Should a pastor keep the peace or stir the waters?! This was the moral dilemma that Rev. Galusha Anderson faced when he arrived from the North to serve a congregation of divided loyalties in a divided city during the Civil War. This episode is based on the book GALUSHA. Crisis and Courage in a Civil War Pastor by Stephen D. Jones. 

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram

We live in divided time. Is that the understatement of the day or what? I’m not just talking about politics. It used to be that way but it seems we keep finding new and bigger ways to get more and more divided. Think about it. Which side are you on when it comes to the economy, racism, immigration, climate control, taxes and the 1%, Gender equality and the list goes on. It’s a lot more than just liberal vs. democrat. How did it get this way? Good question and it demands more attention than just this one episode of Newsgram but I’ll tell you what. Let’s take a trip to a time when our country was it’s most divided, the 1860’s and visit a city uniquely positioned on the far West end of the Mason Dixon Line. 

Stephen D. Jones - Well the unique thing about St. Louis during the civil war is that people on both sides lived side by side. They shopped in the same shops they lived on the same streets, the same neighborhoods, they attended the same churches, belonged to the same organizations and clubs and so forth and yet they were sending their sons out to kill their other sons on the battlefield. You don’t usually think of that in such close proximity. So these people had to learn how to hold deep passions which they did both pro-Union, pro-confederacy, but not have it blow up in the city of St. Louis and the fighting largely did not take place in the city of St. Louis. It happened all around it but not in it. 

That is Reverend Stephen D. Jones of theFirst Baptist Church of Kansas City Missouri, just a few hours drive from St. Louis. He recently wrote a book about another man of the cloth, the Reverend Galusha Anderson, pastor of the Second Baptist Church of St. Louis. (The Story of Border City During the Civil War)

Stephen D. Jones - I had never really heard of him before I went to St. Louis. 

He was there doing some research and came across a book called “A Border City During the Civil War'' by Galusha Anderson and it inspired him to write his own book which is called GALUSHA. Crisis and Courage in a Civil War Pastor and one of the things I found most interesting about all of this was learning about some of the challenges that pastors face when dealing with a divided congregation. To bring it closer to home for you let me ask you a question. Have you ever faced a serious moral dilemma, and realized that there is both a costly way through it, and an easy way out? Which would you choose?

Stephen D. Jones - I think many people have kind of a crucible moment in their lives where you get tested and pushed to the limit and your true metal comes out and I think that’s what happened during these, really only six years that he served in St. Louis but they were  crucible years for Galusha for several reasons, personal as well as pastoral. I was so taken by what happened to him, to his family, that I read the book several times and I began to realize that underneath that history that he was trying to write was his own personal story and it just kept coming out and I don’t think he intended it. I think if somebody told him, “you are writing a lot about yourself”, he might have edited it out, thank goodness he didn’t and what I did was pick up on all those personal vignettes and put them together and ofd that it told a striking story that i felt deserved to be told. 

Galusha Anderson became the first pastor in St. Louis to take a stand against slavery and for the Union. Not an easy stand to take.

Stephen D. Jones - There was one Sunday night when he decided as the first pastor in St. Louis to speak out against slavery and against the succession of the s...