Detained at Fort Benning
By the time I arrived in Columbus, Georgia to pastor Evangel Church, Miss Aimie Hurston Loats had arrived at her eightieth year of life and was the sole remaining charter member. Still spry and active, Miss Aimie taught a children’s Sunday School class which she had done since 1934 and would continue to do until her death in 2004. At the time of her earthly departure following a tragic fall in her driveway she had been continuously teaching children for seventy years.
Aimie was a living window into the past, allowing me to see what it meant to grow up in a Georgia Assemblies of God church. Her family was woven into the fabric of God’s work in the Southeastern U.S. and around the world. On one occasion as we sat together in my office, she felt compelled to tell me about an incident from her teenage years. Our church had a long history of relationship with Fort Benning which was located a short distance south of the church. During those days, in the mid to late 30’s, the church evangelism team would visit the base to speak to the soldiers and leave copies of the Pentecostal Evangel.
On this visit Miss Aimie said they were going about reaching out to whomever would stop and listen when a big, uniformed MP rounded them all up into an empty room and locked them inside after telling them to remain in place. Mrs. Loats, a teenager at that time recalled a feeling of apprehension as they waited there. In short order a sergeant joined them and holding a copy of the Evangel, asked if they were “handing this out” on base. The church group’s leader said yes and that it was something they used to tell others about Jesus.
The officer responded by telling the group the army was aware of articles written there that were anti-war and unpatriotic in rhetoric. He then closed the door and left the room. They were in the room for nearly thirty minutes when an Army Captain looked through the glass door panel and recognized people, he attended church with. He immediately went to the officer involved in their detainment and asked that the group be released, all the while vouching for their love of country.
That was my introduction to the fact that the AG had pacifist leanings during its first thirty to forty years of existence. During the first world war, it was classified by the United States government as a denomination which qualified to have its members listed as conscientious objectors and non- combative enlistees. From what Aimie could recall, the previous copy Evangel had featured an article possibly by E.S. Williams that contained what appeared to them as anti- war sentiments.
Later I recalled reading that many young men from AG churches were propelled into the Army by sermons revealing that Hitler was the Antichrist and Mussolini the false prophet who propelled him to power. They joined to literally fight against these evil forces physically as well as spiritually. Aimie’s story was my first exposure to the pacifist period of my fellowship’s history. By the time of my studies for ministry and subsequent ordination collective memory of that part of our history had been all but erased.
