Christ & the Golf Club

"If our Lord Jesus Christ had come back to earth in Scarsdale in time for the Holly Ball, he would not have been allowed to escort a young lady of this parish to that dance." Thus, in probably the most incongruous image of the year, Rector George F. Kempsell Jr. of the Episcopal Church of St. James the Less in the prosperous suburb of Scarsdale, N.Y. admonished his congregation last week. A debutante, due to come out at the seventh annual Holly Ball at the Scarsdale Golf Club, had been told by the "escort subcommittee" that one of the two boys whose names she had submitted as her escorts was unacceptable. Reason: though a member of the Episcopal Church, the boy was "Jewish." The club's board of governors later confirmed the decision. The girl canceled her debut. The boy, a recent convert, was reported "so hurt that he refused to go to church on Christmas Sunday."

Last week, with the backing of his bishop (the Rt. Rev. Horace W.B. Donegan of New York) and Presiding Bishop Arthur C. Lichtenberger, Rector Kempsell announced that any member of his parish "who has in any way, by word, or in thought, or in deed, acquiesced" in banning the boy "is no longer welcome to receive Holy Communion at this altar--at God's altar--in this parish until such time as he has worked out his own peace with God in his own way." Suggested ways: general confession at prayer, or individual confession to Rector Kempsell or any other Episcopal minister. "In Christ," said Pastor Kempsell, quoting St. Paul, "there can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free; there can be neither male nor female."

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