First Encounters
The first time I encountered Dr. Will Thompson, it was as if a mythological Presbyterian Zeus had walked into the church with lightning bolts for eyes. At the time, I was a history Ph.D. student at the University of Mississippi and attending Christ Presbyterian Church in Oxford, MS. The Rev. Curt Presley was standing by the door receiving members as they were leaving the service, and there stood Will next to him. His eyes were so fixed it was as if they had tractor beams absorbing Curt’s very soul. His gaze was locked, and nothing else mattered in the world other than Will’s theological queries regarding Curt’s recent sermon. Mind you…he wasn’t a member of the church or even a ruling elder in the church. Will was kind of like the unofficial RE of Presbyterianism in Mississippi. I walked by Curt, feeling sorry for him and thought to myself, “Boy, I hope I am never on the receiving end of that.” Little did I know that Will and I would become acquainted, we would have countless arguments and discussions, we would serve together on several committees in the Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley, and we would become close friends. I consider Will one of my best friends from my time in Mississippi. I love him and miss him dearly.
There is a passage in the Bible that I often come to that reminds me of Will. It is in Revelation, when Jesus speaks to the church in Laodicea. He says, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Let me tell you something: Will was a piping hot cup of coffee. The kind that could burn your mouth if you weren’t sipping carefully. He was, and is to this day, the “hottest” Christian I have ever met. His zeal for the church, for the gospel, for pursuing sanctification, and for Presbyterianism is and will likely continue to be unmatched among Ruling Elders in the history of the PCA. There was no mistaking what great love had captured Will’s heart. He loved God and he loved God’s word. His daughter, Susan, once told me, “Daddy showed me to always align with the Word of God, not just what church people say.” Amen to that.
He Was More…
However, those of us who knew him also knew of his love for good food, for avocado crab toast, Ole Miss football, New Orleans cuisine, his family, Bentonia, Egypt, the athletes of the Manchester Mavericks, his patients, for an occasional good bourbon after a job well done and his amazing heart. Teddy Roosevelt called his father “Great Heart” and said once that “he combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness and great unselfishness.” I think about that when I think about Will. I have yet to meet a man so zealous for the things of God, yet so willing to remain teachable, humble, and to love his neighbor so well. Those who didn’t know Will might have mistaken his zeal for anger. The Will I knew burned hot for God and His word, but his heart would melt in a second for his fellow man. Spending time with Will from 2013 to his death in 2021, I was able to observe a Christian man who was hot in a sea of lukewarm. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved Jesus, was zealous for the truth, and remained committed to reading, growing, and challenging himself with things that made him uncomfortable. He became a friend, mentor, and, in some ways, like a spiritual father.
The passage in 2 Corinthians 10:5 also brings Will to mind. Paul says, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Will took every thought captive. Every thought, argument, topic, and anything that came into his world, he immediately placed through the lens of scripture and his knowledge of God’s character. If the idea was not sound, biblical, and pointing toward God, it was rejected outright. However, he also remained humble, teachable, and willing to alter his perspective if it was in any way sinful or unbiblical. I often said to myself when I was around Will, “Dear Lord, let me be this teachable, humble, wise, and yet zealous for you and your truth when I am in my 80s.”
My Own Encounter
In 2016, my wife Julie gave birth to Sadie Margaret Pickett. Sadie Margaret was born pre-mature at 24 weeks. She lacked amniotic fluid, and so she was born with cyst-riddled lungs. In the almost two years that we had Sadie Margaret, Julie was at the hospital every single day except for one trip that we made to Christ Presbyterian Church in Oxford, MS for a conference on race, the Bible, and Mississippi history where I was serving as the secondary speaker to Dr. Carl Ellis as the keynote. Susan Thompson Tyner, Will’s amazing daughter, had booked a room at the finest hotel in Oxford and when we arrived in our room, it was like Christmas morning. She and the church had wrapped what seemed like hundreds of presents for our family, for Sadie Margaret, and had even purchased a bottle of my favorite bourbon. Pappyland indeed. I think Susan might be one of the finest Christian sisters I have worked with, a woman I look up to and deeply respect.
Julie and I were having an amazing and much-needed time away from it all. Later, at the conference, after Dr. Ellis had presented his biblical and theological perspectives on race, we moved to a historical analysis of Presbyterianism in Mississippi from 1817 through the Civil Rights movement. As I walked through the white Mississippi Presbyterian record, I could almost feel a stare like a tractor beam, as if my soul was being absorbed. I looked to my left and there was Dr. Will Thompson. He was staring at me, he seemed to be gritting his teeth. I continued with my talk, knowing that what I was saying was rooted in historical accuracy. I attempted to display compassion for my historical subjects, but I did not shy away from their sin toward their African American brothers and sisters. My spine was stiffened by the Holy Spirit and by Dr. Ellis giving me several “Amens” and “Uh-huh. Tell it” comments from his seat directly in front of me as he pretended to play a Hammond B3 organ.
