The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Publishing Miracle 3: The Clergy

In my last post, I talked about how The Christian Century advertised the novel Magnificent Obsession heavily and consistently from October 1929 (just before its release) onward. Because The Christian Century was read primarily by mainstream ministers and lay leaders, this was a good strategy. The Century’s readership was an audience of influencers – people who would not only read the book but also, if properly motivated, share their opinion of it with their own audiences. And in this case, many of them were motivated, not only by the fact that they were already Lloyd Douglas fans (due to his frequent articles in the Century) but also by the provocative way he wrote this book. As one prominent minister said, Douglas presented his material “in such a fascinating way, we do not know that he is talking about religion” (quotation from Rev. John Warren Day in article, “DAY REVIEWS BOOK,” name of newspaper not given, n.d. In Douglas’s Magnificent Obsession Scrapbook, Box 6, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan).

In that era, it was common for mainstream ministers to review noteworthy books in their sermons. Douglas himself did it quite often. In the case of Magnificent Obsession, however, ministers not only reviewed it from their own pulpits but also published articles in denominational magazines and gave presentations about it at diocesan conferences.

In Douglas’s private papers, I found a typewritten list of influencers who were especially helpful in spreading the word about Magnificent Obsession. (The list is in “Miscellanea [3],” Box 4.) Out of those several pages of names, I found 21 ministers:

*Rev. Preston Bradley, The Peoples Church, Chicago, IL
*Rev. W. H. Upton, Davenport, IA
*Rev. Dr. Ralph Welles Keeler, Goodsell Memorial Methodist Episcopal, Brooklyn, NY
*Dr. Frank G. Smith, First Central Congregational Church, Omaha, NE
*Rev. E. D. Hood, Terre Haute, IN
*Rev. John Warren Day, Dean of Grace Cathedral, Topeka, KS
*Dr. H. P. Dewey, Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis, WI
*Rev. F. G. Forrester, Nome Federated Church, Nome, AK
*Rev. F. W. Kerr, St. Andrews Church, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
*Rev. Rolla S. Kenaston, Fourth Street Methodist Church, Moberly, MO
*Dr. Victor W. Thrall, First Methodist Church, Battle Creek, MI
*Rev. Elbert Paul, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
*Rev. J. Whitcomb Brougher, Jr., Tremont Temple Baptist Church, Glendale, CA
*Rev. Arthur E. Fish, Congregational Church, Keokuk, IA
*Rev. Dr. A. P. Record, First Unitarian Church, Detroit, MI
*Dr. Torrance Phelps, First Congregational Church, Kalamazoo, MI
*Dr. L. Wendell Fifield, Plymouth Church, Seattle, WA
*Rev. George O. Fallis, Canadian Memorial Church, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
*Rev. L. M. Rymph, Fairmount Community Church, Wichita, KS
*Rev. Paul H. Krauss, D.D., Trinity English Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
*Dr. Newton Powell, United Church of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

And there were others about whom Douglas didn’t learn until later. A friend told him that Dr. James Wise, Bishop of the Diocese of Kansas in the Episcopal Church, was preaching a series of Lenten Noonday Meetings in Chicago that spring (1931), and that he devoted one entire meeting to an enthusiastic review of Magnificent Obsession. The friend added that Bishop Wise told him after the talk “that he kept four or five copies [of Magnificent Obsession] in circulation through his Diocese in Kansas” (Jewell Stevens to LCD, 4/30/1931. In Jewell Stevens File, Morris Library Special Collections, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale).

Douglas would also later give credit to Bishop Robert Nelson Spencer of the West Missouri Diocese of the Episcopal Church and Dr. William Stidger of the Boston University School of Theology, both of whom remained enthusiastic supporters of his novels all through subsequent years.

As I’ve explained in previous posts, local newspapers gave much more coverage to churchmen in the early twentieth century than they do now. What a minister said in the pulpit made headlines, provided he was skilled at presenting the editor with usable soundbites. Because of that, when these pastors preached about Magnificent Obsession, they were influencing not only their own congregations but also the larger community. Here are just a couple of examples of newspaper clippings in Douglas’s Magnificent Obsession Scrapbook:

We can easily see how word spread about Douglas’s book. Many of the parishioners of these churches bought it and read it… and told others. And that leads me to another group of influencers that was, arguably, even more important than the clergy. On Douglas’s list of important influencers that I mentioned earlier, there are many more of these names than there are of ministers. I’m referring to women’s book groups, and I’ll tell you about them in my next post.

