God Alone is Lord of the Conscience: Fellowship of Reconciliation Activists Confront Church and State in Louisville, Kentucky, 1975–1995

2 ALL 2007 God Alone is Lord of the Conscience" Fellowship of Reconciliation Acti, uists Confront Church and State in Louisville, Kentucky, 19751995 Rhonda Mawhood Lee 0 n November 20, 1985, while Father Tim Flynn of Louisville's St. William's Catholic Church was in El l.iso,Texas, studying Spanish, intruders ransacked his room in the rectory he shared with five other men. Leaving no sign of-fi, rced entry,the trespassers sent a clear message to Flynn, pastor of the only church in the city that ofTered sanctuary to Central Americans fleeing U.S.sponsored wars in their homelands . The intruders left untouched the few dollars on Flynn' s desk but tlirew to the floor his books on liberation theology and the slides he used in presentations about Central America. They also pulled from deep in his files and left on his desk a letter about refugees whom Flynn was planning to help across the border, " to let me know they knew what was going on. Flynn suspected the Immigration and Naturalization Service or Central Intelligence Agency was responsible,but authorities never solved the burglary.1 Jim Flynn arriving at Louisville airport with Central American refugees,early 19805. LOUISVILLE FELLOWSHP OF RECONCILIATION FILES That same year,in an essay commissioned by the Presbyterian Church USA' s Advisory Council on Church and Society, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary professor,minister, and longtime antiwar activist George Edwards appealed to his fellow Christians to join him and his wife Jean in withholding tax money from a government that would spend it on prepar·ations for war instead of on meeting human needs: For too long, the decision fc , r Christ or Caesar has been · assigned to young men and women, usually jobless and bored, or too inexperienced to measure the consequences they face when military recruiters picture for them futures bright with vocational benefits 49 GODALONEISLORD OF THE CONSCIENCE" and travel to exotic places. War tax resist·ance places the weight of decision about the human future where it belongs: upon all of-us old enough and secure enotigh to ask what it means to pray fc, r peace and pay fi, r war. Sayitig 'no' to Caesar is a tough,frightenitig decision , but it could be, in the grace of God, one step toward a new hilm, in flitlitC . Although Jini Flynn was a Catholic priest and George Edwards was a Presbyterian mi nister,the two s·, ing trc, m the same hymnal when it came to resisting the gc,vernment and,when necessary,their churches on war. Both Georgeand Jean Edwards attlie Louisville FOR twentieth anniversary celebration, 1995. LCUISVILLE FELLOWSHIPOF RECONCILIATION FILES were motivated by a commitment to act on both clauses ofjesus: s famous injunction to " Render... unto Caesar the things which are Caesar' s, atid unto God the things which are God's."Both believed that to serve Caesar by supporting war or preparations for war was to betray the Goil who called Christians to practice peace. From 1975 into the 1990s, Flynn, Edwards, and their fellow activists supported each other' s work and coordinated tlicir efforts through the Louisville Fellowship of- Reconciliation ( FOR), a local branch of the international and national pacifist group. Through the Fellowship and its network of allies across the country, Louisville pacifists found creative ways tc,put their political atid theological convictions about global issues into practice at the local level.2 Fellowship members took a variety of actions in response to the increased military spending and intensified antiCommunist fi) reign policy th: lt Jimmy Carter initiated late in his administration and Ronald Reagan took to new extremes. V=ivo of their niost radic.11 responses were w·ar tax resistance and providing sanctuary fc, r undocumented Central American refugees. Fellc, wship members committed these acts of civil disobedience ill the early and mid19805 in response to the Reagan administration: s expenditures on the nuclear arins race with the Soviet IJnion, and its material and rhetorical support for rightwing governments and insurgent groups in I. atin America and elsewhere. Practicing tax resistance and offering sanetuary disting, tished the Louisville Fellowship from its local liberal allies, drew its activists more closelv together in the...