About forty-five minutes into the talk, Will had enough. I saw him get up and walk toward the back of the room. I locked eyes with Curt who seemed to be making a face resembling something like “uh oh.” Will moved to the back of the room, although he didn’t leave. He began to pace. It reminded me of a caged lion. Like that bear they keep behind a chain link fence at the Zoo and Buffalo Park in Tupelo. He was talking to himself and would, occasionally, glance up at me. I remembered thinking “oh goodness. Lord help.” I finished my talk and sat down. Curt stood up and promptly read from Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I shook hands, talked to folks and kept my eye on Will. He was still pacing. After many of the members had left, Will unleashed a tirade the likes of which I have never seen. Say what you want about Will, at least he had the honor to confront someone he disagreed with rather than harbor ill will in his heart and gossip about you, as many confrontation-averse southerners are apt to do. Will had multiple problems with my approach. He questioned the need to raise this history and that I was harming the church by defaming the record of Presbyterianism in Mississippi. He was upset. His face turned red. Deacons began to approach Julie to see about what might be done to move things outside, as it was time to close the church. Lights were turned off and back on again. Julie was looking at me with a look that said: “Say goodbye to this man. I gotta get back to my baby.” After about fifteen minutes (what seemed like two hours), I explained to Will that our daughter was in the NICU in Jackson and we had to get home. However, I said, “I drive through Yazoo City once a week to teach at Parchman. How about you and I getting lunch next week?” Will relented and agreed to meet for lunch in Yazoo City. I like Yazoo City, it’s the home of Willie Morris, Jerry Clower, and Will Thompson.
After a few days, I called Will. We met at Stub’s in Yazoo City. Mississippians and South Carolinians share an affinity for many things, chief among them is good southern cooking with a fried meat, lots of vegetables on the side, and a serving of cornbread to sop up the juices. Will’s son-in-law Lee used to tell me, “You know Otis, we Mississippians like you South Carolinians. When you come to Mississippi, you miss the fewest cultural steps.” Ordering turnip greens might have softened Will’s attitude a bit that day, although I am not sure. We sat down, ate, and began to talk. Rather than relaunching into the tirade, Will began to ask me questions about my family, where I was from, what brought me to Mississippi and how I gave my life to Jesus. He was curious. After some time, we were able to engage in topics related to history. Will introduced me to a man named Sonny Peaster, and we shared laughs and stories. It was clear I was the outsider, and the laughing was largely at my expense, but I was also welcomed and appreciated. Will and I agreed to continue to meet over the course of that summer.
As an aside, many people didn’t know that Will helped to integrate the Yazoo City Hospital. His daughter Susan told me, “The story goes that when Daddy was a new doctor in Yazoo, a baby at the black hospital was not doing well there and so Daddy put the baby in his front seat and drove the baby to the white hospital where there were more resources and better-trained staff.” She said this made Will a “liberal” among some in their supper club, but eventually, they learned that Will was not making a grand gesture, he just cared about the baby.
Knit Together by One Still Being Knit Together
Over the next several weeks, Will and I met for lunch, talked, prayed, and became friends. We talked about race, how we could think about it as Christians, how systems were put into place, and how white Christians perpetuated them. Will started praying for us, coming to visit our home, taking Julie and me out to eat, and he became a fervent prayer warrior for Sadie Margaret. He called me one day just to say, “Otis, I feel covenantally bound to your baby. The Lord is moving me to pray for her all the time. I love her, and I have never even met her.” Sadie Margaret had that effect on people. I believe to this day, God used Sadie Margaret to knit Will and me together in love for one another. We listened to one another, we loved one another, and as I became more like Will, he became more like me. He told me one time, “Otis, you have made me the liberal of our session.” I’m not sure I have ever laughed harder.