Publishing Miracle 2: The Christian Century

by Ronald R Johnson

In a previous post I said that Lloyd Douglas must have felt he was going back to square one when he submitted his manuscript of Magnificent Obsession to Willett, Clark & Colby, a two-year-old company that was run by the same people who published The Christian Century. But it is safe to say that Douglas’s novel wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if it had been brought out by a name-brand publisher.

The Christian Century, having a vested interest in the success of Magnificent Obsession, advertised the book prominently and kept doing so – relentlessly – for the next few years. And since, as Douglas later said, they were taking the funds from one pocket of their trousers and putting it into the other, they could afford to do this. Douglas would later complain that Willett did very little publishing outside The Christian Century, but (as I’ll show in the next post) it was immensely beneficial to the book to receive such lavish attention from the Century.

Here is a full-page ad from the October 23, 1929, issue:

They didn’t include ads in every issue after that, but when they did, there were usually two of them: one from the publisher and another from “The Christian Century Book Service” (a book club tailored to the needs of clergy and lay leaders). Here’s the Book Service ad from November 13, 1929:

Ministers and laypeople who subscribed to The Christian Century were reminded again and again about Douglas’s novel over the many months that followed. And they kept it current, creating new ads whenever a prominent minister wrote something favorable about the book.

In the June 11, 1930, issue, under the headline, “LIFTED UP THEIR HEADS,” the publisher wrote, “In the rapid coming and going of many books, these books have lifted up their heads and will not be put down. The reading public discerns their value – and buys them.” Five books are listed, including Magnificent Obsession.

At this point, they were exaggerating. Willett, Clark & Colby was a very small fish in a big pond, and they had only been in business for a few years. Their claim to have published five books of importance was just hype. Even Magnificent Obsession wasn’t selling that well yet. Its first printing, in November 1929, was of 3,000 copies. Those sold quickly, so Willett ran a second printing of 3,000 that same month. But despite their claim in June 1930 that the book had “lifted up its head,” there were, at that point, only 6,000 copies in existence. It wasn’t until August that they ran a third printing of 3,000. After that, however, things took off. Their ads became increasingly newsy, announcing each new printing with mounting excitement:

Third printing, August, 1930
Fourth printing, October, 1930
Fifth printing, January, 1931
Sixth printing, March, 1931

Testimonials by respected ministers were printed. Reviews from increasingly important newspapers were excerpted. And now it was no longer just hype. In the April 29, 1931, issue of the Century, the publisher ran a full-page ad with the headline, “SUCCESSFUL!” Immediately under this, they printed the following quotation.

“A book which was published in November, 1929, has for some time been appearing on the best seller lists of mid-western stores, and this month its percentage brought it up among the leading twenty-five books of fiction. This is MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, by Lloyd C. Douglas….”

from Publishers’ Weekly, April 18, 1931

“Publishers’ Weekly,” the ad explained, “is the recognized book trade journal. Its ‘best seller’ records are compiled from reports issued by bookstores all over the country.”

The ad continues:

“Hundreds of subscribers to THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY have already read this amazing story by the pastor of St. James United Church, Montreal, Canada. Ministers in all parts of this country have taken MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION into the pulpit and have broadcast its message to their congregations. It has become a best seller in many cities, and the demand for copies, after eighteen months, is increasing! (The average life of most books of fiction is but a few weeks.)”

This was all true. In terms of sales, most books do what they’re going to do within weeks of publication; or at any rate, publishers expect immediate results and do not give long-term support to most books. Magnificent Obsession surprised people in the industry by climbing up to the bestseller lists slowly, over the course of a year and a half. That was due, in large part, to the fact that the publisher kept hammering away at subscribers of The Christian Century, reminding them about the book. The ad concludes:

“The publishers believe that every subscriber to The Christian Century, layman as well as minister, would profit by the reading of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION. Order a copy from your bookstore today…”

And, of course, as the novel climbed farther and farther up the NY bestseller lists, the ads in the Century kept announcing that fact, along with news of subsequent printings:

“Seventh printing, May, 1931
Eighth printing, July, 1931,
…and the current demand for copies is greater than ever before!” says one ad.

What’s ironic is that those “hundreds of subscribers” mentioned in the April 29, 1931, ad were the key to the book’s success. It all started with the advertising, but the “publishing miracle” was largely due to the response of Christian Century readers.

