DanceLessons: Ray Shute, My Southern Gentleman

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December 19, 2006

Ray Shute, My Southern Gentleman

John Raymond Shute of Monroe, North Carolina, has become my own personal Unitarian Hero. Unsung and long forgotten, Ray (as he was known to his friends) was a white Southern Liberal gentleman who discovered Unitarianism in 1948. In his very active but brief public life as a Unitarian, he built the first permanent Unitarian Chapel in North Carolina, established the Monroe Unitarian Fellowship, and served on the boards of the AUA, SUC, TJD, USC, UFSJ, and chaired the Unitarians Universalist for Cooperation without Consolidation Committee. Since all record of his Unitarian public life end in 1961, I assume he was disgruntled and left the movement. BUT no, according to his obituary and his very aging son, Ray considered himself a Unitarian to the end (1988).

He was Southern, Southern, Southern.

One of my favorite stories is when Ray ran for re-election in a mayoral race in his hometown Monroe. Shute had been a Unitarian for one year and was one of twelve members of the Monroe Unitarian Fellowship. Warned by friends that is political career was over, he was denounced by ministers and citizens as a heretic. “The question was out in the open and no holds barred! Was our city to have a Mayor who did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ” Ray describes the attacks as diabolic and bitter. In true Shute style, he broadcast his response to these attacks on on the local radio station: “Day before yesterday was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of our Democratic party, in the primary of which tomorrow we will be privileged to vote.” After listing the achievements of Jefferson, Ray goes on to say “It is an interesting commentary on this occasion when I, who belong to the same religious faith as, did Jefferson, am being attacked for that very reason; and in the party founded by that illustrious American; and on the 206th anniversary of his birth. After quoting Jefferson, Shute finishes with “So when we go to the polls tomorrow I could be the recipients of no more flattering compliment by those who may vote against me, if when they do so, they will say: I oppose the religion, politics and government of Thomas Jefferson. The following day was the largest vote ever cast in a city primarily election and Shute had been re-elected by three to two vote."*