9 North America – West, South, North and East: 1959–61
North America – West, South, North and East: 1959–61
Leon’s more obvious choice after Ridley would have been to return to England, where he had completed his doctorate and developed a network of good relationships with his English friends. However, there were other factors to consider: Babbage and Andersen had encouraged him to try new horizons; he had an affinity with Stonehouse; and it would be better for Mildred if she did not have to work. For all of these reasons, he chose North America.
The Morrises’ 1960 itinerary evolved piece by piece. Leon was to begin his lecturing at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, and Westmont College in Santa Barbara, followed by Columbia Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. Leon’s writing had impressed the president of Columbia Seminary, Dr J. McDowell Richards, who had invited Leon to give a special lecture series, noting that Columbia was ‘not narrowly sectarian’.1 Leon happily agreed to do ‘enough lecturing to keep the wolf from the door’.2 He would then travel to Westminster in Pennsylvania where Stonehouse had secured permission for him to lecture from September 1960 to January 1961.
Leon was not fully aware of the extent to which his love of the good news and sense of duty was resonating with all sorts of people. In the private files of Richards, there is a letter from evangelist Leighton Ford. Ford had read that Columbia had secured Leon and wrote to Richards:
During our recent Crusade in Melbourne, I had the very great pleasure of meeting and coming to know quite well Dr. Leon Morris and I am thrilled to know that he will be with you there at Columbia next year … Dr. Morris is very highly respected throughout Australia not only for his brilliant and thorough scholarship, but as much for his warm evangelical spirit and highly spiritual caliber. He served as the Follow up Chairman for our Crusade in Melbourne and many nights would be up until 1 am or 2 am making sure that the cards of those who made decisions were referred to the proper churches. He is not at all pre-possessing in appearance, but his vitality and humility of spirit will deeply impress you all I know.3
The rapport with Graham and his team members gave Leon entrée to a much wider Christian audience than just academic institutions. Over the next four years, Leon would become a significant force for world evangelical scholarship and spirituality across America and England through his direct lecturing and itinerant teaching. He created momentum, and a deep spiritual hunger was satisfied by his clear teaching and spiritual impact. He became widely known despite his preference for anonymity.
Hawaii
On 24 November 1959, Leon and Mildred flew to Sydney, and four days later their families waved them off. They were surprised that the advertising claims made about smooth jet flight on a Qantas Boeing 707 were not realized: ‘So far from there being “not a ripple in your coffee” ours slipped over the rims of our cups during one burst of turbulence.’4 In Fiji, Leon saw the changing of the guard at the governor’s Suva residence: ‘I cannot say that I did not enjoy watching it, but I fear I am not a ritualist. Nothing stirred in me. I really think that big boys could change the guard simply, but I guess boys do have to play.’5 They arrived in Hawaii, where Leon had been invited to speak at a Youth for Christ (YFC) event. While they were there, they stayed in the Royal Beach Apartment Hotel, Waikiki. Writing about Waikiki beach in her diary, Mildred commented: ‘I don’t think it is any better than or as good as Manly.’6 In their apartment, their YFC host encouraged them to use the phone to make any calls, ‘No charge for calls.’ In a flash, Leon said ‘Then I’d better call the home folk in Australia.’ Halfway through telling them that this was another matter, the young man realized that he had been sucked in by two joking, laconic Australians.
On the Saturday, night Leon spoke to some 150 YFC members. The meeting billed him: ‘Hey, Get a Load of this – Dr. Leon Morris from Melbourne, Australia – you’ll love “im”.’ Leon recorded: ‘I found the audience surprisingly easy to talk to. I spoke on redemption and had great freedom, but when Bassett [the meeting leader] followed with an appeal nothing happened. After the meeting Chuck took Mil and me off to a dump called “The Jolly Roger” where we put away some wonderful ice-cream concoction.’7 He then preached at short notice the next morning at Kapalulu Bible Church. The venue was a converted barn in a poor section of the town. In a letter to friends, Leon and Mildred reported that ‘the cow barn was quite full, and the atmosphere profoundly reverent. We found it very moving.’8
In the times between ministry, Leon and Mildred absorbed as much as they could of American life. Of interest was Leon’s noting of business reports he heard on the radio. He recorded that at the time there was a local tax of 3.5 per cent per dollar on some retail sales. In addition, a new tax had been introduced of one cent on every fifteen-cent cup of coffee. On seven cups of coffee, totalling US$1.05 in sales, the businessman had to collect seven cents tax. However, the way the system had been set up, the businessman still only paid 3.5 per cent, or 3.5 cents a dollar to the authorities and pocketed the rest. Leon summarized, ‘Ingenious and shows that businessmen are businessmen the world over.’9 Leon’s observation was a reflection of one aspect of his personality – a clear business brain that he used when saving and investing his money, albeit with impeccable ethics.
