be different from those around him?" Certainly that is the underlying question that motivated the essays I have written about him, and it probably influences much of my response to life. The question itself is much more effective than any specific answer that might be given. Some questions are best left out there calling to us, rather than giving definitive answers. I imagine that if my siblings were to answer that question, you would get some similarities, but many specifics would be different. So you see, any answer I give may say as much about myself and my opinions (by what I choose to remember) as it does about my father. With that in mind, I will tell you a little more about my father, "Pop," as we called him.

On Baptismal day

Clyde Kinnaird was a Baptist minister and educator. He pastored small churches in Alabama. Later on his career he became "bi-vocational" when he began teaching in the public school system while continuing as pastor in rural churches. Unlike most Baptist preachers, his sermons were more often taken from the sayings of Jesus than from the teachings of Paul. In fact, when I picture my father in the pulpit, I have a simultaneous image in my mind of Jesus teaching on the hillside. To this day, when I think of Christ, I see the teaching Jesus and the compassionate Jesus rather than the crucified Christ. I can thank my father for that image.

Pop bringing me down to the waters of baptism at Lake Martin, August 1964

After my father died in 1996, I became especially conscious of the influence he had in his own unpretentious way. When I delivered the eulogy at my mother's funeral, three and a half years after my father's passing, I said, "Both of my parents left the world a little better than they found it. That is their inspiration and challenge to those of us who remain." It is that realization that caused me to do some reflection and to ask myself what kind of influence my own life may have.

One reason I began writing essays was to put down in writing what I believe and what I value. My thinking is that it is of benefit to me to express it, and if nothing else, my daughter will have a written record of what is important to me. I wish that my father had written things down, but he was not one to write. I have two notebooks of sermons written by my maternal grandfather (whom I never met), but not a single note or letter from my father. I have to rely on memories and recollections of what he said and did. In reality, though, memories and recollections are all that anyone has of their father.

Growing up in Centreville

Pop was born in 1910, the seventh of nine children, in Centreville, Alabama. He was born 45 years after the Civil War ended. My father's parents and grandparents had current memory of living in a defeated nation and an occupied territory, while at the same time being absolutely patriotic with an undeniable love for their country. Pop spent his childhood with horses and wagons, and as a young adult, he was a mechanic who worked on Model A's and Model T's. His father, "Lud", was a rough-and-tough rascal who made a living farming, running a black smith shop, driving a taxi, and serving at least one term as road commissioner. His mother was the local midwife who was known in the community as "Aunt Claudia."

Apparently, he knew early on that he would be a minister. Pop told us of an experience he had at five years of age. He said he was out in the yard playing and was overcome by an unusual feeling, or sensation. He could not fully describe it, but he said he knew then that he would be a preacher. He recalled that he ran inside and told his mother, "Mama, I'm going to be a preacher."

To me, this sounds like a mystical experience that would have been precocious at that age. The way I interpret it is that my father became aware that he was living in the presence of something far greater than himself, and that awareness was an uplifting, comforting experience. My father's explanation would probably lie in something I often heard him say, "Sometimes God gives us a little taste of Heaven just to assure us that everything will be alright." Compare this to Einstein's question, "Is the universe a friendly place?" My father would have said, "Absolutely!" A mystic like Meister Eckhart would say, "Without a doubt."

Pop graduated from high school in 1928. I once looked through his senior yearbook that a classmate had sent him late in life. I was struck by how optimistic his class was in their statements and dreams of going out into the world. I was also impressed with the good-natured humor I found in those pages. The class prophet said of my father, "Clyde Kinnaird thought he was going to be the next Charles Lindbergh and fly across the Atlantic. He hopped into an aeroplane and made it across the Cahaba River. He landed in a field, thinking he was in Paris." It was especially poignant to me as I read the upbeat messages of that class, knowing that those graduates in 1928 had no idea what lay ahead in 1929 when the Great Depression hit.

Moving On During the Depression

My father claimed that the Depression did not have much noticeable effect on his community because most people in their small agrarian town had very little money anyway. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the Depression influenced the timing of my father's higher education. He did not go to college until six years after graduating high school. It must have been a call to ministry that motivated his going on to Howard College in 1934, in the middle of the Depression, without enough money to make it through the first year. Even then, at a time when many Baptist preachers had no higher education, my father completed college and seminary.

