The Seminarian by Patrick Parr

Author:Patrick Parr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

From left to right: James “Jimmy” Beshai (Egypt), Makoto Sakurabayashi (Japan), and En-Chin Lin (China) outside Old Main, circa 1950. Courtesy of Dr. James Beshai

ML couldn’t help but smile. “Shoot, man,” ML said. “I am a Negro.” To Jimmy, ML wasn’t being confrontational—he was simply attempting to develop his global outlook. “I spent more time with Martin than I did with other Crozer students, because Martin was president . . . and he took an interest in international affairs. He was interested in Egypt, and we seemed to pick the same courses by Davis, Enslin, and Kenneth Smith.”19

Kenneth “Snuffy” Smith was Crozer’s new young professor of Applied Christianity, fresh off completing the coursework for his PhD at Duke. Like George Davis, he would play a unifying role at a changing Crozer, fusing President Blanton’s emphasis on evangelization with the school’s long tradition of theological scholarship.

Smith had graduated from Crozer himself in May 1948, sharpening his Christian perspective under the tutelage of Davis, Pritchard, Enslin, and Keighton. It was Professor Davis with whom he connected the most, and Davis’s admiration of Walter Rauschenbusch’s A Theology for the Social Gospel influenced Smith toward a liberal theology. He was back at his alma mater now “on fire,” filled with a desire to create change via the social gospel.*1

All of this would make Smith an ideal mentor figure for ML: someone with whom he could spend hours discussing philosophy, someone who would fan the flames of his dedication to social action. But before he could become ML’s mentor, he would be his rival: the young professor had also returned to Crozer with the desire to rekindle his previous relationship with Betty Moitz.

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