[To be continued…]

Anatomy of a Publishing Miracle

by Ronald R Johnson

In November 1929, just after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, a gaudy-colored book with an enigmatic title was released to the world by a little-known publishing company in Chicago, far from all the action. It would take a year and a half for the industry to notice its appearance, but another year later they’d treat the book as a phenomenon. Noel Busch, in an article for Life Magazine, called Magnificent Obsession “a publishing miracle.”

There was little about the book that would attract readers. The publisher’s description on the cover was completely unhelpful. “A novel of strong color and varied interests,” they said, “dealing with strange, transforming life forces.” If books are truly judged by their covers, this one might have turned off a lot of people. What was the book about? And why should we care?

The inside flyleaf was more effective. It elaborated on the theme of mystery…

“Within the first third of the book,” it said, “you come to this…”

‘I wonder what was on that page.’

He laughed. ‘That was what Hudson wanted to know. Now it’s your question – and mine.’ He gripped her arm in strong fingers. ‘And – no matter how stiffly we revolt against this thing, we’re sure to be sneaking back to it.’

She nodded without looking up. ‘It’s likely to make us as nutty as he was!’

Bobby strolled to the window… ‘I can’t afford to dabble in such stuff! You can go into it if you want to. I’m out!’

Nancy’s voice was husky.

‘You’ll not be able to get away from it! You’re too far in! It’s got you! … A form of insanity, maybe; but you may as well come along – first as last!’

It reads like a detective novel. What have they gotten into? Sounds dangerous. And sexy. A man, a woman. He grips her arm. She has a husky voice. The whole thing has a seductive quality, drawing us in. What the woman says to the man is really meant for us: “It’s got you! You may as well come along…”

But first we have to become interested enough to pick up the ugly orange book and read the flyleaf. (Sorry. Maybe you like orange. Maybe it made people want to pick it up and read it. It certainly was “a book of strong color.” My own opinion, however, is that it would have appeared gaudy, especially since bookstores at first displayed it in their Religion section, where only ministers and very religious people tended to browse.)

The fact that the book became both a bestseller and a classic (and is still in print a century later) is indeed a “publishing miracle.” But thanks to Douglas’s scrapbooks and correspondence, we can analyze how it all unfolded. Over the next dozen posts, I’ll give a detailed explanation: the anatomy of a publishing miracle.

Farewell, Loose Angels… Hello, Montreal!

by Ronald R Johnson

As I mentioned in earlier posts, in November 1928 (to be effective January 1929) Lloyd Douglas resigned as Senior Minister of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles because there was a small but determined group of members who were opposed to him, and he refused to let the congregation fight over him. Unfortunately, that meant that he was out of work at a time when he badly needed funds. His daughters were studying in France, and he had to get money to them, either to stay there or to come home.

It took a few months, but in March 1929 he was invited to preach at St. James United Church of Montreal, and they ended up extending a call to him. It was a big change from sunny California to what his daughter Virginia later called “the Land of the Frozen North” (Dawson and Wilson, The Shape of Sunday, 220). But it was also a godsend. Despite the few members of his Los Angeles congregation who didn’t like his message, Douglas was at the height of his powers as a preacher, and the sermons he delivered in Montreal are some of his best. At any rate, he was glad to say farewell to “Loose Angels” (his words, not mine).

St. James United Church of Montreal. From the congregation’s website: https://www.stjamesmontreal.ca/about-us/our-history.

St. James was (and is) a big church. On April 1st, 1929, Douglas wrote, “Yesterday was a red-letter day at the church. Fully two thousand were there in the morning and at night hundreds stood around the walls after the place was packed. Large chorus choir of excellent voices led by superb soloists accompanied by organ, piano and orchestra. It was quite lifting” (Shape of Sunday, 222). And very much in synch with Douglas’s way of doing church.

“A most intelligent audience,” he continued. “I couldn’t flatter myself they came to hear me.” After the rejection he had experienced in Los Angeles, it was hard for him, at first, to believe that people wanted to hear him preach. But they did, and after a while he allowed himself to accept that fact.

Even his Sunday night services attracted crowds. As he told his Akron friends, the James Van Vechtens, on April 12, “my Sunday night mob here, as compared intellectually with some I’ve seen, are a lot of Platos, Aristotles and Einsteins…. They all looked pretty intelligent to me from where I stood. Of course, I can’t see very well. And I’m a stranger here. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun and I’m glad we came” (Shape of Sunday, 223).

