In the Ranks

Stocky, square-jawed Duke K. McCall was a hard-hitting guard on the Furman University (Greenville, S.C.) football team, since 1937 has been a hard-hitting minister. As secretary of the executive committee of the 6,700,000-member Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Baptist group, Dr. McCall was lately sent to report on African missions. From Nigeria last week he bluntly warned that in Africa, as in Asia, white missionaries are now needed not as officers but in the ranks. Wrote Dr. McCall:

"I used to think missionaries spent their time making speeches to crowds of eager natives. Not a single missionary here is pastor of a church. They are school superintendents, nurses, farm supervisors and orphanage attendants.

"The Africans are pastors of the churches now. They and many of the members were trained in the schools, rescued in the orphanage, or healed in the hospital. Now they lead and the missionaries serve . . .

"Dr. W. A. Criswell, pastor of the largest Southern Baptist Church in the United States,* went to Ibadan to preach last Sunday. The African pastor announced he had decided to preach himself. The white preacher sat in the pew and listened to a sermon in a foreign language . . . The Africans [determine] the policies of the churches . . . The missionaries have no authority over the natives except that which love provides. There has been much service in the past, so there is much love."

*The First Baptist Church of Dallas.

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