Pasadena: Fuller and Westmont
After arriving by Pan Am jet in California on 7 December, Leon was welcomed by Fuller and Westmont as a fellow academic with the status of a professor. Through his presence and attractive, simple style of communicating the truth, he fleshed out his written works and received a very positive response from students and other audiences.
The Californian lifestyle intrigued Leon and Mildred. They were not used to seeing dishwashers, automatic washing-machines or swimming pools in homes. Particular novelties for them were the food combinations – for example, sweet rolls with fried eggs at breakfast – and the quality of the furnishings and size of portions in restaurants.
Early on, they formed a providential friendship with one couple, Ruth and David Hubbard, which provided a solid base for all their future visits to the USA. Hubbard was a young lecturer connected to Westmont and Fuller who had arranged for Leon to speak on a radio station about the recent Billy Graham Crusades in Australia. Years later, Hubbard recalled their initial contact. He had asked Leon to provide evidence of his PhD degree for the American visa process. Leon had confessed to him that he had searched high and low before he found it. Hubbard was amused that ‘an academic document that some would have guarded like the crown jewels had gone missing’.10 Leon had rolled up his PhD and tossed it in a box.
Hubbard was delighted to discover that Leon and Mildred were people without any great sense of importance about themselves and yet full of purpose for God’s agendas. At Westmont, Hubbard advised the cafeteria staff that Leon ‘is a guest so he can have anything he wants on the house’. Leon had one cup of coffee. In warming to Leon, Hubbard observed that he ‘learned so quickly and followed so avidly American sports … He not only knows the names of the star players but the intricacies of the rules. Some of my finest memories are recollections of hours passed at athletic events discussing theology and sports with Dr. Morris.’11 Hubbard’s daughter, Mary,12 recalled that Leon and Hubbard shared the same sense of humour and a love of sport, and Hubbard convinced Leon to support the LA Dodgers. They both loved detailed scholarship and had photographic memories, a logical recall of incredible facts and a deep faith.13 Mildred, Hubbard noted, was of ‘gentle inspiration, strong devotion, unflagging courage and readiness for new ventures’,14 and it was not surprising that Mildred and Ruth Hubbard also became close friends.
Leon’s main work was at Fuller Theological Seminary, located some forty minutes north-east of downtown Los Angeles in Pasadena. There are plentiful palm trees, remnants of the Spanish influence and great restaurants with generous breakfasts. Here Leon spoke on redemption using notes from The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Although his talks required concentration to follow, they were sensible and reproducible and the students drank deeply from the well of biblical truth taught by Leon. The younger students at Westmont College were full of energy and enthusiasm, and would approach Leon on campus to ask him about his memories of teaching in the radio schools and one-teacher schools in outback Australia.