That was a crucial summer regarding the debate surrounding the Mississippi state flag. I had recently written a piece in the Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi’s largest newspaper) on the history of the flag, its connection to a white supremacist government, its initiation as a symbol some 30 years after the Civil War, and the need for people of goodwill across the state to move to a new symbol. I argued both historically and biblically, as well as theologically. The state flag in Mississippi was the last state flag in the United States to still have the Beauregard Battle flag, or what is commonly known as the “Confederate flag” in the upper left-hand canton of the flag. I was also co-teaching a class to 26 incarcerated learners at Parchman prison called “Justice Everywhere: The Lives of Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama.” Will wanted to know why I had written that piece, why I was trying to change the state flag, and why I was teaching at Parchman. I am not sure Will had met many Christians who could hold these things together and both be true: you can love Jesus, the bible, and pursue racial justice in our society. I was also now a member of the state’s only multiethnic PCA church, and the pastor of that church was the first African American pastor in the PCA to be ordained in Mississippi, Rev. Mike Campbell.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, Will had joined a committee of men in the Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley to consider an overture on the “confession of Sin of Racism, and Commitment to Christian Unity.” My understanding from men who served on that committee is that Will often disagreed with the need for this, and even openly disagreed with members of the committee who were African American, but he continued to listen. In May, the Presbytery adopted an overture that confessed to the sins of racism and provided a page of resources for sister churches to use as they considered their own confessions. A few weeks later, First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS, issued a statement on racial reconciliation. This was very significant at the time, as First Presbyterian, Jackson, is often considered a leading church in the PCA.
I was not present at Presbytery as I was not a Ruling Elder in the PCA. Still, my understanding from many witnesses was that Dr. Will Thompson personally took the floor at the next Presbytery meeting, confessed to sins of racism in his life, wept openly over his sin, and encouraged the Presbytery to pass the overture to be sent to the general assembly. I cannot imagine the courage it took to do this. For Will to confess publicly in front of his peers, many of whom were acolytes of his, and then to publicly support what was considered the “left, liberal, or progressive” side of the denomination in Mississippi, was incredible. What Will modeled to all that day was that a man is never too old to repent, never too hard-hearted to listen, never too convinced to fail to respond to a move of the spirit, and never so sure of his position that men on the other side couldn’t be right.
This overture was significant to the entire denomination as it contained a pastoral letter, resources for reading and evaluation, and the overtures committee used it at the 44th General Assembly in Mobile, Alabama, as one of the most significant statements coming to the committee from a PCA Presbytery in the deep south. As the overture came to the floor of the General Assembly, it was overwhelmingly adopted, and it was decided that an Ad Interim Committee on Race and Ethnic Reconciliation be created to study this issue and report back to the General Assembly. I was asked to serve on that committee along with several other wonderful brothers in the PCA. I’ll never forget the night the overture was adopted. Will came up to me and he said, “Come with me.” We walked across the street to the hotel bar, promptly ordered a tall bourbon on the rocks, and he and I sat down and celebrated. We laughed, toasted, and marveled at the work of God. It was a great night.
Coming Together in Grief
Over the next couple of months, things got tougher with Sadie Margaret. The bigger she got, the harder it was for her to breathe. Julie and I felt an increasing pressure to have her baptized. We wanted to bring her before our church, which had been praying for her for so long, and for this seal and sign that God has given to His people as a means of grace for centuries, to be a blessing to the body of Christ. I called Will and said, “Hey buddy, I would be very honored if you would sit in our family section at the baptism. We love you.” Will said, “Otis, I wouldn’t miss it.” He came to our house the next day with a beautiful new baptismal gown and said, “Otis, our family would be honored if Sadie Margaret could wear this baptismal gown we have bought for her.” You can see the gown, the baptism, and the back of Will’s head in this video. I also quoted Will in my brief comments to the church.
Sadie Margaret went to be with Jesus just ten days later. Her memorial service was one of the most difficult, yet simultaneously one of the most joyous occasions I have ever witnessed. Will continued to visit the house, pray for us, take us to dinner, and our friendship continued. As the work on the Ad Interim Committee for the denomination progressed, Will remained interested in our progress and checked in regularly. He seemed to be talking to people who had growing concerns about the work of the committee. He would ask me specific questions about my historical interpretation—whether Marxism was prevalent, and whether Critical Race Theory was being employed. It became clear to me that he was advocating for our committee and our work to naysayers within the denomination. As the work stretched on, it became clear that the committee needed another year. The committee partnered with Lifeway Research Services and surveyed thousands of teaching and ruling elders in the PCA on their views on race. The committee also had to provide a biblical and theological justification, as well as a practical and pastoral recommendation, for pastors and churches. The results of this survey were included in the report.
Will suggested that we meet personally with several individuals who had concerns, and our chairman and committee members did this regularly, both by phone and in person. When we finally presented our report in 2018 at the Atlanta General Assembly, the report was accepted in omnibus with no questions or recommended changes from the floor. The vote to accept was overwhelming and was approved without objection with a standing unanimous vote, followed by the singing of the doxology. Anyone who knows anything about Presbyterianism knows how rare it is to present something to 2000 Presbyters and not have one individual question any detail of the report. Our committee was stunned. Not only did Will’s advocacy help lead to the overture being adopted at the Presbytery level, but also the overture being passed at the General Assembly level (as Will served on the Overtures Committee), and helped to get an Ad Interim Committee established as part of his legacy. Will also advocated for our committee from 2016-2018. He was doing the hard work of listening to concerns, bringing those concerns to our committee, and going back to the individuals with concerns, providing information that served to allay fears about the report. The report that the committee produced is, in my opinion, one of the finest and most thorough theological reports done on the subject of race in a denominational context and, to this day, the only report on race I am aware of in a major denomination driven by the data of thousands of survey responses from across the entire country.
