chet huntley of nbc news had sent a crew to film baxter preaching the sermon to it and the sanctuary the day before he actually delivered it in church. after the sermon, congressman joe evans from the fourth congressional dish and each in tennessee who was in attendance at that sunday apparently having been tipped off that this sermon was coming, went up and asked baxter if he might say a few words to the congregation. if you are been in a church of christ service to the notion of anybody getting up and speaking to rebut or respond, it's just unthinkable. it violates a thousand taboos did he criticize what you label as a partisan sermon and called for religious toleration. as you can imagine a firestorm erupted. haven't a member of the church of christ and a kennedy supporter who was roundly criticized in church services and the local and national media wrote about him in both tennessee and the bennett's front page stories the next day. the elders decide to have baxter sermon printed as a tract that is the one intellectual shelflife of three weeks. a wealthy member of the congregatio

the elders decided to have baxter's sermon printed as a tract. okay. a wealthy member of the congregation paid for 60,000 copies to be printed and distributed. the contributor had been, was also a financial supporter to baxter's national television show founded by james walter nichols who had been contact by nixon's outreach man, armstrong, when armstrong began organizing conservative protestants on behalf of the nixon campaign. evans received a great bit of mail castigating him for this rebuttal of baxter. another sign, though, of how closely and seriously the kennedy campaign monitored anti-catholicism in key states, robert kennedy wrote to joe evans. now actually jack and joe, jack kennedy and joe evans had entered the house of representatives in the same class in the late '40s, so they had known each other. bobby wrote, i read about your recent action in speak ising out so forthrightly on the religious question. i would like you to know that i very much appreciate what you did, and i am sure that senator kennedy does too. so here we, it's an amazin

baxter was a widely revered minister. this sermon was emblematic of the kind of anti-catholic rhetoric that permeated and tracks in this area. baxter began by asserting that in addition to the communist rat, america faced in the form of the roman catholic church. the catholic church and those are the two great press for america's freedom. catholic sources without mentioning kennedy's name, baxter concluded it would seem wise and even necessary that all non-catholic would pose for further growth and spread of roman catholicism. until such time as the roman catholic church changes its doctrine of intolerance towards other religions. do note the irony here in the major religious freedom of this group which is undermining my religious freedom. no sense of irony that shed be a violation of anyone's freedom. all of this is remarkable in terms of your arguments. the iconic baxter was one of the leading ministers in the church of the christ at that time and hillsboro or synapse presages congregation. chad hotly of nbc news sent a