At the same time, Leon developed an appreciation of local and international concerns in Christian theology through robust discussions with faculty of the calibre of George Ladd, Hubbard, Bernard Ramm, William La Sor and others. Moreover, he was among peers who respected him: Ladd was on record as attributing the renaissance of conservative scholarship in measure to the name of ‘Leon Morris’. Leon sensed that some of the Fuller men felt undervalued in the wider conservative Christian community. Ladd had had a couple of his articles rejected for publication and had to find other outlets, and he interpreted this as a lack of recognition. Leon noted: ‘I felt though that the Fuller men are all unduly on the defensive. They have built better than they know.’15
Around the town Leon spoke at the California Baptist Seminary, Temple Baptist Church, the Church of the Open Door and the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.16 At Open Door, after reporting on the Graham Crusade to three hundred people, he was accosted by two men objecting to Billy Graham (in their words) having ‘infidels on the platform’. Leon commented that ‘they shaped as though to ask a question but never got around to it. Instead they delivered a long homily on the iniquity of consorting with unbelievers, though conceding that God had blessed the measure of truth that Graham proclaims. How condescending can you get!’17
Eight days before Christmas 1959, the daughter of Westmont’s president, Dr Roger Voskuyl, was killed in a car accident. Leon and Mildred attended the funeral at Grace Church, and Leon preached there the following Sunday. Sensitivities were high so soon after the funeral, and Leon noted, ‘I have never had so many people tell me after a service how greatly they had enjoyed the message … I guess Americans are more demonstrative than most.’18 Dr Voskuyl summed up Leon’s message with poignancy, given his daughter’s death, as ‘His purposes are love.’19
The Sunday before Christmas, Leon and Mildred visited a church that was strong on music and weak on doctrine. Leon was always gracious and careful to seek the best of situations, but on this occasion something got under his skin: ‘The minister exhorted the congregation to penetrate the real meaning of Christmas. I found no evidence that he had done so.’20
At the Fuller faculty Christmas party, the international guests were given the opportunity to tell a little of Christmas at home. They were given an unnamed warm drink. Leon noticed some near them put it down, saying it was apple cider. He and Mildred pressed on drinking … ‘Whatever it was it tasted very nice.’21 After attending the Westmont Christmas party, Leon remarked: ‘A thing I like about this Westmont mob is the way all sorts of people get together – professors and electricians seem all one in Christ Jesus.’22
On Christmas Day they attended a 10.30 a.m. Episcopalian choral service which was middle Anglican in style. The rector greeted them, and when Leon told him his name and position in Melbourne, ‘He couldn’t have cared less. He said “glad to have you; Merry Christmas” and turned to the next person. Nice to know Anglicans in this land are just as cold as back home.’23
In the days that followed, Leon read Stonehouse’s J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir24 and Carnell’s The Case for Orthodox Theology.25 He was in sympathy with Carnell’s theology but not his harsh criticism of other American Christians of like mind. ‘I think he has missed a golden opportunity. The need is for evangelical forces to come together, but this sort of thing cannot but drive them further apart.’26 He thought back on the uneasiness he felt existed among the Fuller staff … was it the theology or style of Carnell?
Leon and Mildred attended the New Year’s Day Rose Parade and loved the magnificent spectacle of huge floats covered with flowers led by Vice-President Nixon and his wife at the head of the procession. Mildred was buoyant: ‘I had never enjoyed anything so much; such congenial company, comprising floats, bands, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were on one float, another Swan Lake float was impressive.’27
Atlanta: Columbia
After a warm reception at Fuller and Westmont, in early 1960 Leon and Mildred caught a Super Constellation jet for Atlanta via St Louis. Leon and Mildred’s first impression of Atlanta in 1960 was of the deciduous trees, and houses. The city had a pleasant, open feel and the people were friendly and helpful. Nevertheless, Atlanta’s history and the legacy of the Civil War of 1861–4 remained embedded in the city’s psyche, a stark reminder of the country’s inability to solve the political and racial issues at its heart. Even though the slaves had been emancipated one hundred years earlier, there was still evidence of segregation, and a racist attitude persisted in parts of the population.
Columbia Theological Seminary occupied a beautiful site at Decatur on South Columbia Drive, not far from the city. The Morrises were accommodated at Columbia in two adjoining and spacious guest rooms with a connecting bathroom. The college arranged for staff to do their housework and the student dining-room meals were so good that Leon and Mildred did not need any extra food. They sorted out speaking engagements, opened bank accounts, paid bills, bought a typewriter for Leon and discovered the delights of one-stop shopping east of Atlanta at Belvedere. They described Belvedere to friends as ‘a shopping centre and nothing else. In the wonderful American fashion they have simply built a number of shops way out in the scrub.’28
Columbia faculty mostly lived off campus, eating in weekly and hosting students at their homes on rotation in batches of twenty for fellowship and coffee. Of the 250 students, about 60 per cent were married and lived in nearby apartments and drove to campus. Only a few married apartments were on campus. Leon got to know the students in an informal setting by taking advantage of the fact that most owned cars and liked driving people around. All his life, although able to drive, Leon seldom did so. Being among the students had many lighter moments. When introduced to a newly married couple who had just arrived at Columbia, Leon asked the wife if she liked cooking. ‘Yes’, she said, ‘but not every day.’ Leon and Mildred chuckled when another student, Marie Clarke, sitting nearby added, ‘Do you plan on feeding your husband every other day?’29 Some other students who regularly played the jukebox dedicated the song ‘Wild One’ to Leon.
