6
6
and Chipps appeared to have been drinking. After an exchange of words, Chipps returned to
the door. Just before leaving, he whirled around and had his hand in his pocket,
. . . a gesture that was still pregnant with implication in the unsophisticated cowtown.
Norris, watching out of the corner of his eye, lifted what was later described as "the
night watchmans gun", and fired three
18
shots into Chipps massive frame. They
were shots heard around the Fundamentalist world. . . . By the following Sunday,
fundamental Baptist preachers were sheepishly entering pulpits all over the country in
want of an adequate explanation.
19
A jury ruled the incident "justifiable homicide," after Norris produced a weapon
that was supposedly on Chipps at the time. He had withheld it from the prosecution, saying
he was afraid it would not be used as evidence.
20
After this Norris had "the good sense to
dissociate himself from the movement."
21
With Norris radical personality now bearing the albatross of the Chipps incident,
a second BBU giant would find his own bird to wear. T. T. Shields was president of the BBU
in 1927, but resigned.
22
In his opinion, "only a modern miracle" could save the BBU.
23
The
"miracle" came when Des Moines University, a rather liberal school owned by the Iowa
Baptists, was offered for sale due to financial problems. The BBU financed the purchase,
24
and now the BBU had a school--albeit a liberal one. Shields resumed the presidency of the
BBU. He hoped to turn the school into a bastion of fundamentalism, but apparently the
18
Delnay, 100, says four shots were fired. Roy Falls, A Biography of J. Frank
Norris (Euless, TX: published by author, 1975), 59, says that one of the four shots was fired
at the ceiling.
19
Bartlett, 15.
20
Murdoch, 126.
21
Delnay, 101. Norris makes almost no mention of this incident in his sketchy
book, Inside History of First Baptist Church, Fort Worth and Temple Baptist Church, Detroit
(apparently published in 1938). On two pages (94-95) he describes his "deep dark valley,"
saying he experienced sorrow over the event, but never remorse.
22
Delnay, 108, lists Shields stated reasons as his own work in Toronto, the desire
to let someone new take over, and the fact that the major battle was in the Northern Baptist
Convention.
23
Bartlett, 16.
24
Bartlett suggested that a wealthy layman largely financed the purchase for the
BBU; but according to Delnay, 143, it looks more like the BBU put the money together in
piecemeal fashion from pledges, assets, and good faith.