“One Must be Extinguished,” The Chicago Defender (3/31/1923)
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon Thee. (Revelations 3:2-3)
And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. (Genesis 35:4)[1]
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. (1 John 5:21)
Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22)
“The fightin’s commenced. Either get to fightin or get away.”[2]
“The basis of authority in the last analysis must be either human imagination or the mind of Christ… Those who will not bow before the true God will end in manufacturing their own gods, which are in fact idols.”[3]
“Christ as King means Jesus has been declared as supreme over all things. Over all things. Therefore, anything that challenges Christ for his supremacy is reflective of an opposing kingdom, of the forces of evil, of the gates of hell. It stands as an enemy to the kingdom of light, life, and love. I have done my best throughout this book to demonstrate why I believe that White supremacy stands and has stood for four-plus centuries, as one of the greatest challengers to this very supremacy of Christ. I have done my best to clarify how this system is built on lies about human value and how these lies are fiercely protected by the father of lies. I have done my best to describe White supremacy through a biblical lens and put words to the brawl happening between two warring kingdoms over which one will functionally define God’s image bearers.”[4]
Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords[5]
As editor of the Watchman-Examiner, a Baptist weekly published in New York, Curtis Lee Laws in a July 1, 1920 editorial coined the term fundamentalist. Speaking at the Moody Bible Institute two years later, he explained that others catalog those “who still cling to the great fundamentals and who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals” under a collection of different designations. “Other names given to us are ‘literalists,’ ‘dogmatists,’ ‘separatists,’ ‘medievalists,’ ‘cranks,’ ‘ignoramuses,’ and ‘ku-kluxes.’” Laws told his audience “Whether we are called fundamentalists, conservatives, premillennialists, landmarkers, literalists, separatists, medievalists, cranks or ignoramuses or ku-kluxes, unafraid and undismayed we shall be present at every roll call in life to stand for the things we believe.”[6] With the exception of maybe landmarkism, which may have been unfamiliar to northerners who were not Baptists, all of the names Laws lists would have been common enough in 1922 Chicago, including “ku-kluxes.”
One wonders, how many seated in “the large Auditorium of the Institute” looked upon the 1915 reorganized Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as an ally of the Gospel as opposed to those who saw it as a carnal undertaking that lusteth against the Spirit. This is no idle question.
During the early 1920s, a man calling himself “Pat Malone” was a leading agitator for the Ku Klux Klan in parts of Wisconsin. Malone “succeeded in rocking northwestern Wisconsin with his preachments of hatred and bigotry—particularly in relation to the Roman Catholic Church.” Malone was a “self-proclaimed evangelist” who “advertised himself” as a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute. The school’s registrar insisted in 1971 that there was no record of Malone having studied at the Institute.[7] Still, one wonders, why would the Institute’s reputation for preparing workers to win souls for Christ be of any use in awarding credibility to a promoter of the Ku Klux Klan? However he spun his connection with the Moody Bible Institute, listeners must have associated sufficient overlap of it with the goals of the KKK to make it worth his while to lie.
The Ku Klux Klan made a public display of its presence in Chicago on the night of August 16, 1921, when 10,000 Klansmen assembled to induct over 2,000 new members into the Invisible Empire. The following day the headline of the Chicago Daily Tribune announced, “Ku Klux Rites Draw 12,000.” Historian Kenneth Jackson tells us, “By the summer of 1922, no informed individual could deny the existence of a significant Klan movement in Chicago.” A second Ku Klux Klan demonstration in August 1922 initiated over 4,000 new members, thus assembling “one of the largest groups in the history of the Invisible Empire.” On September 19, 1921, the Chicago city council unanimously proclaimed:
Whereas, the traditions and odium attached to the Ku Klux Klan and the acts which have attributable to it make it a menace to a city like Chicago, having a heterogeneous population and different religious creeds; now therefore be it Resolved, that the City Council of Chicago officially condemns the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in Chicago and pledges its services to the proper authorities to rid the community of this organization.”[8]
Later that same year “the Chicago Klan began publication of Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots,” which historian Jackson described as “one of the most influential of the Invisible Empire’s many periodicals.”[9] With 50,000 registered Ku Klux Klan members, the city of Chicago had “the largest membership of any city in the United States.”[10]