While at Columbia, Leon attended faculty meetings where students’ prospects were discussed, papers reviewed, staff appointments noted and office-bearers elected, among all the other details covered in a robust staff setting. And he carefully observed the philosophy and approach of Richards. Leon lectured Tuesday to Saturday on the Greek of John’s Gospel and twice a week on the atonement. In preparing his lectures on John’s Gospel, Leon was also conducting research for his commentary on John. Thus, the Columbia students were the first to hear some of his material for the commentary. Leon’s reputation spread quickly; although his atonement lectures were an elective, it filled in record time with between fifty and sixty students enrolling. After Easter he lectured on 1 Corinthians and then Ephesians.
On his first visit to Columbia’s chapel, Leon sat with the students. His relaxed approach to ceremonial niceties and his manner created an immediately warm impression among the students, who asked him to run a weekly Bible study in one of their rooms and a devotional address once a week. The faculty took turns at leading chapel. One occasion that stood out for Leon was a service led by lecturer Wade Huie.30 It was clear that Huie knew God, and Leon was amazed at the depth of the worship led by this man. He felt they had really worshipped: ‘I’ll forgive him anything after the way he led Chapel this morning.’31 Leon also enjoyed a biblical exposition by Mr Prince, the librarian, and noted down Prince’s story of the generals talking about what they would do after the war: ‘I am going to sit on the porch in my rocking chair for six months. And after that I’ll start rocking.’
Mildred ran a regular Bible study for student wives and found herself constantly counselling young women and sometimes young married couples. Leon noticed just how many of the female students talked with her: ‘She really is doing a job here.’32 They went to many churches on Sundays; most of them were near Columbia, and they were always pleased when the sermon was credible. After attending a number of churches and listening to the sermons, Leon had cause to reflect on ‘how far can teaching build up people in the faith when it is based on wrong understanding of the Bible?’33 He was not bothered by different styles, different lengths, or being in another culture; rather, ‘I wondered whether a minister is entitled to use his pulpit for anything other than the setting forth of the Word of God?’34
Most of the churches they visited were Presbyterian, given the seminary’s background. They noted that qualified lay people conducted the Sunday-school classes for children and adults. Adult education like this was seldom seen at home and they thought it valuable. On one Sunday when they visited the First Baptist Church they noticed there were twelve baptisms. With his dry humour, Leon noted that some of the candidates were so young as to ‘raise the suspicion of infant baptism’.35 They found Holy Trinity Episcopal Church to their liking and enjoyed getting to know the rector and his family. Before Leon knew it he had an invitation to present some lectures at his evening ‘School of Religion’ and celebrate Communion.
Segregation
Richards was a courageous and influential leader at Columbia. He supported the end of segregation even though a number of Columbia’s supporters were less convinced or opposed. In his widely reported sermon, ‘Brothers in Black’, on 14 October 1940, Richards asked: ‘“Where is thy brother?” … Today … “where is thy brother in black” … by the same adoption they are received into his [Christ’s] family. Our brother in black is “all about us here today”.’ He then catalogued the economic, housing, educational, judicial and financial discriminations against blacks. He finished with a challenge: has our brother in black anything against us or not?36 On one occasion when Richards was travelling by Pullman Coach he was approached by a porter who had heard about Richards’ views and who told him, ‘Everything you said was true, but it seems like nobody will take our part.’37
Although Columbia had opened its doors to African-American students, one incident in 1960 illustrated the sensitivities of the situation. Despite the college’s policy of desegregation, it was deemed too controversial to include the one African-American student in the collective student photograph for that year and the student was removed.