One person my father admired, and who surely must have influenced him, was a retired missionary to China, Dr. Napier, who came to pastor the First Baptist Church of Centreville. "Up until then, we had not had an educated pastor in the pulpit. Most pastors would come and stay about 18 months. By then, they would have preached all their sermons and would move on." Dr. Napier, my father recalled, would carry books with him to the pulpit and share with the congregation what scholars had written about various scriptures. "We had never had anything like that before."

Dr. Napier's son, Davie, also must have had some influence on my father. They were both at Southern Seminary at the same time and would often ride home together. Many times while I was growing up, I would hear Pop comment about something Davie Napier had said. Davie Napier went on to become a renowned professor at Yale Divinity School, a United Church of Christ Minister, and chaplain at Stanford University. Somewhere along the way, my father latched onto the conviction that education and religion were vital to individual and community development. If the Napiers did not instill the idea, they surely encouraged it.

A Career and a Mission

Pop showing my daughter
how to shuck corn

Pop said late in his career that he had essentially done mission work all his life. I think that is very true. He spent his life, by deed and example, trying to bring education and religion to the farmers, mill workers, housekeepers, laborers, and merchants of Alabama. On the one hand, I could tell that my father was often frustrated by the lack of education and the dearth of thoughtful religion among his peers. One the other hand, he demonstrated a sincere respect for people whether they were rich or poor, educated or uneducated. He brought dignity to the pulpit and to the classroom, but always related to the working class and the working poor. After all, his own family were farmers and working class people and he himself had been a garage mechanic who went off to college to "make a minister." He was never interested in moving up the social ladder. Pop considered such actions "uppity and pretentious."

He was a conservative man from the Old South who took some remarkable stands and had some progressive ideas. More important, he left his corner of the world a little better than he found it. My father understood when I left the Southern Baptists after fundamentalism had become so rampant and entrenched. I think, though, that he regretted that I was living with the same frustrations that he had lived with. I may be a little more open to change than Pop was. In some ways, maybe I am a little more tolerant, but that is only because I learned from his example of granting dignity to others and showing respect for all.

Attributes of Distinction

If I may recapitulate, perhaps I can sum up my answer to my friend's question of what motivated my father to be different from those around him:

1) He saw education and religion as two avenues for improvement. Pop had a strong commitment to continuing education and a striving toward thoughtful religion (he used to say that religion should be reasonable).

2) He believed in showing dignity and respect for every person, regardless of their social standing.

3) He believed that the Universe is a friendly place.

If I can hang on to those things from here on out, I think it would do my daddy proud.



In Memoriam: Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr.
September 8,1910- December 18,1996

For more about my father, check out these other posts:

Trust Yourself: A Message form my Father

A Local Hero


*

About My Father's Business

"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.” – Albert Einstein

A friend once asked me, "What motivated your father to be different from those around him?" Certainly that is the underlying question that motivated the essays I have written about him, and it probably influences much of my response to life. The question itself is much more effective than any specific answer that might be given. Some questions are best left out there calling to us, rather than giving definitive answers. I imagine that if my siblings were to answer that question, you would get some similarities, but many specifics would be different. So you see, any answer I give may say as much about myself and my opinions (by what I choose to remember) as it does about my father. With that in mind, I will tell you a little more about my father, "Pop," as we called him.

He was a Baptist minister and educator. Unlike most Baptist preachers, his sermons were more often taken from the sayings of Jesus than from the teachings of Paul. In fact, when I picture my father in the pulpit, I have a simultaneous image in my mind of Jesus teaching on the hillside. To this day, when I think of Christ, I see the teaching Jesus and the compassionate Jesus rather than the crucified Christ. I can thank my father for that image.

After my father died, I became especially conscious of the influence he had in his own unpretentious way. When I delivered the eulogy at my mother's funeral, three and a half years after my father's passing, I said, "Both of my parents left the world a little better than they found it. That is their inspiration and challenge to those of us who remain." It is that realization that caused me to do some reflection and to ask myself what kind of influence my own life may have.

