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(Part 3 of 3)

Dr. Maston and Christian Ethics
(continued)

ethics. When he was off-campus at times, Dr. Maston would substitute for him. This occasional activity before long resulted in Dr. Maston being designated to teach Christian ethics, and eventually being named full-time to that task. The courses and department were first called Social Ethics. This indicated the purpose of applying the principles of Christian ethics to the institutions and activities of society - marriage and the family, labor, race relations, the state, industry and commerce, for example. The department's title was later changed to the Department of Christian Ethics. Maston served as department chairman until his retirement in 1963.

Before expanding our discussion of Dr. Maston's career, I think it important to note that he was a Christian layman. At the beginning of each new class, Dr. Maston would introduce himself to new students by giving a brief description of himself and his career. There were two things he always said, at least on the occasions I heard him do this. One was a tribute to Mrs. Maston for the quality of her life. He always acknowledged that without Mrs. maston he could not have accomplished what he had. The other was the statement that he was a layman, that he had considered himself a layman from the start, and that he had resisted every suggestion that he be ordained. He felt that this was God's will for him.

Dr. Maston was a teacher. I call him a great teacher. He knew his subject. He presented it in an interesting way, arousing the interest of his students, stimulating a desire to learn. He treated his students with respect, and they respected him. He was warm and friendly and treated his students as equals. He was approachable always. he did not have an authoritarian manner. He was flexible, yet firm.

Possibly most important, he knew he was not just teaching a subject, he was teaching people. He and Mrs. Maston annually invited his doctoral students to their lovely home for dinner and fellowship. Those were occasions to be remembered for a lifetime. He was a master of the question. He used questions to probe, in a kind and gentle way, the absolute limits of the student's knowledge, and in its stimulating, energizing way to help the student even "recall" information the student was not conscious of knowing. It is interesting to note that Socrates used the question as a teaching tool. Maston had a gentle sense of humor and an engaging chuckling laugh.

For years, the seminary students conducted a faculty take-off. Students were selected to do take-offs on faculty members. One year, I was named - by my "friend" (?) Ralph Phelps - to do the take-off on Dr. Maston. The event took place one afternoon in a nearby city park, with the "show" conducted in the park's band shell. There was general entertainment before the take-off, all by students. Paul Stevens, who was later for years

the director of the Southern Baptists Radio and Television Commission, and I had a "bit." Paul told a joke, and I was his straight man. Only the joke's punch line remains in my memory. After I had set the stage for it, Paul said, "Cleopatra (deep breath), Cleopatra (deep breath), where have you been (pronounced 'bean' )?" It brought the house down, why I don't know. I have long since forgotten the lead-up to the punch line.

When I did my take-off on Dr. Maston, he was sitting in the front row looking up at me! I had a Social Ethics class the next afternoon. As we sat in the classroom waiting for Dr. Maston, I couldn't help but wonder how he had taken my attempt at humor the previous day. When he entered the door, he headed straight toward me on the front row, his face very solemn, and I sat there saying "oh, oh" inside. When he got to me, with a twinkle in his eyes, he held out his briefcase to me and, his other hand pointing to the teacher's desk, said, "Get up there!" The class roared, and he smiled. I tell this story to note the difference between him and a fellow professor, who was so enraged by his treatment in the take-off and raised so much to-do about it, that our take-off was the last faculty take-off of record. We killed that goose!

Maston was a wise and trusted counselor. He was not designated officially as a counselor, but students just naturally turned to him for help with their problems. He was a good listener. He was sympathetic. He could keep a confidence. He helped counselees to make their own decisions, rather than advocating his solution to their problem.

My own experience of Dr. Maston as a teacher came early in my seminary study. The introductory Social Ethics course was required for graduation. I had already chosen New Testament as my major when I took the required Social Ethics course. After the first week or two in this course, I changed my major to Social Ethics, as it was then called. One factor may have been that I had majored in sociology at the University of Texas, and Social Ethics dealt with the application of Christian ethical principles to human institutions, marriage and the family, race, labor, and others. I know, though, that the professor, T. B. Maston, was a major - if not the major - factor in my decision. During the rest of my master's program, and the doctoral program, of course, I took every class offered by Dr. Maston.

Dr. Maston was also an author. He was a skilled, gifted writer. He wrote many books, most of these after he retired. Carrying a heavy teaching load, counseling students, responding to requests from Southern Baptist Convention agencies, state Baptist agencies, state conventions and associations, learned institutions and organizations, for lectures, conferences, and addresses, he had little time to do the writing he wanted to do. That would have to wait for retirement. He had long thought of writing a definitive text on Christian ethics, but such a work requires years to write, and he had to postpone it. After he retired, he didn't think he would live long enough to write it. Actually, he lived 25 years after retirement. He once said that if he had known he was going to live so long, he would have started that book.

The Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board called on Dr. Maston many times during the years. For many years, they invited him to be the speaker at the annual orientation for new missionaries. They called on him for trips overseas to various mission fields as speaker and advisor to the missionaries. Other agencies called on him for such service. The Southern Baptist Convention's Chaplains Commission sent him on a tour of U. S. military units during the Korean conflict, meeting with Southern Baptist military chaplains to observe their work and counsel with them as needed. This was done with the approval of the U. S. military, and since he would be in military units as a visitor, it was necessary to give him military status so that military units he visited would know how to entertain him - type of quarters in which to stay, the type of military mess in which to eat, and other aspects of military tradition. So, they bestowed on him the equivalent of the rank of major-general. Well, I had been slowly climbing the ladder of rank through years of service in the Active Army and the U. S. Army Reserve, and had finally attained the rank of full colonel just before my retirement from the Reserves in 1973. Now, he just steps in and is immediately given the rank of major-general. Now, I ask you, is life fair? We got a laugh out of that. This wasn't Dr. Maston's first experience in the military, however. He was drafted into the United States Army in World War I but never saw combat duty.

Dr. Maston was not only a teacher, lecturer, and writer in the field of Christian ethics. He was an activist. He was one of the major leaders in establishing the Christian Life Commission. He led Southern Baptists to face the racial situation and their part in it, and to consider the biblical teachings and principles about this difficult problem and to apply those principles in life. This took courage, for there was bitterly strong opposition to this kind of teaching and activity. One day, in his office, we were talking about his, and he pointed to a file cabinet. "That bottom drawer is full of hate mail," he told me. "You would be surprised at the language in those letters and at the names of some of the people who wrote them," he added. Such a stand on race relations and other sensitive moral subjects could have cost him his job - and would have if some Southern Baptists had had their way. But there were thousands of his former students scattered throughout the land and around the world, and they strongly supported him and led others to do so. Dr. Theodore (Ted) Adams, pastor of First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, and once president of the Baptist World Alliance, said, "The progress that we have made among Southern Baptists in the matter of race is due to men like you (Maston) and O. T. Binkley." (AACE, p. 65) The time of the struggle over race was also a time when American labor was struggling for a stronger standing. Maston's fair and sympathetic presentation of labor's needs and rights aroused opposition in some quarters.