Leon and Mildred’s own consciences were sensitized to this issue and their extensive comments on segregation showed the efforts they were making to apply their faith and reason to this seemingly intractable US problem. While the African-American clergy and lay people worked alongside white people in the Anglican Church – ‘That is something in these southern states’38 – Leon and Mildred heard a sermon in one reputable church where the segregation issue was affirmed as necessary. Mildred noted, ‘I don’t like this.’39
Not long before Leon and Mildred arrived, Atlanta’s schools had been ordered to admit African-American students in the academic year commencing September 1960. They recorded some observations in the aftermath of this decision:
There is determined opposition, and some are even advocating closing the schools. We are following it with great interest, but are a little saddened to find that practically all the politicians declare themselves implacably opposed to the admission of Negroes.40 That apparently is the way to get votes. But there are many responsible people who are doing all they can to keep the schools open, and the issue is far from clear.41
They could not help but notice when taking a trolleybus that although there were no segregation requirements, the African-Americans sat in the back. The ‘men’ and ‘coloured men’ toilet signs were still in place at Atlanta’s airport and in certain places African-Americans were unable to eat unless they stood. Such situations caused them to reflect in depth:
We could write a lot about the Negro problem, but content ourselves with one or two observations. There is no doubt that the Negroes have been, and still are, badly discriminated against. They must live in areas too small for their numbers so that slums easily develop. They are not encouraged – at least in the south – to engage in occupations that might raise their economic and social position. Educational facilities have been theoretically equal to those provided for the whites, but in practice much inferior as a rule. Negroes have reacted to this with one of two attitudes. The accommodationists have gone along with the whites trying to win the things they lack by sweet reasonableness. Others doubt that this approach will ever get anywhere and increasingly in recent times protest movements of one kind or another have emerged … The position is complicated by all sorts of things. In the south the whites fear mixed marriages, and this is behind many of the irrational things they do down here. Negroes are responsible for crimes far beyond their proportion in the population, and this enters into many discussions. But the most important thing, we think, is that the conscience of America is increasingly being roused by the plight of the Negro … We feel deeply for our American friends in this inextricable problem, and we like to think they are moving, slowly indeed, but moving towards its eventual solution.42
Speaking Engagements
Although Leon’s main task within Columbia Seminary was the normal lecture programme, ministry opportunities opened up across the south. These included speaking on the humanity and deity of Christ at an IVF conference in Atlanta; a locum position at an Anglican church – St Margaret’s Carrollton, 80 kilometres away – and addressing a gathering in Montgomery, Alabama, at the invitation of Robert Strong. Over time, Leon had to refuse some speaking invitations to preserve time for his teaching and research responsibilities. He did, however, undertake a prolonged speaking tour in early 1960.
Chattanooga and Dayton, Tennessee
In late February, Leon travelled with Mildred to Chattanooga, where Leon met with sixteen members of Billy Graham’s team, including George Beverley Shea and Tedd Smith. Leon was encouraged by how much Shea and Smith enthused over the recent trip to Australia. A month later Leon received an invitation to attend the Graham Team planning meetings in Switzerland in August. He had committed himself to other meetings, and it grieved him to say no to Graham’s personal invitation. Later, Graham sent Leon an autographed copy of The Secret of Happiness, his brief treatment of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.43 Leon liked the book and appreciated the gesture, commenting: ‘another brush with fame – very nice of the boy.’44
In Dayton, Leon preached at the Methodist church followed by three days of lecturing at Bryan College, a liberal arts college with some 270 students studying for the Bachelor of Arts degree. He spoke on aspects of the atonement – redemption, reconciliation and justification – at a level scaled down for younger students, and discussed theological trends with the staff.
New York City and Region
After Mildred flew back alone to Atlanta in early March, Leon flew direct from Chattanooga to Newark Airport, New York. For the first time Leon saw the blazing lights of New York and later was given a short tour of the city: ‘I got quite excited and the Empire State Building stands out in lofty splendour.’45 Travelling north he gave three days of lectures to students at Nyack College. The New York region experienced its heaviest falls of snow for eleven years, which prevented some at Nyack from hearing Leon.
Boston and Beverly Farms, Massachusetts
Leon’s first speaking engagement after flying from New York to Boston was at the Collegiate Club of the Park Street Congregational Church. His original topic was ‘General Trends in Modern Theology’ but he was more than surprised to see the topic listed as ‘Modern Critics of the New Testament’. The minister explained that this seemed to be the need, so in the few minutes during the hymn Leon revised his talk. The level of questions and response was thick and fast so he judged he must have passed muster. He met pastor Harold Ockenga and scholar Roger Nicole in Boston and developed an instant rapport with Nicole that continued over the years through their correspondence on the atonement.
