Integration: Race, T. B. Maston, and Hope for the Desegregated Church - Hardcover

by Paul J. Morrison (Author), Malcolm B. Yarnell (Foreword by)

While the Southern Baptist Convention has so often been a step behind on the issue of race since its formation, there was still light shining in the darkness: a group of biblically faithful men and women who both recognized and fought for their racially marginalized brothers and sisters. Chief among these men and women was Thomas Buford Maston. T. B. Maston faithfully engaged the topic as the SBC's preeminent ethicist from 1922-1963 as a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This stand ultimately cost him his job. Even still, some sixty years later, his theology and ethics model the full unity in Christ. This book examines the writings of T. B. Maston in his efforts to reform the racially misguided interpretations of Scripture in the church and their subsequent prejudices. Maston is not merely a visionary who foreshadowed the eventual position of the SBC, and more widely, the evangelical church, but is one who directly caused legitimate change. Maston's profound yet humble work gives a blueprint for future racial reconciliation through integration in the church.