James M. Gray as editor-in-chief of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine reported none of this. Chicago papers reported and editorialized over the clandestine organization’s activities. The strongest condemnation of any Chicago newspaper came from the pen of the editor for the Chicago Defender. Robert S. Abbot headlined how a hallowed sense of whiteness paralyzed white people from openly condemning the white supremacy advocated by the Ku Klux Klan. Writing a September 1922 front-page editorial, Abbot titled it, “Ku Klux Klan Made Possible by Bigotry and Cowardice of American White Man.” Urging the federal government to take action against the KKK he wrote, “One of two things will happen. Either the Ku Klux Klan diseased child of a clandestine association must die, or this government itself must go. The two cannot live together, side by side, under the same flag and the same Constitution.” Above his signature, he concluded the editorial bluntly stating, “To hell with the Ku Klux Klan.”[11]
The Moody Bible Institute Magazine published one reference to the Ku Klux Klan in relation to a Chicago event by quoting General Pershing, the former commander of America’s Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I, when he spoke before the Chicago Association of Commerce. Pershing denounced “home foes”, issuing “a warning against the growing potency of government obstructionists.” Along with pacifists, Communists and labor organizing violence, Pershing also said, “We cannot shut our eyes to the activities of the invisible empire of the Ku-Klux-Klan, whose members in office disregard their duty to the public and allow their criminals to go unpunished…”[12]
This mention conformed to the pattern Gray consistently followed when as editor-in-chief of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine he authorized publication of anything about the Ku Klux Klan. The content of these articles stressed political and cultural issues. When airing concerns about the organization, worries were expressed over practices like secrecy, brutality or law-breaking activities. These references to the Klan delivered a false image of it into the hearts and minds of the men and women who read the magazine. The articles published in Moody’s magazine did not report the Klan’s core commitment to white supremacy. Its racist stand was hidden behind a mask of secondary information. A result of projecting this false image was that the Moody magazine never took a stand either for or against the essential Klan doctrine of white supremacy.
Klan teaching embedded the idolatrous idea of white supremacy in its religious teachings about God, Christ and the Bible. Here too Gray was derelict in his responsibility to rightly inform Moody magazine’s readership. He failed to subject the Klan’s religious teachings to a theological examination based upon the truths of the Bible. Therefore, Gray never condemned the Protestant organization for being a pseudo-Christian cult. James M. Gray decided not to accurately portray the true teaching of the Ku Klux Klan. He chose not to assess the Klan’s teaching about Christianity by the standard of biblical truth. The effect of these decisions left the Moody Bible Institute without any record of condemning the Ku Klux Klan either as a racist organization or as a cult that preached a false gospel, what the Klan called “Klankraft.” As the following will show, Gray gave far more space in the Moody Bible Institute Magazine in support of the Ku Klux Klan than he did for opposition to it. Gray himself in spite of what he claimed, never said anything bad about the Klan. His own judgment of the Klan included only positive observations coupled with questions about Klan practices, without any reference to either is racist commitment to white supremacy or its distorted teachings about Protestant Christianity.
Gray turned to a Texan to publish in the March 1923 edition of Moody’s magazine for addressing the question, “The Ku Klux Klan—Is It of God?”[13] The guest writer’s first sentence puts Gray to shame for his leaving the Institute without a record of condemnation lodged against the Ku Klux Klan. Funderburk insisted, “The Ku Klux Klan question has thrust itself suddenly and forcibly upon us, and one must line up for or against.” Unlike many religious periodicals and their editors, Gray, and thus the Institute, never took a clear stand either for or against the Ku Klux Klan.[14] There is a query here deserving scrutiny and reflection.[15] What prevented the Dean/President of the Moody Bible Institute in his role as editor-in-chief of the school’s periodical from condemning white supremacy? How did the heart of the Ku Klux Klan’s identity dovetail with the mission of the Moody Bible Institute?
Funderburk clarifies the question he is examining, asking, “Is it of God?” by adding, “Everything that is of God is right.” The only way to determine whether it is good or not is to “compare the teaching and principles of the Klan with the teaching and principles of the Bible.” Gray did not do this. As far as I am aware, he did not publish anything one way or another about the biblical legitimacy of white supremacy. To his thinking, it evidently did not rise even to the level of an adiaphorist controversy. Critical of lawlessness and violence, as well as challenging certain of their policies such as public education, he nonetheless, never either denied or affirmed the Ku Klux Klan’s fundamental commitment to native Protestant white supremacy as America’s divinely ordained birthright.