In the meantime, since Harper & Brothers had rejected his novel Salvage, Douglas tried to find another publisher. George Doran of Doubleday, Doran had expressed an interest in Douglas’s writings as early as the nineteen-teens. (See my earlier post on Douglas’s manuscript entitled, The Mendicant.) Douglas sent Doran the manuscript of Salvage, but he declined it for the same reason he had declined The Mendicant: because it wasn’t religious enough.

Douglas tried one more time. With this next company he was a shoe-in and he knew it: Eugene Exman at Harper had suggested a newly-established Chicago firm called Willett, Clark, and Colby, owned by the same people who published the Christian Century. And Douglas was one of the Century’s favorite writers. “The Christian Century and Willett, Clark & Co. are all the same thing as to brick and mortar, men and money,” Douglas explained a few years later.

Although it was fairly certain that they’d publish the manuscript, Douglas was taking a huge step backwards. His first book had been published by the Christian Century Press in 1920, but afterwards he upgraded to more prestigious firms: Scribner, then Harper. Giving his book to Christian Century people was like going back to square one.

But he did so, and Willett, Clark, and Colby accepted the manuscript, bringing it to press in the fall of 1929. When he sent it to them, he had changed the name of the book one last time. He called it Magnificent Obsession.

Harper’s Verdict

by Ronald R Johnson

Eugene Exman to LCD, 1/8/1929. In LCD Correspondence 1926-1930, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Box 1, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. The University of Michigan holds copyright.

Over the last dozen posts I’ve been talking about Lloyd Douglas’s work on a novel called Salvage during the summer of 1928 (what would later become known as Magnificent Obsession) and of Harper & Brothers’ attempts to make sense out of it. Douglas had put two very different genres together: a novel (specifically, a hospital drama) and a non-fiction treatise about the first few verses of Matthew 6.

In January 1929, Eugene Exman, Harper’s religion editor, gave Douglas his company’s verdict. Four members of the Literary Department had read the updated version and recommended against publication as a novel. They categorized it “between the manuscripts that were almost good enough to publish and those which were obviously important enough to publish.” In his earlier correspondence, Exman had used words like “good enough” and “important enough” to assess the book’s marketability, not its literary quality. Years later, he would claim publicly that the head of the Literary Department considered the book “second-rate fiction and not deserving of the Harper imprint,” but nothing was said about that in his letters at the time. If it was true, however, then it added an extra layer of complexity to Douglas’s task: although he was using fiction techniques to communicate his message, he was under no illusion that he could be regarded as a serious – much less, first-rate – novelist. That wasn’t what he was trying to do at this stage in his career.

True to his word, Exman then tried to publish the book as religious non-fiction. As Harper’s Religion Editor, he had the authority to do that. In retrospect, it seems like a strange move, since Douglas had clearly written the book in novelistic form; but if it was a choice between treating it as a religious book or not publishing it at all, Exman chose the former. But first, he had to get the opinion of an expert.

He sent the manuscript to an anonymous but “prominent” churchman. I’m going to hazard a guess here: it very well might have been Harry Emerson Fosdick. I say that for two reasons. First, because Exman was then a member of Park Avenue Baptist Church, where Fosdick preached while Riverside Church was being built for him. Second, because Exman was patiently trying to win Fosdick over to Harper from Macmillan, and he eventually succeeded. They published 17 books together. (Stephen Prothero, God, the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2023), p. 41).

But whether I’m right or not, Exman showed the manuscript to some “prominent” churchman, who in turn shared it with three other “very discerning people.” The clergyman rejected the book’s thesis and advised against publication on theological grounds. And with good reason, one might argue. The book seemed to promise worldly success. A lot of explaining would be necessary to translate the story into anything resembling traditional Christian theology. That was Douglas’s intention, of course: to speak the language of the unchurched and get them interested in Jesus without sounding like a preacher. But the prominent churchman that Exman consulted was unwilling to go along with it.

“Whether his point is well taken is not of such great importance,” Exman told Douglas. “The thing which concerns me is that the publication of the manuscript would not get his backing as well as the backing of the group in the church he represents.” Once again, the main obstacle was economic. Exman had reason to believe that the book wouldn’t sell.

In brief, then: Harper had carefully considered publishing the book, but the editors were uncertain whether it could meet their sales goal. Would it do better as a novel or as a religious tract? Their answer was, Neither.

