A hero of mine died last week. I wept openly
when I read about it, though I only met him in person a couple of times. His
name was Foy Valentine. And yes, that is where I got the name of my fictional
character, Foy Davis, though my character bears no resemblance to Foy Valentine
in personality. No,
it's only a name that they share. I intended it to be a private tribute to
someone whose life has meant much to me. I had planned to write a story about
how Foy got his name. I'm sure I'll eventually get around to that, but since the
real Foy has died, it seems right to tell you about him now.
Foy Valentine was a Christian first, and a
Baptist kind of Christian only second. A lot of people have a hard time keeping
that sort of thing in its proper order. Foy did not. He was a Christian ethicist
who worked for the Southern Baptist Convention years ago. Foy's job was to speak
the truth to those in power. And that he did. He received a lot of hate mail
over the years from Baptists whose world was not large enough to hold truth. And
he was labeled many things: A liberal, a radical, a nigger lover, a
troublemaker.
As a young seminarian, I "met" Foy Valentine
while researching Southern Baptist responses to the bombing of a Baptist church
in Birmingham in 1963. Four Baptist children were killed in that blast. Four
children whose skin was a dark color. I was shocked and dismayed to find
that Southern Baptist newspapers throughout the South had nothing whatever to
say about it. Not a mention.
But in my research I found the voice of one crying in the
wilderness of the sins of my own people. It was a notation in the official
record of the Southern
Baptist Convention annual meeting of 1968. The record indicates that a man named
Foy Valentine stood up on the convention floor and pleaded for his brothers and
sisters in Christ to confess the sin of our racism and embrace people of all
colors. He was the same age then that I am now. He was in his 40s and employed
by those very Baptists to whom he spoke on that day. He had a wife and children
and a lot to lose.
Apparently, truth meant more to Foy than
comfort and security.
His remarks were not well received, to say the
least. It would be another twenty years before the Southern Baptist Convention
would confess that particular sin.
When I first read about Foy Valentine's
courageous stance, I made a
personal commitment that was so brash and bold that I am a little embarrassed to
write about it here. I vowed that if I ever found myself in a similar situation,
where being faithful to Christ would cost me dearly, I would follow in Foy's
footsteps.
I fear that I will not be able to live up to
Foy's strong example, and that fear haunts me always. What will it profit me if
I gain the whole world, but lose my soul? But I hope that I am strong enough,
because I would like my grandchildren to think about me in the same way that I think
about him.
Thank you for the witness of your life and
words, Foy. History has shown that you were on the right side of your
generation's most important issue. May God grant us the courage to stand on the
side of righteousness in our time as well.
rlp
Tribute to Foy Valentine by the editor of
Christian Ethics Today, the journal that Foy
Founded.
A very nice obituary and summary of Foy's life.