“The Klan, Funderburk said, “stands for one hundred percent Americanism and white supremacy.”[16] Yet he did not subject the cardinal doctrine of white supremacy to a biblical assessment. Instead, he argued that the Klan’s abuse of Jews and Roman Catholics was wrong because it did not line up with “God’s Word” that “contains the mind of God and does not conflict with right.” He also faulted the Klan for its violent activities contrary to law and order. Based upon its unethical actions – and not owing to the doctrine of white supremacy – he found “the teaching of the Klan is not the teaching of the Bible.” Because this was the case, “We see that the religion of Ku Kluxism is not the religion of Jesus Christ.” Funderburk instructs his readers, “If you love Jesus and want to honor Him you will not want to go where you cannot take Him, and you cannot taken Him into the Klan.”[17]
“The Klan stands for one hundred present Americanism and white supremacy.” This is the only reference recorded in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly to the Klan’s foundational doctrine. The omission is noteworthy. White supremacy was the main tenet of the Ku Klux Klan “Kreed.” White supremacy held center of place in two different ways. First, the revived secret organization paid homage to the original Ku Klux Klan founded after the Civil War. William Joseph Simmons as founder of the reorganized Klan wrote, “The organization of the original Ku Klux Klan made a most thrilling chapter in the history of the Anglo-Saxon civilization in America… The present Klan is a memorial to the original organization, the story of whose valor has never been told, and the value of whose activities to the American nation have never been appreciated.”[18] Beyond memorializing the first Klan, the Imperial Emperor of the 1915 reorganization understood its entire enterprise as an effort to preserve white supremacy. “The present Klan has purposed the supremacy of our heritage of ideals throughout the nation.” He spoke plainly in making clear “there is a purpose underlying the entire organization and pulsing in every fiber of its being, [which is] to maintain Anglo-Saxon civilization on the American continent from submergence due to the encroachment and invasion of alien people of whatever clime or color.”[19] Simmons seamlessly wove the two together to secure the one objective of preserving the white way of life uncontaminated by inferior intrusions. “There was not in the old organization a solitary motive except to save the civilization of the white man that had been wrung out of the thousands of years of his struggle upward. There is not a single motive actuating the new Klan except to save the heritage which the fathers have left for us in the present to transmit to the generation yet to come.”[20]
Dartmouth professor John Moffat Mecklin highlighted in 1924 this dependency of the reorganized Klan upon the original by writing, “The twentieth century Klan copied a great deal from its precursor – the hierarchy of officers, subdivisional structure, regalia, silent parades, and mysterious language. There was only one thing, however, taken over from the original Klan by the twentieth century order which was ideological in nature rather than ritualistic or ornamental – and that was the belief in white supremacy.”[21]
James M. Gray never squarely faced this fundamental fact of Klan life. He used his position as editor-in-chief of the Institute’s periodical to mask it behind lesser matters. It was disingenuous of him to focus on peripheral issues or controversial activities concerning the Klan without informing the readers of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine that the Klan was primarily a white organization for whites only, a gentile organization, an American organization and a Protestant organization,[22] whose top priority was to keep America a Protestant white nation.
Mecklin’s 1924 study of the Klan’s mentality included looking at the testimony William Joseph Simmons gave before Congress in 1921. Mecklin explained how Simmon’s used this event to promote the Klan, to emphasize what would be well received and to downplay associating the Klan with law-breaking or acts of violence. Mecklin writes, “The penumbra of vagueness, that characterizes thinking of Simmons and makes futile any attempt to give clear and final formulation to the Klan ideals, appears in his reply to the charge that the emphasis on white supremacy ‘is being taken as an indication that the organization has for its mission the practice of violence and injustice towards other races and colors.’ Simmons’s reply is: ‘That is not so. The supremacy of the white man means that supremacy of the white man’s mind as evidence by the achievements of our civilization.’ The Klan’s object is ‘to preserve the dignity and achievements of the white race in justice, fairness, and equity toward all the human family.’” Whether Mecklin was right in assuming that this “spin” on white supremacy was normative or not does not take away from the fact that the Imperial Emperor went on public record as advocating white supremacy. To avoid this fundamental truth about the Klan in describing it would require creating a fictitious alternative to the real organization.[23]
Simmons’s testimony before Congress is an example of the contextual dialectic between the social imaginary in which whiteness resides and a reified ideology of white supremacy that grew out of it. Whiteness immensely influenced the western and therefore American moral order. It still conditions the way people who see themselves as white unreflectively imagine the social reality in which we live. The ways it does so are systemic or structural, harnessing individual thinking to a hierarchical predisposition, which permeates our “collective practices that make up our social life.”[24] Like Elud’s sword in Eglon’s belly, the ideology of white supremacy is isolated and absorbed into the manifold idol of whiteness that remains unidentified and unchallenged. Gray’s decision not openly to criticize white supremacy indicates a degree of sympathy for the doctrine. His refraining from having the doctrine raised again in the Moody magazine points to the broader, deeper effects of the idol of whiteness.
