She called herself “a plain Jane.” She insisted — rightly and proudly so — that she was a housewife. True enough, she was devoted to her husband, “Greg,” and to her three sons — Harry, Gene and Joel. She did work outside the home. She taught in the public schools in the Forties and in 1948 she joined the staff of the First Baptist Church of Danville, Va., as religious education director. Religious education was not only one of the few church positions open to a female in those days, but also it was the one for which she was well qualified although, during her two years on staff, she always insisted that she was merely “filling in.”
Fred Anderson
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In Danville, Christine and Andrew Harrison “Greg” Gregory came under the loving watchcare of Marion and L.D. Johnson. The popular pastor of First Church and his wife gathered numerous young couples “under their wings.” They encouraged the Gregorys to keep an open mind, to examine all sides to a question and accept individuals who might be at odds with their own particular viewpoints. Christine also admired one of Johnson’s successors, Luke Smith, who “had the capacity to stretch your mind.” She lifted a line from one of Smith’s sermons. Luke Smith had said: “I will not give witness to that which I have not experienced.” “For me,” said Christine, “it became a goal for a way of life in Christ Jesus.”
In 1957 the young homemaker, in her mid-thirties, was elected as the leader of her church’s WMU. Her pastor, L.D. Johnson, advised her that “what you do not begin on this side of 40, you will never do.” She began to attend district and state meetings and witnessed the skills of some of the older generation of WMU leaders, including the legendary Mrs. George R. Martin. (As was the custom of proper Southern ladies, Mrs. Martin always preferred to be identified by her husband’s name. And most of the time the world only knew the woman from Danville as Mrs. A. Harrison Gregory.)
Christine Gregory
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The WMU provided a channel for women to serve, and Christine Gregory rapidly stepped from one platform to another, climbing mountains all the way: director of her district association’s WMU, the Pittsylvania; mission action chairman for Virginia WMU; president of Virginia WMU, 1971-75; and president of WMU, SBC, 1975-81; and first vice president of the SBC, 1981-82. In November 1982 she took a bold step and became the first woman to be elected as president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia. Then in her sixties, she joked that she was elected state president “because Virginians love old things.” She also served as first vice president of the Baptist World Alliance.
Christine Gregory was an excellent presiding officer. She knew how to sweeten every situation. When she returned to Virginia from a trip to New Orleans just in time for a meeting of the Virginia Baptist General (now Mission) Board, she brought along a box of pralines which she distributed to the sweet-toothed on the board. She later pronounced the term as president of the BGAV as “the most satisfying year of service of my life.”
It was her sweet, sweet spirit which helped in many a tense situation in Baptist life. She was president of Virginia WMU during the interim between executives; and before Kathryn Bullard was called as executive director, Christine traveled the road between Danville and Richmond to keep the state office humming. Her organizational skills were needed for many a behind-the-scenes decision. And those skills came into play when in the mid-Eighties she served on the SBC’s Peace Committee, an attempt to heal the deep division in the Southern Baptist Convention.
It would take more than pralines, smiles and hugs to solve a grievous denominational controversy. She once observed: “The risk of failure always looms as possible. Taking stands is done at the risk of cutting off relationships. The caustic barbs, disguised in sarcastic humor, of those whom you consider friends can deter the strongest soul. The risk of what being a public servant does to one’s family is never to be taken lightly.”
Christine treasured the words of Elton Trueblood, the Quaker theologian. She saw to it that he spoke at her church for its 150th anniversary in 1984. She rather personified Trueblood’s description of a Christian leader: “[The person] must be a servant, a pray-er and a thinker.” She was all three simultaneously.
In 1985 the Religious Herald presented Christine Gregory with its Christian Citizenship Award, which unlike most awards was not an annual event. It has been awarded only when the trustees of the Virginia newspaper decided that someone has risen to unusual stature.
At the ceremony, Richard Myers spoke for the trustees when he said: “Before many of us knew about Christine, she was busy in her own backyard, letting black women know that some white folks really knew what the Bible taught about the sisterhood and brotherhood of all God’s children.” He added that she also was among the early Virginia Baptists to minister to migrant workers. He noted that she had “come far in her pilgrimage with Christ because of her uncompromising devotion to our Lord’s Great Commission. Simply put, she is one of the most respected Baptists in the world.”
Myers offered an easy explanation: “She has put a premium on the responsibilities of Christian discipleship and not personal rewards. There is a wonderful grass-root-ness about Christine. She knows truth from hokum. She sees deeply into the grindstone. She has a tough mind and a tender heart. She can break out in ecstatic laughter or enter into the most tedious matters of planning. She is a persuasive advocate for the truth. She is an agent of change and a protector of that which is enduring.”
In her acceptance of the Herald’s award, she concluded by quoting Robert Jethro, a professed agnostic, who predicted that when scientists, seeking the origin of the universe, climb the highest mountain, “as they reach the summit they will look up and there will be God.” She added, “I believe there just might be a layman there, too, seeking to do his bidding.”
Christine Burton Gregory, an outstanding Baptist layperson, died in Danville on Jan. 22 at age 89. She climbed the highest mountains on Mother Earth and soared to the peaks.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, located on the campus of the University of Richmond. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.