One reason I began writing essays was to put down in writing what I believe and what I value. My thinking is that it is of benefit to me to express it, and if nothing else, my daughter will have a written record of what is important to me. I wish that my father had written things down, but he was not one to write. I have two notebooks of sermons written by my maternal grandfather (whom I never met), but not a single note or letter from my father. I have to rely on memories and recollections of what he said and did. In reality, though, memories and recollections are all that anyone has of their father.

Growing up in Centreville

Pop was born in 1910, the seventh of nine children, in Centreville, Alabama. He was born 45 years after the Civil War ended. My father's parents and grandparents had current memory of living in a defeated nation and an occupied territory, while at the same time being absolutely patriotic with an undeniable love for their country. Pop spent his childhood with horses and wagons, and as a young adult, he was a mechanic who worked on Model A's and Model T's. His father, "Lud", was a rough-and-tough rascal who made a living farming, running a black smith shop, driving a taxi, and serving at least one term as road commissioner. His mother was the local midwife who was known in the community as "Aunt Claudia."

Apparently, he knew early on that he would be a minister. Pop told us of an experience he had at five years of age. He said he was out in the yard playing and was overcome by an unusual feeling, or sensation. He could not fully describe it, but he said he knew then that he would be a preacher. He recalled that he ran inside and told his mother, "Mama, I'm going to be a preacher."

To me, this sounds like a mystical experience that would have been precocious at that age. The way I interpret it is that my father became aware that he was living in the presence of something far greater than himself, and that awareness was an uplifting, comforting experience. My father's explanation would probably lie in something I often heard him say, "Sometimes God gives us a little taste of Heaven just to assure us that everything will be alright." Compare this to Einstein's question, "Is the universe a friendly place?" My father would have said, "Absolutely!" A mystic like Meister Eckhart would say, "Without a doubt."

Pop graduated from high school in 1928. I once looked through his senior yearbook that a classmate had sent him late in life. I was struck by how optimistic his class was in their statements and dreams of going out into the world. I was also impressed with the good-natured humor I found in those pages. The class prophet said of my father, "Clyde Kinnaird thought he was going to be the next Charles Lindbergh and fly across the Atlantic. He hopped into an aeroplane and made it across the Cahaba River. He landed in a field, thinking he was in Paris." It was especially poignant to me as I read the upbeat messages of that class, knowing that those graduates in 1928 had no idea what lay ahead in 1929 when the Great Depression hit.

Moving On During the Depression

My father claimed that the Depression did not have much noticeable effect on his community because most people in their small agrarian town had very little money anyway. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the Depression influenced the timing of my father's higher education. He did not go to college until six years after graduating high school. It must have been a call to ministry that motivated his going on to Howard College in 1934, in the middle of the Depression, without enough money to make it through the first year. Even then, at a time when many Baptist preachers had no higher education, my father completed college and seminary.

One person my father admired, and who surely must have influenced him, was a retired missionary to China, Dr. Napier, who came to pastor the First Baptist Church of Centreville. "Up until then, we had not had an educated pastor in the pulpit. Most pastors would come and stay about 18 months. By then, they would have preached all their sermons and would move on." Dr. Napier, my father recalled, would carry books with him to the pulpit and share with the congregation what scholars had written about various scriptures. "We had never had anything like that before."

Dr. Napier's son, Davie, also must have had some influence on my father. They were both at Southern Seminary at the same time and would often ride home together. Many times while I was growing up, I would hear Pop comment about something Davie Napier had said. Davie Napier went on to become a renowned professor at Yale Divinity School, a United Church of Christ Minister, and chaplain at Stanford University. Somewhere along the way, my father latched onto the conviction that education and religion were vital to individual and community development. If the Napiers did not instill the idea, they surely encouraged it.

A Career and a Mission

Pop said late in his career that he had essentially done mission work all his life. I think that is very true. He spent his life, by deed and example, trying to bring education and religion to the farmers, mill workers, housekeepers, laborers, and merchants of Alabama. On the one hand, I could tell that my father was often frustrated by the lack of education and the dearth of thoughtful religion among his peers. One the other hand, he demonstrated a sincere respect for people whether they were rich or poor, educated or uneducated. He brought dignity to the pulpit and to the classroom, but always related to the working class and the working poor. After all, his own family were farmers and working class people and he himself had been a garage mechanic who went off to college to "make a minister." He was never interested in moving up the social ladder. Pop considered such actions "uppity and pretentious."