Gray will not publish another article that warns readers to stay away from the Klan. In the April 1923 edition under the heading of news about the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, it was reported that “the K. K. K.” paid a visit to a church pastored by a Moody grad, giving him “an envelope containing $25” and congratulating him for his service. The representative pledged the Klan’s support for him “as he had been waging war on the local brewery and bookleggers.”[25]
In May 1923 Gray had published the first of two articles that defended the Ku Klux Klan.[26] The writer of the first trumpeted Klan propaganda simultaneously in both grandiose and pedantic terms. With exaggerated outrage, he said his “immediate reaction” to Funderburk’s article was “to regard it as a transgression of the laws of righteous publicity.” The writer displayed his pedantic nature by rebuking Funderburk for making “assertions he had no right to make unless the proof is absolute and complete.” Unlike Funderburk’s “tirade on street gossip,” which relied “upon the statements of irresponsible persons,” his evidence was “taken from the official data of the Klan itself,” and thus, was “based only on official investigation.” The writer insisted out of “fairness to your readers, and out of respect to Klansmen generally, who for the most part consist of earnest, kind-hearted, patriotic Christians,” his correction should be published. Gray granted this request.
The writer dismissed charges against the Klan of committing acts of lawlessness. He quotes Simmons who claimed such violence was perpetrated by those who were not members of the Klan but wore “masks and robes somewhat resembling the official regalia of the Ku Klux Klan”. He relied upon the claim made by a Congregational minister from New York that charges of unlawfulness against the Klan were unfounded.[27] The writer insisted the Klan was not against either Jews or Catholics, but rather was a Christian organization that resisted, again quoting Simmons, “the combination of church state in the United States.”
Not once does the writer broach the essential identifying feature of the Ku Klux Klan, the honoring, advocating, and advancing the idea of white supremacy. He intimates it only when describing why the Klan has come back into existence. America had “arrived at the watershed of destiny.” A conspiracy of “a silent penetration of our national institutions has been going on.” The writer warned, “Subtle mischief is at work. Nefarious combinations have grown so powerful as to present a national menace.” The Klan stands against these evil interests. The closest the writer comes to acknowledging the Klan’s white agenda is to say, “native Americans are sweeping into its ranks by the hundred thousand.” They do so he claimed to resist the establishing of a Communistic government. They fight against the foreign drug peddler, “who came over to this country to be a parasite on our body politic.” The join the Klan “to drive these monsters from our midst.” Faced with these dangers, “A few men thought that something ‘ought to be done.’” Not once does the writer mention white supremacy. He writes as if he were ignorant of this belief the very heart and soul of the Klan. The white movement for white Protestant Americans hidden behind the writer’s conclusion is made visible by inserting the adjective “white”: “that the [white] churches never had a more active ally, the [white] state a more determined champion; our [white] homes a more resolute defender, and lawlessness and vice [committed by those designated as not white] a more powerful foe that the Ku Klux Klan [a white organization committed to white supremacy].
Gray gave space in the Moody magazine for a second writer to compliment the Ku Klux Klan.[28] This writer assured the magazine’s readership, “I have for over twelve months conducted a most comprehensive investigation of the ideals, principles, teachings and activities of the Klan and have come to the slow and deliberate conclusion that there is not now organized in America a more hopeful secret society.” This second propagandist for the Klan matches the tactic of the first. He too like the first seeks to recruit support for the Klan, yet avoids speaking of any belief in the idea of white supremacy. The Klan is a “positive and active friend” of Protestant Christianity. It is an advocate of biblical instruction in public schools. It is an “active defender of virtue in American womanhood.” It is the ally of law enforcement and the enemy of “foreign ideals that have today massed for the destruction of American ideals and standards of living.” Lastly, this sympathizer of the Klan tells Moody’s readers that “there is massed against the Klan an array of foes that constitute her most flattering recommendation.” Without naming any of these enemies he nonetheless insists, “Protestant Christians need do nothing more, in arriving at a favorable estimate of the Klan, than to study the nature and activities of the foes of the organization.” Cursory knowledge of the Klan’s ideology publicly disseminated clearly identified these foes as Roman Catholics, Jews and Negroes.”