Douglas had hoped to present the Christian gospel in practical terms and to spread his message to an audience far beyond the confines of the church. His book was an experimental piece of writing that could possibly help him attain that goal, but “possibly” was the operative word. Eugene Exman realized that the book was unusual, but he lacked evidence that the general public would recognize its worth. Without that assurance, he could not take the financial risk. “I really believe that it should be published,” he told Douglas, “although this may seem a paradoxical statement; I am sorry the imprint of our House will not appear on your book when it does go out.”

The situation was paradoxical indeed, for Eugene Exman, perhaps more than any other religion editor, went on to publish the books that would both create and give direction to what we now call the SBNR movement (Spiritual But Not Religious). Late in his career, he considered Douglas’s book the one that got away (Prothero, p. 276).

Thirsty Fish

by Ronald R Johnson

I told you in my last post that Eugene Exman, Religion Editor at Harper and Brothers, was working with the Literary Department in the fall of 1928 to get Douglas’s novel Salvage accepted for publication. In November, Douglas told Exman he had come up with a much better title for the book.

LCD to Eugene Exman, 11/15/1928. In LCD Correspondence 1926-1930, Box 1, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. The University of Michigan holds copyright to this item.

“Not at any time have I been entirely satisfied with the name Salvage,” he told Exman. “By the time I had reached the third chapter, the book had outgrown the ‘salvage’ concept.” (And there was a reason for that: because the novel Salvage had now been combined with the thesis of his non-fiction book, Exploring Your Soul, making it an entirely different story than he had originally planned.) “I have hit upon a title now that will be sufficiently cryptic to be intriguing to the reader’s curiosity and yet significant enough to be entirely comprehensible to him in due time. I am calling the book…”

(Drum roll, please…)

“…Thirsty Fish.”

Exman must have blinked a few times before responding. “I must confess frankly that it doesn’t register at all with me.”

Nor with me. There is nothing in his private papers that tells us what the proposed title meant to him. Obviously, a thirsty fish is an oxymoron, for a fish lives in water. In reference to Bobby Merrick, the hero of the novel, was Douglas implying that he was surrounded by material wealth but was poor in spiritual things? Or that the spiritual help he needed most was all around him and he didn’t know it? We simply don’t have enough evidence to guess what Douglas had in mind.

The nearest thing to a clue comes from Douglas’s novel Forgive Us Our Trespasses, although that’s getting way ahead of the story. Near the end of that book, Dinny Brumm gets the idea for a novel called Thirst. It’s based on Ecclesiastes 12:6, in which the Hebrew writer advises remembering God before the time of adversity, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.” (Douglas was quoting from the King James Version.) The idea here is that the person becomes thirsty even unto death, because he no longer has a way to draw water from the well. But that seems like a very different idea from the image of a thirsty fish.

At any rate, Exman never forgot it. Years later, when he wrote an official company history, he included Douglas and his book as a comical sidenote and livened up the story by claiming that, from the very start, Douglas had sent him the manuscript with it already titled as Thirsty Fish (Eugene Exman, The House of Harper: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Publishing (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 223.)

Meanwhile, Exman and his associates got down to work reading the updated manuscript. As I mentioned in a previous post, Douglas was in trouble. To avert disruption from a core group of conservatives in his congregation in Los Angeles, he had resigned, effective January 1929. He didn’t have any other positions lined up, and both of his daughters were now studying in Europe. He needed an income – immediately. The new book became more important than ever…

X-Man

by Ronald R Johnson

In the summer of 1928, after Lloyd Douglas had combined his novel Salvage with the non-fiction material he had been working up in Exploring Your Soul, he reached out to his most recent publisher to tell them what he was doing.

Douglas’s non-fiction book, Those Disturbing Miracles, had been published by Harper and Brothers the previous year. Since its release, Harper’s Religion Editor had died and was replaced by Eugene Exman, a young man who had recently earned a Masters degree in Religion from the University of Chicago; his mentor had been Shailer Mathews. Because of the influence Mathews had on Douglas early in his career, it seemed like a good fit. (For more information on Exman, see Stephen Prothero, God, the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2023).)

Exman was very interested in what Douglas was doing. But there was a problem. Because the book was technically a novel and he was the Religion Editor, he had to refer the manuscript to the Literary Department. And that’s where the problem came into sharper focus: what genre was this book?