He was a conservative man from the Old South who took some remarkable stands and had some progressive ideas. More important, he left his corner of the world a little better than he found it. My father understood when I left the Southern Baptists after fundamentalism had become so rampant and entrenched. I think, though, that he regretted that I was living with the same frustrations that he had lived with. I may be a little more open to change than Pop was. In some ways, maybe I am a little more tolerant, but that is only because I learned from his example of granting dignity to others and showing respect for all.

Attributes of Distinction

If I may recapitulate, perhaps I can sum up my answer to my friend's question of what motivated my father to be different from those around him:

1) He saw education and religion as two avenues for improvement. Pop had a strong commitment to continuing education and a striving toward thoughtful religion (he used to say that religion should be reasonable).

2) He believed in showing dignity and respect for every person, regardless of their social standing.

3) He believed that the Universe is a friendly place.

If I can hang on to those things from here on out, I think it would do my daddy proud.



In Memoriam: Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr.
September 8,1910- December 18,1996



*

A Local Hero

“The time is always right to do what is right.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

I grew up under an apartheid system of government in Tallapoosa County, Alabama. Many things began to change in 1970 when, after years of resistance, the public schools were finally completely integrated. I was sixteen years old at the time. Governor George Wallace's segregationist anti-federal sentiments still held sway among most of the people that I knew. Both of my parents were public school teachers, so we all witnessed the anxious transition that most of us felt had been imposed upon us. It was not until 25 years later that I learned about my own father's significant contribution to that transition.

My father, Clyde Kinnaird, was Old South. He did not grow up during the Depression; he grew up just before the Depression, graduating from high school in 1928. He went on to college and seminary to become a Baptist minister. When he was 56 years old, he became bi-vocational, working full time with the Tallapoosa County School System while continuing part-time as a pastor. He was not a segregationist. He bragged about never having voted for George Wallace in his life. Neither was he a civil rights advocate. As I mentioned, he was Old South. He would probably have preferred to maintain the status quo. He agreed in sentiment with civil rights, but like many of us in the Old South, he thought things were moving too fast. He believed in "helping 'those people' to improve their circumstances," and while he was not a racist, I considered him to be paternalistic in his view toward African Americans.

In 1967, as part of the system's delay in implementing de-segregation, the county school system began placing a few white teachers into the black schools and a few black teachers into the white schools. My father was made principal of Council High School, which was the all-black school in town. I was vaguely aware at the time that my father moved the school from out of the red financially and that he worked on instilling pride in the teachers. I was also vaguely aware that he had some conflicts with the school superintendent. After his successful tenure at Council High, he was given no more jobs as principal but continued to teach in the classroom until he retired at age 66.

My father died at the age of 86. A year or so before his death, I was visiting with him when he was in a reminiscent mood. It was on that day that I learned that my father had been more of an activist than I had ever realized. He told me about driving out to the old neighborhood where Council High School had once been. He was pleased to see that a recreation center with tennis courts had been built. "I tried to get the city to do something like that 25 years ago," he told me. "I told them we need to do something to help the neighborhood and to give the kids something to do." In those days, the black neighborhood was filled with shacks occupied by people who did hard labor to try to earn a living. City Hall was unmoved. All my father had been able to do was to get a road crew to level off a field with a bulldozer so that he himself could put up a couple of basketball goals outside.

My father continued to recollect about his days at Council High School. "When I went there, the school was operating in the red, and I saw right away that a lot of the budget was going into the lunchroom because so many of the kids could not afford to pay for their lunch. I found out about the federal lunch program that would subsidize school lunches for low-income people. I went to the superintendent and explained to him that if we could get on the federal lunch program, then our school could put more money into the needs of the classroom. We could give the kids a better chance to learn."