Gray decided to publish this written infomercial in spite of its false portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan. By the end of 1923 it was inexcusable to allow a writer to deliberately avoid openly declaring the obvious truth of the Ku Klux Klan, that it stood as Funderburk already put it, “one hundred per cent Americanism and white supremacy.” It is an affront to both common decency and common sense to disseminate apologies for the good services of the Klan to Protestant Christianity and for what it stands without explicitly stating its sole purpose for existing was to guarantee white supremacy in America. If Gray wanted to give the readership of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine a fair appraisal of the Klan he could have referred them to the pamphlet published in May 1923 for the Reference Shelf, a standard reference source for libraries and universities in the United States since 1898.[29] Relying upon this reputable source Gray could have published the first three statements of faith stated in the Ku Klux Klan Kreed:
1. WE, THE ORDER of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, reverentially acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being, and recognize the goodness and providence of the same.
2. WE RECOGNIZE our relation to the Government of the United States of America, the Supremacy of its Constitution, the Union of states thereunder, and the Constitutional Laws thereof, and we shall be ever devoted to the sublime principles of a pure Americanism and valiant in the defense of its ideals and institutions.
3. WE AVOW THE distinction between the races of mankind as same has been decreed by the Creator, and shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy and will strenuously oppose any compromise thereof in any and all things.[30]
The meaning of supremacy does not change as it was applied in the Kreed’s three spheres. God is attributed with primacy, dominance and eminence as the supreme power with sole authority over all creation. The constitution possesses the same privileged position over all the laws that govern the United States. Correspondingly, the ideas and status of the native born Protestant white race rightfully possessed supreme power and authority over Roman Catholics, foreigners, Jews, and black citizens in America. Gray facilitated mainstreaming Klan racism by not allowing it to be mentioned in the pages of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine. He made the public platform of the Moody Bible Institute a mouthpiece for communicating a distorted and disingenuous image of the Ku Klux Klan. He did this in the moment of the Klan’s spurt of growth after World War I, when a sound theological evaluation grounded in the teachings of the Bible would have had the greatest effect in warning fundamentalist/evangelical Christians to avoid association with it because of its false and hateful teachings. Regardless of his personal motives, the effect of this editorial decision helped make the Ku Klux Klan palatable for the magazine’s readership.
Twice he felt compelled to defend his actions in the pages of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine. Gray inserted himself in the conversation in a June 1923 editorial.[31] Gray deceptively declared, “We believe in giving our readers an opportunity to hear both sides of such a subject.” Gray’s feigned fairness actually gave the Klan an undeserving veneer of legitimacy by censuring any mention save a single sentence of its advocacy for white supremacy or its unorthodox Christian teachings. Gray pointed out to his critics that, “The contributions for which we assume…responsibility only are those over our own names, or which are found on our editorial pages.” Gray wrote, “Our personal views on the Ku Klux Klan, for example, were expressed on page 240 of our February issue.” This editorial relied upon the propaganda published by the pro-Klan Colonel Mayfield’s Weekly , which Gray used to cast the organization in a positive light. He did this by cherry-picking the original article which was published in The Literary Digest [see MBI’s Execrable Dalliance with the KKK, Part One]. He assiduously avoided any mention of white supremacy.
Again, in December 1923, Gray referred back to this same February editorial in answering a correspondent who inquired as to why the Moody Bible Institute Magazine had not taken a stand over the Klan, since it published “nothing clean-cut in an editorial way.”[32] The writer urged Gray, “If the thing is right and necessary, why not help to give it momentum; if wrong, sound the alarm, or at least give a warning before it is too late.” Looking back to his February editorial Gray pontificated, “Our correspondent in saying that he recalls ‘nothing clean-cut in an editorial way’ as appearing in our pages, may have overlooked an editorial in the February issue in which we commended the good features of the Ku Klux Klan, pointed out the bad as we considered them, and raised a question mark against those which we did not understand.” This is an inaccurate description of what he wrote. Gray’s caveat as he “considered them” could mean he did not consider anything to do with the Klan as being bad. In any case, Gray never acknowledged the perverted teaching of the Ku Klux Klan that advocated a kind of Christian identity that recognized white supremacy as a gift from God. Therefore, he avoided taking a stand either for against the sinful teaching. Without publishing its essential identity as a white brotherhood, he weakly asked, “Is such a brotherhood compatible with the true brotherhood of Christ?”
