What Dallas pastors preached the Sunday after JFK was killed

[hrmjustin]

Kevin Eckstrom

(RNS) Facing crowded pews and heavy hearts, Dallas clergy took to the pulpits on Nov. 24, 1963 to try to make sense of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy just two days before.

“The ministers saw the assassination as an unwelcome opportunity for some serious, city-wide soul-searching,” said Tom Stone, an English professor at Southern Methodist University, who has studied the sermons delivered that day.

“Though Dallas could not be reasonably blamed for the killing, it needed to face up to its tolerance of extremism and its narrow, self-centered values,” Stone said.

As they finished their messages, some, including the Rev. William H. Dickinson of Highland Park Methodist Church and the Rev. William A. Holmes of Northaven Methodist Church, were handed notes: assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had just been gunned down by Jack Ruby

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/11/19/jfk-sermons-process/

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. I was a sophomore in a Catholic high school the day Kennedy was shot

When the announcement came saying he was dead, I was in history class. We all stood up and prayed for the repose of his soul and for the country. Then my history teacher talked to us about the probable political effects of Kennedy's death and Lyndon Johnson's becoming President. He correctly called Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam war and his shepherding the Civil Rights bill through Congress.

[MADem]

2. Interesting slice of history, there... nt