In my father's words, the superintendent was a racist who "didn't want to do anything that would help the blacks." The superintendent told him to forget it, that the county would have nothing to do with any federal lunch program. "So I just decided to write to Washington, D.C." my father recounted. "I explained my situation to them and asked if there was any way our school could get the federal program. The next thing I knew I got a letter back from Washington stating that all of Tallapoosa County was now on the school lunch program. They sent a copy of my letter and theirs to the county superintendent. The superintendent didn't have a kind word to say to me after that, but we got the school operating within budget, and we got classroom materials that teachers had too long been without. We managed to give them something to be proud of."

Suddenly, it became clear to me why the superintendent had gone from favoring my father to giving less lucrative assignments. I also saw my father less in terms of Old South. He exemplified to me quiet ways in which change could be brought about. He had made choices that had cost him in his career, but choices that brought him no regrets. He had been able to bring some sense of dignity to professional colleagues who had seen apartheid from a different vantagepoint. I saw an old man who could look with pleasure upon the changes that had come about since 1967, and could recall with pride the unrecognized role that he had in bringing about those changes.


In Memoriam: Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr.
September 8,1910- December 18,1996



*

Trust Yourself: A Message from My Father

My late father, Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr., was born 100 years ago today. When he died in 1996, I was aware of the legacy he left. In the weeks after his death, I had a dream about trying to put on a suit that was too big for me. To me, that dream signified a life that cannot be replaced, a legacy that I am not quite up to. I could be myself, however, and soon began to think about what part of my father’s legacy I must hold on to, and what part I hoped to pass on to my daughter. Two years after my father’s death I started writing essays, and the writing began with a story I wrote about my father’s legacy as I saw it.

R. C. Kinnaird was a Baptist minister and a great advocate of “soul competency” which was once a hallmark of Southern Baptist thought. Basically, soul competency affirmed that the individual has the ability to discern for himself or herself on matters of faith. Each person has the liberty to choose based on his/her own conscience. For my father, this concept was innate. His admonition was, don’t let yourself get hoodwinked by anyone - whether it’s the Pope, a flimflam artist, a traveling evangelist, a politician, or a television personality. Think for yourself; trust your own reason; never follow blindly.

The following is that first story I wrote in 1998. I was trying to imagine myself in the future, the year 2019, and reflecting back on 2011 (I picked 2011 because that's when my daughter turns 21 - what did I want her to carry with her by age 21?). Even though the scene is imagined, the words of my father are accurate as I remember them. The conversations with former Baptists are reflective of actual conversations I have had. I thought about re-writing this as a straight forward essay, since 2011 is almost here. Instead I decided to just leave it as it is, with the caveat that this was written from an imagined perspective back in 1998.

Watching Baptists: A View from the Future
by Charles L. Kinnaird

The year was 2011. Looking back on that Sunday in June, it was a day that could have represented almost any day of my life. On the radio, the Beatles were enjoying a renewed popularity; reruns of "I Love Lucy" could be seen on television. In the news, the President of the United States was urging leaders in the Middle East to sign an agreement that would be "an unprecedented step toward the possibility of peace in the region." And in Atlanta, the Southern Baptist Convention was having its annual meeting. According to the newspaper article, the Baptists had been debating the finer points of literal biblical interpretation.

On that particular Sunday afternoon, however, I was more reflective than usual. For one thing, my 21 year-old daughter had come to Birmingham to visit on Father's Day weekend, taking a break from her college studies. She had been questioning me about the way things used to be. I found myself reflecting on a number of things. For one, I was genuinely surprised that the conservative Republican trend was still so firmly ensconced. Maybe it was just the flip side of my own father's dismay that those New Deal Democrats still held sway on into the 1970's. I was still finding it hard to believe, even then, that there continued to be no shortage of conservative radio spokespersons to take up the cause.

What really intrigued me, though, was that Southern Baptist Convention. I read in the newspaper that there had been an attempt to pass a resolution that stated that God created the world in six 24-hour days. One pastor was quoted as saying, "I believe the Bible as much as anyone, but how do we know they were 24-hour days? In II Peter 3:8 it says that to the Lord a thousand years are as a day. How do we know they weren't thousand-year days? "

"It's plain as day right there in the text," countered a loyalist spokesman. "It says there was evening and there was morning – that marks a 24-hour period. If we start allowing that God might not have created the world in six 24-hour days, then we're just going to open ourselves up again to liberals who might say that belief in the virgin birth of Christ is not necessary to the faith."