In May 1923, Grant Stroh under the heading of “Practical and Perplexing Questions,” answered an inquiry by informing the readership of the Moody Bible Institute Monthly, “The only way we know whereby you can get the rules and doctrines of the Ku Klux Klan is by joining the order.”[33] This was not true. The Ku Klux Klan was a proselytizing pseudo-Christian cult. It publicized its aims and beliefs to increase its numbers. For example, in January 1923 multiple Chicago newspapers carried reviews of The Invisible Empire, a play both defining and defending the organization.[34] At that time according to historian Kelly Baker the Chicago-based Klan weekly, The Dawn: The Herald of a New and Better Day celebrated in an April 1923 edition a circulation of 50,000, with demand being met by even selling it at newsstands for ten cents a copy. The popular Indiana based Klan weekly; The Fiery Cross began sales in July 1922. The national newsweekly of the Klan, The Imperial Night-Hawk, began publishing in 1923. These organs, as well as other regional publications, “served as a means to instantiate the Klan’s worldview and to verse readers in the order’s goals.” Whether members or not, by reading a Klan newspaper one could learn “its politics, ethics, and actions” as well as “it portrayal of faith and nation.”[35]
James M. Gray spoke and wrote against Christian Science and modernism as corrupters of the true gospel in accordance with the inspired word of God. He never subjected the teachings of the Klan to that same standard. James M. Gray never used the pages of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine to expose the Klan’s fiery cross for what it truly is; a counterfeit cultic symbol looked to by those who for it sought to replace the Bible’s cross of cavalry. Gray not only ignored the Klan’s commitment to white supremacy. He also failed to tell students of the Bible and readers of the Institute’s magazine that the racist organization grounded itself in bad theology rooted in a bad reading of the Bible. That failure was Gray’s, and therefore, the Institute’s greatest sin of omission.
The Klan made American institutions – white institutions they claimed – holy institutions that God established and blessed for His purposes in behalf of all humankind. The Klan’s national newspaper, the Imperial Night-Hawk, published in April 1923 an article outlining the founding principles of the Klan. It described the initiation ritual in reverent religious terms. The new Klansmen were “bound together as brothers in a common cause by [a] sacred, solemn and patriotic obligation.” They were “arrayed in robes of white, like the redeemed host of heaven, emblematic of a pure life and a spotless character; in the light of [the] fiery cross, the symbol of heaven’s richest gift and earth’s greatest tragedy.” They stood “under the fluttering folds of the Stars and Stripes, the symbol of Freedom and Justice.” They swore, “to defend the right, uphold the law and oppose the wrong.” They acknowledged they were “a part of a Great Invisible Empire, like unto the Church of the Living God during the dark ages of Roman rule.”[36] Former Klan member Henry P. Fry had already published his condemnation of the Klan in 1922, which included his condemnation of this “naturalization” ritual. He publically condemned it to be a “blasphemous and sacrilegious mockery of the holy rite of baptism, wherein for political and financial purposes, you have polluted with your infamous parody those things that Christians, regardless of creed or dogma, hold most sacred.”[37] The Imperial Night-Hawk catechized its readers in its August 1923 edition about how God inspired white America’s political life. “Who is it doubts the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States were God inspired? Who is it doubts that God Himself will prosper and cherish a people who accept Christ as their example, the cross and the living fire as their symbols.”[38] In the November 1923 edition of its national newspaper the Klan identified itself as the “civic Messiah” that was “leading the nation into the clear, pure air of liberty.”[39]
One example suffices to place beyond question the fact that the Klan was a white American, pseudo-Protestant cult. The Fiery Cross was a Klan newspaper established in Indianapolis in July 1922. Sold on at least a dozen different newsstands in the city, as well as mailed to subscribers, it boasted having a circulation of 125,000 in August 1923. Whether exaggerated or not, its content was readily available to the public. The January 5th 1923 edition answered the rhetorical question, why wear the mask, in part by saying:
“Most secret groups keep in concealment their deeds and ideals and vows, though proudly revealing their membership, while the ‘Invisible Empire’ openly carries on its glorious works, makes public its ideals and before the assembled multitudes takes its sacred vows, although it willfully and designedly throws the mantle of concealment over its membership.”[40]
In its July 4th 1923 edition it carried an article titled, “The White Horseman of the Apocalypse.” The author interprets the 19th chapter of the Book of Revelation as referring not to Christ, but to the Ku Klux Klan. “Who then, is the white horseman? The white horseman is the Klansman of today. How do we know this to be true? We know this to be true because the 19th chapter of Revelations he is perfectly described.” Among other proofs, the writer said, “In Revelation 19:13 we read: ‘And he is arrayed in a garment dipped in blood and his name is called ‘the Word of God.’ The blood in this case refers to the red which is found on the robe of the Klansman. The Word of God refers to the truth for which the white rider takes his stand.” The writer took Revelation 19:14 as “a vivid description of the Ku Klux Klan in action and on the warpath against sin, ignorance, Romanism, etc. We read that the armies go forth clothed in fine linen, white and pure.”[41]
The Klan was a proselytizing organization that sought to recruit men and women through the media, especially the printed word. Writes historian Kelly J. Baker, “Klan print journals, speeches, fictional works, newspapers, pamphlets, position papers, and broadsides document the religious worldview of the Klan.” “The order” she explains, “imagined a white Protestant America in print, artifacts, rallies and speeches.”[42]
The sad legacy of the Moody Bible Institute under the leadership of its Dean/President James M. Gray in his capacity as editor-in-chief of the Moody Bible Institute Magazine was that it was more secretive about the content of the Klan’s false gospel and its belief in white supremacy than the Klan itself.
