Oklahoma voted to go wet in 1959 in spite of Will Rogers saying we would be dry as long as the Baptist and the Methodist could stager to the poles. As soon as the vote was taken many Baptist churches voted that if any of their members applied for a license to sell liquor they would be removed from membership in their church. I got caught in a room with six other pastors who had led their churches to vote in that rule and was jumped on by all six because I had not done so and would not say that I would. It was an easier vote for those pastors than it was for me. I was the only one in the room with a member who had applied for a license. It is a lot easier to take stands if you don’t have to actually act on the stand you have taken.
Read MoreIn 1956 at 24 years of age, I was moving into the parsonage of the First Baptist Church in the city where I had graduated from college three months before. As I was carrying things into the house a professor from the college walked back-and-forth with me telling me that his wife was having an affair. Ready or not and, without my intention, I had become a counselor. I do not claim that title.
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