We suggested in the report that Presbyteries across the country make the report available to their churches and for each church session to go through its own process, read the report, and think about how these issues could be applied in their own context. Will helped lead his session at Second Presbyterian Church in Yazoo City, MS, through a process and encouraged other churches to do similarly. Likewise, Will took to hosting a monthly breakfast club meeting at his house with local pastors, both black and white. We discussed the report at length, talked about how churches could partner across racial lines, and Will’s whole spirit during this time seemed to be at ease and at peace with the conversation. I wasn’t completely wrong about Will being a caged bear. There was something in him and in his spirit that troubled him that day at Christ Presbyterian Church in Oxford. Rather than continue to bottle it up, Will let the spirit work and move. God honored that, and it was released. I believe God used Will in a mighty way within the Presbyterian Church in America on these issues and it was all because Will was humble, he repented, he had the courage to speak up and he did what was right without thinking about how it would be perceived as “liberal or conservative.” Our denomination could use a lesson in that today.
Our relationship continued for a few more years. We served on the credentials committee together in the Presbytery and Will nominated me to serve on several other committees in the life of the PMV. A few years later, Will lost a grandson. We were able to meet, grieve, and lament. Will came to my Ruling Elder ordination service. I will never forget his prayer. He asked that God would give me wisdom, and discernment, but that also I may decrease that Jesus might increase. It felt like a tremendous weight coming from Will’s hand onto my head. Yet, it was also comforting to know that even the giants of our faith learn, grow, make mistakes, and move forward. Christians mess up. We are often wrong, and we can repent, ask forgiveness, apologize when we need to, and try to make a difference in the kingdom. Will thought, like others in the PCA do, that our hearts on race were driven from a sociological or political lens. What he learned was that it was driven by a love of neighbor and a conviction from God’s word and the Holy Spirit. Will got sick and we talked less and less. He would leave for his eternal home on Sunday, February 14, 2021. I always thought how fitting it was that Will would pass into glory on a Sunday.
The Lord’s Will
There are many things we can learn from Will’s life, but there is one lesson I would like to pass on to our denomination: love one another. We might disagree on all kinds of things, but it doesn’t mean that “our side” is always right. It doesn’t mean that we should hold disdain in our hearts for one another. It doesn’t mean that we cannot find a middle ground and work together and model a better way as opposed to following the model of our political moment. As Abraham Lincoln once reminded us, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature.” Indeed, how much more do we, who are brothers and sisters in Christ, with the world watching how we speak about and treat one another, display that affection? They will know we are Christians by our love for one another. Let’s let Will’s example of humble question asking and relationship building be a model and guide to us as a denomination. As the Mississippian James Earl Jones reminded us in Field of Dreams, it will do us good to be reminded of past friendships, and “it reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.” I, for one, am thankful for the Lord’s Will and the example he set for me and hopefully for many others.
Otis W. Pickett is a historian of religion in the U.S. South focusing on domestic missions to enslaved African American and Native American communities in South Carolina. His research focuses on nineteenth century missionaries and the intersection of race, religion, and ecclesiastical polity in southern Presbyterianism. Dr. Pickett is interested in the ways that church polity and governance was applied to whites, African Americans and Native Americans differently based on race, civil status, and property ownership. He also teases out the way that missionaries use their experiences working in slave mission churches to justify a Lost Cause ideology into the late 1870s, which would leave a tremendous legacy in southern Presbyterianism over the next century. Dr. Pickett has also served in the School of Education at the University of Mississippi preparing Social Studies teachers, he served as the Director of Social Studies Education Programs at Mississippi College and was an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History at Mississippi College. Dr. Pickett accepted a position at Clemson University as the third University Historian in the institution’s history in July of 2022. He serves in the Libraries as University Historian, Chair of the Department of Historic Properties and is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Education, Department of Teaching and Learning at Clemson University. Finally, Dr. Pickett is passionate about higher education in prisons and is the co-founder and co-director of the Prison to College Pipeline Program, which is the first program in the state of Mississippi to offer tuition free, credit bearing college courses to incarcerated students Prison-to-College Pipeline Program | University of Mississippi (olemiss.edu) .
Otis is also the host of the Purpose That Prevails podcast.