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
[1] The Moody Bible Commentary scholars examining this chapter in the book of Genesis, which they teach “closes the section in which he is the main character,” pay no attention to this significant event in Jacob’s life. They do however; point out that God caused “a great terror…upon the cities” which surrounded Jacob’s family as they struck out on their assigned journey. Seeing God’s people following Him without carrying any idols always strikes the world with terror, even as it does the god of this world.
[2] Zeresh Haman, “’Get to Fightin or get away’”: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, STMU History Media (11/3/2017), accessed at https://stmuhistorymedia.org/get-to-fightin-or-get-away-the-gunfight-at-the-o-k-corral/.
[3] Donald G. Bloesch, The Ground of Certainty: Toward an Evangelical Theology of Revelation (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2002, orig. William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1971), p. 77. Emphasis added.
[4] Daniel Hill, White Lies, Nine Ways to Expose and Resist the Racial Systems That Divide Us (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2020), p. 253.
[5] Bob Dylan, “Changing of the Guards,” Special Rider Music, Street Legal, Columbia Record (1978).
[6] Curtis Lee Laws, “Fundamentalism From the Baptist Viewpoint,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly (September 1922), p. 15.
[7] John Anthony Turchenseske, Jr., “The Ku Klux Klan in Northwestern Wisconsin (Master’s Thesis), Wisconsin State University – River Falls (1971), available at The State of Wisconsin Collection, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.KKKinNWWisc. Cites Testimony of Pat Malone, State of Wisconsin v. Pat Malone November 15-17, 1926, Oconto County Court House, Oconto, Wisconsin (hereafter cited as Malone Trial), p. 98 (fn #22), “However, Malone’s veracity in this instance is questionable. Both Drake University and Moody Bible Institute have no records of an Arthur William Malone Register, Drake University, January 21, 1971 and Roy Shewy, Registrar, Moody Bible Institute, January 8, 1871, to John A. Turchenseske, Jr.) (fn #23), p. 13.
[8] Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930, with a New Foreword by the Author (Chicago: Elephant Paperback, 1992; orig. Oxford University 1967), Locations 1434 and 1445 of 5833.
[9] Ibid., Locations 1471, 1536, 1546
[10] Kenneth T. Jackson, “Ku Klux Klan,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, accessed at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/696.html.
[11] Robert S. Abbott, “Ku Klux Klan Made Possible By Bigotry and Cowardice of American White Man,” Chicago Defender (2 September 1922), p. 1, quoted and cited in Charlesetta Maria Ellis, “Robert S. Abbott’s Response to Education for African Americans via the Chicago Defender, 1909-1940,” (dissertation), Loyola University Chicago (1994), p. 181.
[12] James M. Gray, “General Pershing Speaks Out,” Moody Bible Institute Magazine (February 1923), p. 240.
[13] Rev. A. R. Funderburk, “The Ku Klux Klan-Is It of God?” Moody Bible Institute Magazine (March 1923), p. 291-292.
[14]See Robert Moats Miller, “Á Note on the Relationship between the Protestant Churches and the Revived Ku Klux Klan,” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 22, no. 3 (August 1956), pp. 355-368. Based in part on the record of material published in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly under the editorship of James M. Gray, Robert E. Wenger concluded that “fundamentalist literature…reveals little sympathy for the Klan,” claiming the Dean of MBI “personally remained critical.” He included James M. Gray among the fundamentalists who “criticized, condemned or ignored the Ku Klux Klan.” Robert E. Wenger, Social Thought in American Fundamentalism, 1918-1933 (Eugen, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2007; previous University Microfilms, 1974), pp. 205, 208. Within the context of his examining the fundamentalist-modernist debate, Joel Carpenter noted, “Gray criticized the Ku Klux Klan rather mildly”. Carpenter also points out Gray “sympathized with Henry Ford’s charge that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion documented a Jewish world conspiracy.” Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 42. This writers review of the record leads to the conclusion that James M. Gray never endorsed the Ku Klux Klan, however, he never condemned it either.
