The laying on of hands: The protests that followed Jimmy Carter to church
Photograph by Pixabay via Pexels
Christi Harlan
The protesters in the church sanctuary were loud and persistent, disrupting worship with denunciations of presidential policies. The demonstration — and church members’ reactions to the interlopers — made headlines.
That drama played out at a Baptist church in the heart of Washington, D.C., decades before protesters interrupted the January 18 service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, to denounce a pastor who is also an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In 1977 and 1978, demonstrators opposed to the nuclear policies of then-President Jimmy Carter took their objections into the heart of Carter’s church home, the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C.
In that space, as in St. Paul, the rights protected by the First Amendment collided: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Every actor in the clashes could claim the moral high ground. At First Baptist D.C., there were no winners or losers in the confrontations.
After Carter joined the church in January 1977, attendance swelled. Members and visitors poured into the church every Sunday, filling the sanctuary almost to its capacity of 1,200.
Among the throng on the first Sunday of October 1977 were two men with a mission. During the service, they charged up the center aisle to the altar in the chancel where they unfurled banners. One read “Can Christians approve nuclear weapons?”[i]
Ushers and at least one member of the chancel choir responded quickly and forcefully, according to the Washington Post: “I was hit twice in the ass and kicked in the base of the spine,” one of the demonstrators told reporter Sally Quinn.
President Carter was at Camp David that morning and missed the invasion. Senior Pastor Charles Trentham was shaken, the Post reported.
In 1977 and 1978, demonstrators opposed to the nuclear policies of then-President Jimmy Carter took their objections into the heart of Carter’s church home, the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C.
“It is the first incident of this kind we’ve had,” he told Quinn. “Up until now we have tried to keep demonstrators outside of the sanctuary. But in this case I think our ushers had to take charge no matter what their [the protestors’] cause was, whether it was something we were for or against.”
Quinn went on: “Asked if he planned to take more stringent precautions in the future, Dr. Trentham shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’re just very vulnerable here. We’re really sitting ducks.’”
Opponents of nuclear weapons were nothing new when Carter became president. What was new was widespread awareness of a weapon called the “neutron bomb,” a warhead that could deliver a deadly load of radioactivity within a smaller blast zone than conventional nuclear weapons.
News that the Carter administration was considering the weapon broke on June 6, 1977, under an ominous headline in the Washington Post: “Neutron Killer Warhead Buried in ERDA Budget.” (ERDA, the Energy Research and Development Administration, was a short-lived government agency with a mandate to develop solar and wind power and, separately, oversee nuclear weapons research.[ii])
Other news media seized on the sensational story of a weapon that could kill while leaving buildings intact. Less than four months after the Post’s first story, “neutron bomb” was in the national vocabulary — and on the protest signs of the demonstrators who invaded First Baptist.
In anticipation of the disruptions, the deacons of First Baptist D.C. adopted “Policies for Demonstrations,” including these provisions:
Demonstrators will be approached by the ushers and invited to leave and then be escorted out of the facilities.
If the demonstrators refuse to go and do not resist, they will be carried out by those physically able to do so.
Uniformed police will not be invited to enter the nave, balconies, or chancel to quell a demonstration during worship. Instead, should the situation become extreme, the congregation will be dismissed and appropriate action taken afterward. [iii]
No records indicate that worship ever ended early, but numerous accounts describe how the volunteer ushers engaged in much laying on of hands.
After five people were arrested for outbursts during worship on October 16, 1977, Associate Pastor Charles Sanks assured a Washington Post reporter that the protestors were assisted in leaving the sanctuary with a “feeling of genuine escort.” The reporter had other sources.[iv]
“United Press International reported that as the first demonstrator rose to his feet and began to read, a church usher rushed over to him, grabbed the statement and placed his own hand over the demonstrator’s mouth.
“As the protestor was being pulled from a pew, a woman rose in a different section of the church and continued the statement. The scene was repeated each time ushers tried to quell the demonstrators, according to UPI.”
Carter backed away from producing the neutron bomb in April 1978,[v] but the opponents of nuclear weapons weren’t done with the president or his church. Three months later, several protesters slipped into worship on August 6, 1978 — the 33rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
At the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., the rights protected by the First Amendment collided: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Every actor in the clashes could claim the moral high ground.
Among the ushers on duty that day were Doug Porter, an employee of the Federal Housing Administration, and Robin Clack, then a top official with the Border Patrol. Porter described that Sunday morning in his diary:
“Demonstrators invaded Church and made disturbance by trying to read statements in loud voice disrupting the Sunday School Class meeting in the balcony where President Carter is.
“Robin Clack had advised them they were welcome to worship with us quietly but that if [there was] any disturbance they would be ejected. One woman immediately arose and commenced to shout. Robin hustled her out and turned her over to police waiting outside.
“As soon as Robin had started to take her out, a man who had been sitting next to her rose and started to shout. I came up behind him and locked my arms in his and dragged him out into the aisle. [Another usher] caught the other arm and we took him out the front door and turned him over to the police.”[vi]
The Washington Star published the protesters’ statement the next day. It read in part: “As persons who seek to follow Christ’s teachings, we see the inconsistencies between Christ’s words and our American policy of nuclear death-making….”
The Star added that “the protesters also denounced the church for remaining silent even though President Harry Truman, who ordered the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima 33 years ago, was a church member at the time.”[vii]
After the October 1977 protest, Carter told the Post that neither he nor the Secret Service felt he was in danger. Carter called the demonstrators “all fine people, and I agree with their purpose to eliminate nuclear weapons,” according to the Post. He added: “I think they were mistaken in trying to disrupt the church services.”[viii]
One of the protesters was unapologetic during an interview I conducted with her in 2023. Going into the president’s church, she said, was the best opportunity to confront Carter about his nuclear policies. Then her voice became wistful.
“We didn’t do a very good job, did we? There are still nuclear weapons.”
Christi Harlan is a member of and former publicity director for First Baptist D.C. She is the author of Mr. President, The Class Is Yours, containing the first-ever transcripts of the Sunday school lessons taught by President Jimmy Carter. She published the back stories of the lessons and the church in Normal Lives: President Jimmy Carter and His Church. The books are available from Amazon and other booksellers. www.ChristiHarlanWriter.com
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Sally Quinn, “2 Booted Out in Church Demonstration,” Washington Post, October 3, 1977
[ii] Alice Buck, “A History of the Energy Research and Development Administration,” U.S. Department of Energy, March 1982. ERDA History.pdf (energy.gov)
[iii] Minutes, regular meeting of the Diaconate of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., July 11, 1979.
[iv] B.D. Cohen, “Five Arrested in Protest at Carter Church,” Washington Post, October 17, 1977.
[v] John T. Correll, “The Neutron Bomb,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, October 30, 2017. The Neutron Bomb | Air & Space Forces Magazine
[vi] Diary of Doug Porter, archives of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C.
[vii] William F. Willoughby, “9 Arrested at Church After Rapping Carter on Nuclear Policy,” Washington Star, August 7, 1978.
[viii] Quinn, “2 Booted Out in Church Demonstration,” Washington Post, October 3, 1977.
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