The major engagement was on 7–10 March at Gordon Divinity School at Beverly Farms, where Leon gave eight John A. McElwain lectures on ‘The Atonement in the New Testament’. At the conclusion of these lectures he was met with prolonged applause, such was his impact over successive nights.46 Five years later and after more work, the expanded version of these talks appeared in the book, The Cross in the New Testament, a major encyclopaedic resource.47
Why the prolonged applause? Leon himself answers this question. To quote his approach to the gospels, for example, which occupied about half the talks and a chunk in the book: ‘I have assumed the authenticity of many sayings … Unless the Gospels are substantially reliable we cannot know what Jesus thought and said and did.’48 Leon’s continued adherence to the meaning of words, and to the logic, historical value and coherence of the New Testament record, allowed him, his listeners and his readers to experience a deep but uncomplicated analysis of the New Testament teaching. Godly truth was transmitted as a result of Leon’s ability to cover a lot of ground and present a clear summary of the material combined with his own spiritual vitality that influenced his teaching and application.
Back to Columbia
Leon was back at Columbia in time to give its Honours Day address on 6 April 1960. It was the first of its type and an honour for Leon. Throughout Easter’s Holy Week he spoke each day except one, a rare privilege for a guest lecturer. Good Friday was a normal working day, with college lectures continuing and a longer chapel service scheduled.
Meanwhile, Mildred enjoyed seeing how God was leading her to be involved. After Columbia’s Manford Gutske49 finished a series of Bible studies for the young wives, which was well received, a young couple expressed their opinion to Mildred that there was a need for deeper personal holiness among the students. As she contemplated this, God impressed on her the text: ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’50 This gave her the motivation to take on whatever came her way, including one-on-one counselling and prayer sessions, individual and group Bible studies, and speaking at the nearby children’s home – ‘These poor little kids are certainly hungry for love.’
After addressing one group from Belhaven College, which she believed were mostly wives, she said:
I nearly dropped when afterwards as I talked to folk I realized that there were lady professors on the staff of Bryan College. But as I talked with the professor of Christian education I couldn’t help thanking God for the way in which He had taken the message and applied it in a most acceptable way to the academic folk. It was a thing outside of my doing. Something I hadn’t experienced before. I do praise Him.51
Earlier Richards had asked Leon if he would go to Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage the people there through a difficult time. The college’s Clan Call news sheet welcomed Leon and noted the pressures on students from existentialism and virtually every other ‘ism’. It then announced: ‘Dr. Morris calls the student to the cross.’52 Leon spoke on ‘Redemption’, ‘Propitiation’, ‘Reconciliation’ and ‘Justification’, topics that focused on the heart of the Christian faith, the certainty of Christ and his work, and the encouragement that God was at work. Over lunch, to his delight, the students plagued him with many questions about Australia. He and Mildred liked Jackson, ‘very beautiful … with the new spring greenery coming on, it looked its best’, the city where Congress decided to secede from the Union at the time of the Civil War.
It was during this period that Leon also prepared for the Dr G. Campbell Morgan lecture he was to give in England in June. He also checked the manuscript for Spirit of the Living God,53 proofs for The Story of the Christ Child,54 and wrote twelve articles on the atonement for journals and dictionaries including one on the penal view of atonement for His magazine.
There were more trips to New York City. During one late plane trip home to Atlanta he was offered a glass of champagne and it dawned on him that he was in first class. He noticed he was the only one to refuse the champagne.
While Leon was at Columbia, the liberal theologian A.T. Whale visited. Whale had also written on the atonement and a debate was proposed between them. On hearing about this, Leon was concerned he might end up as ‘minced meat’. He was deeply disappointed after hearing Whale’s first talk, as he felt that the theologian used humour to conceal the poverty of his thinking. The use of humour itself was not the issue, as Leon used it himself for light and shade. However, he reacted against scholars who had not done their homework. After the second talk from Whale, Leon felt that he was trying to draw him into the immediate discussion, ‘but I declined. It was his night and I didn’t want it to descend into a dog fight.’ The proposed debate did not eventuate as Whale declined the invitation. Leon was relieved, taking the phlegmatic attitude that ‘I was glad it was not I who squibbed’. But Whale’s refusal inflamed Columbia’s staff for they knew of a Georgian student who had argued in an essay for penal substitution and had been so harshly criticized by Whale that he questioned his suitability for ministry. A Columbia staff member summarized the feeling well: ‘Where is all this liberal courage? He was willing enough to take on an ignorant Georgian boy but when it is a matter of a first rate scholar it is a different matter.’55
Many remarked on Leon’s generally calm demeanour. His diary is peppered with ‘But that, I guess, is life’. This saying often appeared after events which seemed odd but over which he had no control. If Leon needed a break from academic reading, he watched sport. On one occasion he was given a ticket for the local baseball team, the ‘Crackers’, and he sat behind the catcher for a sensational view. On another occasion he saw Australia’s Ken Rosewall playing ‘Pancho’ Gonzales on the professional tennis circuit. Leon approached Rosewall: ‘It was quite an experience to meet one of the greats. He is a pleasant bloke.’56 But more usually he visited the library, and on one occasion he was excited to find an Agatha Christie novel he had not read. On Sunday afternoons, reading an Agatha Christie was one way of keeping the Sabbath. Apparently, alongside his daily devotions, reading of people murdered and crimes solved refreshed his soul.