[15] An article about how AskHistorians, one of the largest history forums on the internet, deals with Holocaust deniers sheds light on the danger of providing an allegedly neutral platform to publically air evil ideas. See Johannes Breit, “How One of the Internet’s Biggest History Forums Deals With Holocaust Deniers,” Slate (7/20/2018), accessed at https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html.
[16] Rev. A. R. Funderburk, “The Ku Klux Klan-Is It of God?” Moody Bible Institute Magazine (March 1923), p. 291-292.
[17] Ibid., p. 293.
[18] William Joseph Simmons, The Klan Unmasked (Atlanta, Georgia: Wm. E. Thompson Publishing Co., 1923), pp. 21-22.
[19] Ibid., p. 23.
[20] Ibid., pp. 23-24.
[21]Arnold S. Rice, The Ku Klux Klan In American Politics (Washington, D. C.: Public Affairs Press, 1962), p. 19.
[22] Ibid, p. 20, from a 1923 Ku Klux Klan information pamphlet, Ideals of the Ku Klux Klan (Atlanta, 1923), pp. 3-4.
[23] John Moffat Mecklin, the Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924), pp. 26-27.
[24] Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 23. Taylor’s definition of the social imaginary is “colorblind.” He defines it as “the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectation (p. 23).” I suggest Taylor’s definition is itself a demonstration of how whiteness exerts its influence while remaining unnamed and unnoticed. For us who are white, we are dependent upon others designated as non-white for the conceptual equipment we need to see the invisible presence of whiteness.
[25] Moody Bible Institute Magazine (April 1923), p. 399.
[26] John Bradbury, “Defending the Ku Klux Klan – A Reply to Mr. Funderburk, Moody Bible Institute (May 1923), pp. 420-421.
[27] Newell Dwight Hillis, “New York’s Anti-Klan Outburst,” The Literary Digest, LXXX (December 23, 1922). He does not however quote Hillis who said in the same article, “the Klan should be defended by every white American who is not under the domination of the Church of Rome.” Location 2698 of 5833, Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930.
[28] Bob Schuler, “Investigate the Ku Klux Klan,” (December 1923), p. 182.
[29] Julia E. Johnsen, “Ku Klux Klan,” the Reference Shelf, vol. 1, no. 10 (May 1923): pp. 1-105.
[30] Ibid., p. 47.
[31] “Ku Klux Klan,” MBIM (June, 1923), p. 459.
[32] “The Ku Klux Klan,” MBIM (December, 1923), p. 163.
[33] Grant Stroh, “Practical and Perplexing Questions,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly (May 1923), p. 427
[34] The Chicago Daily Journal (1/2/1923) and the Chicago Evening Post (1/4/1923). See Tom Rice, “The True Story of the Ku Klux Klan”: Defining the Klan through Film,” Journal of American Studies vol. 42, no. 3 (2008), footnote #35, p. 476. The Klan had made its first movie produced in Ohio in October 1923. Ibid.
[35] Kelly J. Baker, Gospel According to the Klan, The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2011), p. 24.
[36] “Texas Klansman Outlines Principles Upon Which the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Is Founded,” Imperial Night-Hawk (April 1923), quoted by Juan O. Sánchez, Religion and the Ku Klux Klan, Biblical Appropriation in Their Literature and Songs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016), p. 1.
[37] Henry P. Fry, The Modern Ku Klux Klan (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1922), p. 27.
[38] Ibid., p. 5
[39] Ibid.
[40] V. Y B., “Why the Mask,” The Fiery Cross (January 5, 1923), p. 4Accessed through Indiana University Bloomington’s Collection: Digital Archive: Fiery Cross at https://libraries.indiana.edu/collection-digital-archive-fiery-cross.
[41] Rev. Chas. H. Gunsolus, “White Horseman of the Apocalypse,” The Fiery Cross (July 4, 1922), p. 18. Accessed through Indiana University Bloomington’s Collection: Digital Archive: Fiery Cross at https://libraries.indiana.edu/collection-digital-archive-fiery-cross.
[42] Kelly J. Baker, Gospel According to the Klan, The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2011), p. 32.