It comes down to this: publishing is a business, and it costs money to print books and distribute them to bookstores. Publishers have to believe that they will recoup their losses before they agree to publish a book. In the case of Douglas’s earlier books, they fit neatly under the heading, “Non-fiction, Religious,” and his publishers knew exactly who would buy them: ministers. All they had to do was add up the number of ministers in North America who could reasonably be expected to buy the book, and that would tell them (roughly) how much revenue the book would earn. It wouldn’t be much, but that was to be expected for religious non-fiction.

In the case of this new book, however, it wasn’t clear who would buy it… or whether anyone would. In September 1928, Exman reported to Douglas that there was “a divergence of opinion” among the members of the Literary Department, “and this divergence of opinion [about the book] largely centers on the sale possibility it has…. We all agree that your manuscript does have literary merit,” he said, but they worried that it would not sell enough copies: “in its present form we cannot be sure that it is good enough to get out of the class of ‘just another novel.’” Despite that evaluative term “good enough,” the focus was on sales. “If… you could indicate in a conservative way what demand there would be for the book [in cities] where you have friends, that would also be of distinct help to us in making a final decision as to its publication.”

On an internal memo, William H. Briggs from the Literary Department confirmed that this was the main consideration. After typing a list of suggestions for improvement from a literary standpoint, he then wrote in pen, beside his initials, an estimate of potential sales: 500 to the religious trade and 1000 to members of Douglas’s past congregations. If it was going to be presented to the public as a novel, then their goal was to sell at least ten thousand copies. Beneath this he wrote “general trade” (the general public, in other words) but was unable to make an estimate. That was the point at issue. In order for the book to reach the sales goal, it would have to appeal to the public. Douglas had written the book with a wider audience in mind, but the editors at Harper were uncertain whether the general public would be interested in such a book.

This was the main issue. If Harper did agree to publish the book, would it be most successful if packaged as a non-fiction religious book just like his others, or as a novel? Exman told Douglas that he was strongly in favor of publishing it one way or the other, and that he would push to have it released as a religious work of non-fiction if it came down to that, but he advised Douglas to make the narrative changes that Briggs and others had suggested.

Over the next two months, Douglas made some of the requested improvements. He also changed the name of the story…

Irreconcilable Differences

by Ronald R Johnson

On November 4, 1928, at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, Lloyd Douglas read to his congregation the following message:

“I have a brief announcement to make which will come in the nature of a surprise to a great many people, friends and members of this church, who may have been scarcely aware that, throughout my two years here, there has been developing a left wing [it would have been more accurate to say ‘right wing’], increasingly out of sympathy with my administration.

“From the first I have been aware of this opposition; but, hoping it might be placated, I continued, happy in such service as I was enabled to render the church, believing the stress might soon be relieved.

“Upon my return from abroad, I learn that the minority has become quite aggressive and outspoken. Were there any principles involved, I might be persuaded to contend for them. There are no principles at issue. What storm there is, centers about myself. The natural solution is that I eliminate myself, and the confusion will be abated.

“I have never been party to a church quarrel. It does not seem to me that the church is the place for them. Anybody who, seeing a church row in the offing, can think of a good way to head it off, should be called blessed, I think, by both factions, if he suggests his remedy. I now crave that blessing. Rather regretfully, grateful to the very considerable majority who have been loyal and cooperative, and without any bitterness toward those who have not seen eye to eye with me, I offer my resignation to take effect on the last day of January.

“We now have three months left to us to demonstrate what sort of people we are. The persons in the church who wish for other leadership will presently have it. As for my friends, I trust they will realize how important it is that the church should carry on with a minimum of friction. I want my friends to be identifiable by the well-bred calmness with which they accept my decision, and the resoluteness of their refusal to discuss it.

“What we have had here is just one of those little predicaments which are apt to arise when there has been a maladjustment. Nobody in particular to blame; most of it arising out of temperamental incompatibility.

“Let us spend these next three months working together like Christians, and give the Los Angeles public a pleasant and perhaps unusual illustration of what the Lord was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount.”

He made it sound so easy. But his daughter Virginia wonders what was really going through his mind. She writes:

I can only imagine what he did. He must have dropped his head to his hands and let sweep over him the exact details of his predicament. A man must have moments of despair when alone he faces a future that seems totally black. Then fear must rush in and overwhelm him for a few moments no matter how he struggles to retain his grasp upon the strong hand of his faith…. Daddy must have had to look squarely at his future, without benefit of retouching. He had given up his job and was stranded in the West when all his connections were in the East; he was fifty-one years old, past the height of his career, many would say; his daughters were in Europe, requiring money to keep them there or bring them home; [and] the novel…

Dawson and Wilson, The Shape of Sunday, pp. 218-219.

