The President's Pastor

As senior minister of Washington's National City Christian Church, the Rev. George R. Davis of course favors equal rights for Negroes--but he has grave doubts about most of the methods Negroes use to get them. In the capital, where politics is everyone's chief obsession, Davis' foot-dragging has turned into news because he is the minister who currently lays claim to the unofficial title of "the President's pastor."* Lyndon Johnson, though he sometimes attends services at Episcopal, Lutheran and Methodist churches, goes most often to National City, the "national church" of his denomination, the Disciples of Christ. Last week Davis proudly made the President an "honorary elder."

A native of Tulsa, Davis, 56, is a florid, old-fashioned kind of orator who held pastorates at Chickasha, Okla., St. Joseph, Mo., and Wichita Falls, Texas (where he first preached to Johnson in 1959), before coming to National City in 1961. Even without presidential patronage, it was a flattering call. National City's worshipers have traditionally included Congressmen and Senators; among those who frequently attend these days are Generals Omar Bradley and Maxwell Taylor.

God Was There. Johnson, who maintains membership in the First Christian Church of Johnson City, Texas, began attending National City regularly after he moved into the White House, half a mile away. He found in Davis a clergyman who was not shy about expressing admiration for the President. In an open letter to the President, Davis declared that "I sensed God there" in Johnson's patient, painful recovery from his gall bladder operation. In the same letter, he also told the President: "You broke the back of religious bigotry in the United States." Returning the compliments, Johnson has occasionally invited Davis to lunch after church.

Having a friend in the White House does not spare Davis from criticism by other clergymen. Martin Luther King's Washington spokesman, Baptist Minister Walter E. Fauntroy, says: "Davis is the most reactionary minister we have." The Disciples' civil rights leader, the Rev. Barton Hunter of Indianapolis, considers Davis "a source of very great embarrassment to the Brotherhood."

The charges are based on Davis' civil rights record. While almost every other minister and priest in Washington was encouraging the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, Davis denounced it because "our way of life is threatened" by demonstrations that challenge rule by law. After Unitarian Minister James Reeb was killed in Selma, Davis declared that those who organized the demonstrations there shared in the guilt for his death. Davis was one of the few prominent Washington clergymen who refused to sign a pledge to open membership of their churches to anyone regardless of race. National City is only nominally integrated: out of 1,025 members of the church, which is in a predominantly Negro neighborhood, four are Negro. His critics charge that Davis has quietly encouraged potential applicants to try the nearby all-Negro Twelfth Street Christian Church.

Shallow Gesture. In response to criticism, Davis has issued a series of open letters to friends and parishioners, arguing that his policies and actions have been much misunderstood. In one, he smoothly explained why he had asked a young Negro girl to wait a while before joining. At the time, a resolution condemning the segregationist policies of

National City was scheduled for debate at the Disciples' annual convention; had the church accepted her then, he explained, it would have seemed "an artificial, shallow gesture." Davis also points out that National City for years has operated an integrated summer-vacation Bible school for neighborhood children, and last year sponsored a summer program under Project Head Start.

Davis concedes that his church may not have done enough to encourage Negroes to join, and admits that National City should probably incorporate the poverty-stricken Twelfth Street Church. But he explains that church integration is fraught with subtle dangers, and must be done on a carefully controlled basis. "When you get to a certain percentage, you cannot allow any more, or else the church will become all another race," he says.

* Held by the Rev. Edward L. R. Elson, a Presbyterian, during the Eisenhower years and Baptist Minister Edward Hughes Pruden under Truman. John Kennedy, when in Washington, attended Sunday Mass at a number of different churches, including Georgetown's Holy Trinity and St. Matthew's Cathedral.

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