Mildred and Leon’s time in Atlanta concluded at the end of May 1960. They experienced terrific hospitality in the south and recorded ‘the great friendliness we have met on every hand. The kindness of the average American … has to be seen to be believed. Wherever we have been people have gone out of their way, and a considerable distance out of their way, to do all they can to help us.’57
An Interlude in England
In between leaving Columbia and moving to Westminster, Leon and Mildred flew first class on a BOAC Comet 508 to England for a series of speaking engagements. Leon’s publisher, Inchley, met them in London and told Leon that IVP USA had taken three thousand copies of his book, Spirit of the Living God, without seeing it. ‘That’s faith or foolhardiness,’ Leon reflected.58 While in London they listened to Martyn Lloyd Jones at Westminster Chapel for an hour and four minutes – ‘Very good – could have shortened it’59 – and on 14 June Leon gave a talk at the chapel based on his book, The Dead Sea Scrolls and St. John’s Gospel.60
In this book, Leon assessed the significance of the scrolls for the understanding of the Fourth Gospel. Points of contact between the scrolls, which were written by a small Jewish sect, and the New Testament were most evident in John’s Gospel. Various theories circulated concerning the link between Christianity and these scrolls: Christianity may have evolved from the religious practices recorded in the scrolls, the scrolls may have been Christian documents, or there may have been no connection at all. Leon concluded that the indirect connections between the scrolls and John’s Gospel in no way challenged the uniqueness of Christianity. This lecture, which over one thousand people attended, was well received, and it was a significant event in terms of raising his profile in the largely nonconformist English church. In his typically self-deprecating style, he later recorded his feelings about the talk: ‘I had liberty and was encouraged that people laughed at my jokes and did not obviously fall asleep.’61
Job Offers
Following some other church commitments, Leon attended the annual Tyndale Fellowship, which convened in Cambridge. Leon felt that this aspect of Tyndale’s operations had not advanced much in quality since 1951 because it had admitted some students who were not of a sufficiently high standard.62
The most important meeting of Leon’s trip to England was with Dr Johnson on 21 July. Johnson raised the issue of the wardenship of Tyndale House, as Warden John Bridger had suddenly resigned on the grounds of ill health.63 Johnson informed Leon that a committee would consider the appointment the next Wednesday and that his name was on the list. He told Leon that there was every possibility of him being selected unless Leon decided to pull out. Leon reflected: ‘It’s all disturbing, but might be the Lord’s challenge … so we must pray and think.’64 He allowed his name to stay on the list and was duly offered the position.
Leon and Mildred headed back to the USA late July via Canada. From Montreal they drove 240 kilometres to a three-week graduate school conference at ‘Campus in the Woods’ on Fairview Island, Ontario. Leon lectured on The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel, on John the Baptist and on selections from John’s Gospel.
While they were away, they received a letter from Babbage in which he more or less wished them well at Tyndale House. He had correctly perceived that Leon’s long study leave was more than a temporary break and that God had other things planned for him. Leon and Mildred took Babbage’s letter as guidance and two days later they decided: ‘no point pussy footing around anymore, so I wrote the letter to DJ [Douglas Johnson] accepting the Wardenship.’65
Leon and Mildred now knew they were on their way to England for several years. However, the pre-arranged American programme continued after the summer break, in Philadelphia, until January 1961, before a brief return to Australia. During the remaining break, Leon and Mildred headed to Pensacola for a ten-day Presbyterian Church Summer Institute where Leon spoke nine times from John’s Gospel. Then, in transit in Atlanta, Leon received an unofficial but serious job offer to return to Columbia permanently; a generous package of US$10,000 was mentioned. However, he had just accepted the position at Tyndale and he wasn’t a Presbyterian.