Well, it had been a long time since I had been a Baptist, but I knew better than that. I was baptized by my daddy in Lake Martin when I was nine years old, after a revival at Jackson's Gap Baptist Church. At nine years of age, I didn't know what a virgin was, and my parents certainly didn't take the time to explain it to me before I was baptized. Nevertheless, my faith was as good as that of any who could discuss the details of virgin vs. non-virgin birth. In fact, my faith was probably stronger before I learned about virgins.

At any rate, on that Sunday afternoon back in 2011, I felt some ambivalence about the Southern Baptists. On the one hand, I was glad not to be a part of that group involved in needless arguments. On the other hand, I felt sad that Baptists as I knew them had disappeared – gone away somewhere.

I remember when I was a child my father, R.C. Kinnaird, himself a Baptist minister, would say, "We as Baptists believe in the priesthood of the believer – that means that you have what is called soul competency. You are able to read the Bible and come to your own conclusions. You have soul freedom. You don't need a priest or a preacher or a theologian telling you what you have to believe to find God."

I even remember my father would sometimes get behind the pulpit on Sunday and read the latest resolutions passed by the latest Southern Baptist Convention. Then he would tell the whole congregation, "None of you has to believe any of that. You are free to disagree with any or all points. You have the liberty to think for yourself and to draw your own conclusions."

Surveying Former Baptists

Continuing my thoughts that afternoon, I suspected that there must have been a Baptist diaspora. After all, I had left and from the looks of things on Atlanta, lots of Baptists had left to go elsewhere. I decided to begin a quest – to find out where the Baptists went and what they were doing now.

Since I had gone to a Baptist college and graduated from a Baptist seminary, I had names. I had names of Baptists, many of whom I was able to eventually track down. Here are the results of my informal, unscientific survey. I found three who had become Roman Catholic, one Orthodox, several Methodists and Episcopalians, a few Presbyterians, some Charismatics and Pentecostals. I found Unitarians (indeed I learned that some New England Baptists had become Unitarian two hundred years earlier). I found some who called themselves non-denominational, and some who had given up on organized religion. I even found some who were still Baptists.

I asked one of my friends who had remained a Baptist, "What do you think about what went on at that Convention in Atlanta?" He told me, "I never pay attention to those things. I'm going to believe what I believe anyway."

I had questions for my other friends, and I did find a common thread that was encouraging. I asked one of my Baptist-turned-Catholic friends, "What about that new pope of yours – what do you think will happen?" He answered, "With a tradition as old and as large as ours, you're going to have a lot of beauty and a lot of schluck. I'm smart enough to tell the difference between beauty and shluck." In the same vein, one of my Pentecostal friends told me, "We have some beliefs and practices that are a bit on the fringe, but God gave me a mind as well as a heart and I'm free to decide what's right for me."

In talking with my former colleagues, I took heart in seeing how many of us had refused to accept any package deal on matters of faith. I don't know if you would call it a Baptist thing, an American thing, or a modern thing, but it seemed to me that the concept of soul competency, once it is grasped, becomes a liberty and a stability that one never forsakes.

Walking in Liberty

My own daughter has never been a Baptist. During my more sentimental times, I feel a tinge of regret that she and I do not have that shared experience. However, when I look at the life she has, I can see without a doubt that she understands soul competency and she has soul freedom. For that I am thankful. It is a liberty she and I share.

For Baptists of my father's day, maybe soul competency was the new wine that burst the old wineskins and sent liberated people in all directions. We now share the happy communion of liberty, secure in our humanity.

With the year 2020 now approaching, change and diversity in America are more evident. There is a rich and vibrant marketplace of ideas and customs. Even Alabama has established Hindu and Buddhist communities of faith. There is a strong Muslim community and talk of another mosque being built in Birmingham. I may do some Islamic studies myself. I want to see how many Islamic Baptists I can find.


1998



In Memoriam: Richard Clyde Kinnaird, Sr.
September 8,1910- December 18,1996



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