Yes, the novel! The one he had been working on so hard for the past several months: Salvage (which would later be retitled, Magnificent Obsession). All his hopes now were pinned on that novel. But things weren’t turning out as well as he had hoped…

Douglas Takes a Hint from Jonah

by Ronald R Johnson

An undated photograph of Lloyd C Douglas, from sometime in the late 1920s. In “LCD Photographs,” Box 4, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

By the fall of 1928, Lloyd Douglas had been pastor at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles for two years. His congregation was divided. Many people liked him and appreciated the kind of ministry he was trying to bring, but there was a core group that was unhappy with him. Their complaints included the fact that his wife, Besse, didn’t lead Bible studies like other ministers’ wives did, and his two college-age daughters (Betty and Virginia) didn’t attend Sunday School.

Having been a PK himself (a Preacher’s Kid, that is), he had always been protective of his wife and daughters, refusing to make them behave in expected ways just because he happened to be a minister. In 1927, however, he had succumbed to pressure and had given his daughters a choice: either attend Sunday School or join the choir. So they joined the choir (Dawson and Wilson, The Shape of Sunday, pp. 201-202). But as a long-term solution, he had a better idea: in the fall of 1928 he sent them to Paris. It was something he had always wished he could do, and Virginia says it meant more to him than it did to them, but they went to Paris for a year of study, to soak up European culture, and they enjoyed it very much (pp. 207-208, 213-214). Reading Virginia’s account, it seems to me that, above all, he wanted to protect them from criticism by the core group of members that disapproved of them; sending them away to Europe was a wonderful strategy for getting them out of the picture.

In early fall 1928, he was scheduled to give a series of lectures in Hawaii, so another minister covered for him while he and Besse sailed to the Pacific. While he was gone, discontent grew. Virginia writes, “When Daddy returned from his series of lectures in Honolulu, he discovered that the unpleasant little group in the church who had been opposing him had organized themselves and appointed a spokesman. This man came to call the first evening of Daddy’s return. After polite and smiling preliminaries, he delivered his message. ‘I’m afraid we are going to have trouble raising our budget this year, Dr. Douglas.’

“‘And I am the reason?’ queried Daddy.

“The man did not say no” (pp. 215-216).

In other words, this man, who had no authority within the local congregation, was claiming the equivalent of a vote of no-confidence for Douglas. But, of course, there had been no vote, and if there had been, things might have turned out differently.

To understand what happened next, however, it is helpful to look back at an article Douglas had published seventeen years earlier in The Congregationalist and Christian World. (It’s in the April 22, 1911 issue of that magazine.) It was a lively, humorous retelling of the story of Jonah from the Old Testament. In that story, there is a storm at sea, and Jonah determines that it’s all his fault. He tells the crew to throw him overboard. Commenting on this, Douglas wrote:

I have frequently wondered why some people in the churches, who surely cannot fail of seeing that they are storm-centers and the cause of all manner of tribulation and discomfiture to the other passengers, have not the courage and grace to say, ‘If I am the fault of this disturbance, do pitch me out!’ And upon this, all the people should lend a willing hand and accept this magnanimous proposal; after which there would probably be a calm.

I suppose most people’s reaction would be to say, “Yes, throw the troublemakers out. Get rid of the people who are making it difficult for Douglas to do his work.” But Douglas didn’t react that way. He said, “Then I shall resign.”

And that’s what he did. The very next Sunday.

There were those in the congregation who wanted him to stay and fight, but Douglas had always said, throughout his ministry, that there was nothing more disappointing than the sight of so-called Christians fighting over their religion. It didn’t matter who was right; the fact that they would fight about it at all was disrespectful to the God both sides claimed to serve.

So Douglas resigned. His announcement the next Sunday was rather unusual. I’ll tell you about that in my next post.