Philadelphia: Westminster
Westminster, near the wooded and manicured suburb of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, was purchased in 1937. It comprised a large central house built in stone and other original buildings such as a carriage house and two gatehouses. Later, a large library and lecture room complex were added.
Westminster Theological Seminary was a reformed college and was founded after the 1929 split from Princeton when J. Gresham Machen, other academics and some fifty students began a new seminary. Westminster retained a conservative stance on the Bible and Leon tapped into it. He held a similar respect for Scripture with an equally impressive commitment to the original languages and a quality treatment of the text. In 1960, Westminster had a faculty list reading like the Who’s Who of conservative evangelical scholarship. C. Van Til, N.B. Stonehouse, J. Murray, E.J. Young, M. Kline and E. Clowney featured. Arriving by DC7 Delta flight 724, on Leon’s first day at Westminster, he heard Old Testament scholar Young preach and met Stonehouse face to face.
Lecturing at Westminster would occupy Leon from September through to January 1961. He taught students a general introduction to the New Testament and presented a series of graduate classes on the Gospel of John. He also taught 1 and 2 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. He was in his element, with his phenomenal linguistic and textual ability. While Leon lectured, Mildred got involved in the ‘Wives Club’ as well as family nights on topics such as ‘The Christian in a Changing World’.
As word spread in Philadelphia, Leon began to receive invitations to preach at various churches. He attended the Reformed Episcopal Church and several times ministered at Calvary Church.66 Friends from IVF convinced him to speak on the life of Christ over a two-day Penn Fellowship gathering, and he also accepted the invitation to meet with the local Episcopalian bishop. While at Westminster, Leon attended a meeting to discuss possible local involvement in a Graham crusade. Of all the platform speakers, he was the only one without reservations about holding a crusade. It depressed him: ‘The meeting revealed a concern for theological orthodoxy that transcended concern for evangelism.’67 Leon believed that the greatest miracle of all was the conversion of a person. He held that the ‘other works’ for us to do that were described in John 14:1268 were to win more souls for Christ.
Not long after, Leon and Mildred watched the first debate between Nixon and Kennedy, feeling that Nixon got the better of Kennedy, as Kennedy was nervous. They missed the second but saw the third debate. Leon reflected that a quick wit and good presence might win the day but were not necessarily the desirable qualities of a president. But ‘that, I guess, is life’.69 They thought Kennedy would get over the line.
Leon now pressed on with writing his manuscript for The Cross in the New Testament, and fifteen pages a day of notes on John’s Gospel in preparation for the commentary. He had a break on Thanksgiving Day, the night of which was marked by a debate between Martin Luther King Jr and a Virginian segregationist. Towards the end of term he had completed just over four hundred pages of The Cross in the New Testament manuscript and had reached chapter 7 of the commentary on John.70 He took some time off with Mildred in December and explored Philadelphia before preaching at the Reformed Episcopal Church on Christmas Day.
Leaving America
In January 1961 Leon and Mildred moved back to the west coast as they prepared to leave the States. On 4 January, they thanked God for twenty years of marriage. The east-to-west transition by train allowed them to take a side trip from Denver, to visit a church in Trinidad, Colorado, where Leon’s uncle had ministered. A window inscription read: ‘In memory of Leon Ernest Morris D.D. 1928–1945.’ For Leon, it was a ‘strange and moving experience to be in a church where my namesake labored for 17 years. After a little prayer and meditation we went on our way.’71
Upon their brief return to Fuller, Leon gave a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which was the best-attended evening lecture in Fuller’s history. This was despite Leon’s concerns that the subject was not riveting enough.
Leon had arrived in the USA as a name known to a few. He left as a person loved for his championing of the gospel based on scholarly foundations. He continued to commend the view that conservative evangelical Christians can be academically outstanding and spiritually effective. By working at Fuller, Columbia and Westminster he had gained acceptance among his peers and encouraged great minds who shared common core beliefs. Mildred equally grew in confidence and leadership in her spheres. Together, they generously poured their efforts into countless churches, organizations and events and shared a deep commitment to sharing the good news with those not yet Christian.
Although Leon could have returned to Ridley, upon reflection, this was always unlikely considering how he set up his year away in the USA. As a ‘free agent’, he was able to recognize God’s timing in the Tyndale job and prepare himself to take up this new challenge.