My Story

Henlee Hulix Barnette

An ethical journey through the South in the Twentieth Century

Henlee Barnette’s life has spanned most of the twentieth century. His life in the rural South eventually led to his becoming a Christian. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1940, and then attended seminary, taking the Ph.D in 1948. For the next 50 years he taught Christian ethics, but not just in the class-room.

In this remarkable memoir, he stresses Christianity as a pilgrimage, a way of life undergirded by faith in God. Such faith is active in love and calls for justice in personal and social relations. One’s journey in the world needs a spiritual compass: the Christian’s personal responsibility to do faith active in love, that is, agape love. Such love includes justice. Love without justice is subjective and sentimental. Love that Jesus taught provides concreteness and structure. Agape love makes justice just. Christian faith that is purely personal is suspect. In his own pilgrimage he became aware of the demonic forces that dehumanize us. Among these was the denial of basic human rights to minority groups. Love and justice motivated him to join the Civil Rights Movement as a means of achieving more just interpersonal relations. His relationships with blacks and
whites during the Civil Rights Movement fill the pages of this wonderful narra-tive. But Barnette also fought against unjust wars, ecological abuse, poverty, violence, and a multitude of other issues which confront and challenge both Christian and church.

Henlee Hulix Barnette (b. 1911) attended Wake Forest College (B.A. 1940), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, (Th.M. 1943; Ph.D. 1948), and did advanced study at Columbia University and Union Seminary (1954), Harvard University (1959-1960), and the University of Florida (1971-1972).

Walter B. Shurden is the general editor of the Baptists Series.

Also in the Baptists Series

Rescue the Perishing: Selected Correspondence of Annie W. Armstrong

Adiel Sherwood: Baptist Antebellum Pioneer in Georgia

A Piety above the Common Standard: Jesse Mercer and Evangelistic Calvinism

Call us toll free at 800-637-2378, ext. 2880 or 800-342-0841, ext. 2880 (in GA)
For help on orders email us at mupressorders@mercer.edu

Religious Studies

250 pages, 6 x 9

978-0-86554-942-5

$35.00t, Cloth

Index, Bibliography, Illustrated

MUP/H679