Douglas vs. De Mille

by Ronald R Johnson

From the Los Angeles Examiner, Thursday, 8/30/1928. In Burton Funeral Scrapbook, Box 6, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

Several days after Lloyd Douglas gave his congregation a negative review of Cecil B De Mille’s new film, The Godless Girl, a local reporter asked De Mille for his reaction (Harry Lang, “Atheism Exists in Schools Here, Declares De Mille,” Los Angeles Examiner, 8/30/1928). I will quote from the article at length:

‘ATHEISM?—’

Cecil B. DeMille… yesterday sat at that great desk of his, under the stained glass window of his studio sanctum, and said his say:

‘—so long as atheism remains a belief, a man has a perfect right to believe as he pleases. For myself, I believe in God. I think, if a man doesn’t believe in God, that he’s partially blind and partially deaf. He may think the same about me because I DO believe in God. But those are just our personal beliefs, and we’re entitled to them—I to mine, and he just as honorably to his.

‘But when atheism becomes a profession, and when the professional atheist sneaks into our schools and tries to cram his propaganda into the minds of our school children—now, that’s something else again!

‘And if you don’t think they’re doing just that—’

DeMille pointed to the report of a sermon delivered here last Sunday by the Rev. Lloyd C. Douglas of the First Congregational Church.

‘Doctor Douglas says there’s no such thing as atheism in our schools, among our children. Now, I have the highest respect for Doctor Douglas and his sincerity and honesty—but he doesn’t know anything at all about atheism!

‘Why, one of our big schools right here in Los Angeles has in its student body no less than 269 pupils, every one of them paying dues as a member of a national atheistic society! Even if Doctor Douglas doesn’t know that, it’s a point that the principal of that school knows!’

This picture of DeMille’s – ‘The Godless Girl,’ now showing at the Biltmore Theater – deals with the planting of the seeds of atheism in public schools of America, through an insidious, outside-financed propaganda system.

Indeed! De Mille believed that there was an organization of professionals recruiting students just like the unions were doing in the factories. “Professional atheists,” he called them.

The article continues:

‘Whether you like the picture or not is one thing,’ [De Mille] tells you. ‘But remember this, the picture is true; it is fact. When Doctor Douglas or anyone else says that such things as I show there do not exist, he doesn’t know whereof he speaks.

‘Atheism is a menace in our schools today. I don’t think, mind you, that the youth of today want to be atheists. I think they are as fine and as spiritually inclined as the youth of any other age. I think they are more genuine. But the times are different. They miss, at home, the element of spirituality. I remember my dad—he used to sit every evening and on Sundays and discuss spiritual matters. There weren’t, in those days, any movies, any dances, any night clubs, any automobiles, any radio.

(So… movies have a demoralizing effect on young people? Is that what he’s saying? Should movie theaters be banned, then? Probably not what he had in mind.)

De Mille continued:

‘The lack of that spirit in the home of today gives the professional atheist his great chance. It is at that—the professional atheist—that I aim. The sincere atheist won’t try to inflict his beliefs on your child or my child; it is the paid professional who is the danger, the menace.

‘They laughted, remember, at Trotsky and Lenin. But later nobody laughed!’

In De Mille’s fanciful view of the situation, high school students were being brainwashed by these professionals, who were busy recruiting them and turning them against God. And it was easy to understand how this could happen: as students were taught the theory of evolution, their minds would naturally be more receptive to atheism. Or so De Mille seemed to think.

The article concluded with De Mille emphasizing one more time:

‘Atheism IS a menace in our schools today! And who was it that said, ‘Where there is no God…’’

Over in the corner, the press agent prompted: ‘Proverbs, Mr. DeMille.’

‘Yes,’ concluded Cecil DeMille. ‘It was Solomon who said it – wise old chap – ‘Where there is no God, the people perisheth!’’

That wasn’t what the scripture passage said, but it didn’t really matter. At issue was De Mille’s claim that cadres of “professional atheists” had declared war on the nation’s schools and were even now infiltrating them. And there was simply no way that anyone was going to change his mind. In his autobiography, years later, he started to come in Douglas’s direction. In retrospect, he said, “what seems most dated to me now about The Godless Girl is the high school atheist club. More youngsters of today are more indifferent about God than belligerent toward Him. I wonder which is the more godless of those two attitudes” (De Mille, Autobiography, p. 287). Ironically, this is what Douglas was trying to tell him: that high school students weren’t under assault from “professional atheists” trying to capture their souls but were, instead, being made indifferent to religion because of most churches’ unwillingness to face the facts of modern life.

Instead of being glum about it, like De Mille seems in his autobiography, Douglas was trying to do something about it. But it got him into trouble with a powerful core group of conservatives among the members of his congregation. To conservatives, De Mille’s stand was heroic; for Douglas to oppose him was just one more indication that it was time for him to go. So the conservatives in the congregation made their move weeks later…