University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER 1
"A Groovy Trip While It Lasted"

Interview

INTERVIEWER:

"How do you feel about the church's response to social issues in the 1970s?"

PASTOR:

"Well, I think the churches have largely been withdrawing. There is much more internal preoccupation in the church. Some of the activists are now into organizational development patterns in which the church, as organization, becomes a focus for mission. . . . There is an attempt to make its structure what you would want society to be. From a radical perspective one might see this as `power to the people' in microcosm. The attempt is to open up the decision-making processes of the church in a way that seldom happens in other institutional contexts. In this way the church can set an example for society. I have social activist friends who are very much into matters like transactional analysis, sensitivity groups, and liturgical creativity with their congregations now. There is no doubt that there is a great deal more of this internal preoccupation in congregations recently. But it seems to me that it just represents a whole lot of retreat from social issues which continue. There has not been a great social change. I think the injustice and the polarization between institutional establishments and those who are exploited by them has not lessened. . . .

"I think there has been [among liberal clergy] a lot of disillusionment with the effectiveness of mass movements and a recognition of the entrenchment of social injustice and a real confusion as to where the handles are, and even what are the appropriate social goals. I think a lot of social goals that were assumed to be appropriate ten, or even seven, years ago are now . open to question. For instance, how do black and white

communities appropriately work together? Are there really convergent goals? Certainly in education the labeling of busing as a bad thing is coming not only from the white but the black communities as well. I feel overwhelmed by the confusion of goals, myself, here as pastor of an interracial church in an integrated neighborhood. Five years ago, I suppose, it seemed like a place to really dig in and stabilize the neighborhood. `We'll stabilize the neighborhood' Now what does that really mean when whites say stabilize a neighborhood? `Organize a community.' Well, what does it really mean when the organization of the community is white primarily? It is to keep the whites sticking around longer and the blacks from coming in. It has become a very confused time as far as the social witness of the church is concerned. I'm sure you've heard that everywhere you've gone.

"Another side of it is the recognition in the whole culture, and the grudging recognition by some of us who really were turned on by the civil rights movement and the peace movement, that there has been a lot of emptiness in the institutional church when throughout society there have been so many manifestations-such as parapsychology, astrology, Jesus freaks, Satanism, transcendental meditation-of a tremendous search by people to find personal meaning and transcendence for their lives. I think liberal clergy must acknowledge that we have assumed the so-called spiritual dimension too easily. Ten years or so ago with The Secular City and Honest to God we were trying to say, `Hey, world! We're not weird! We are concerned for human beings and human issues and human pain.' But our answers in terms of social involvement did not distinguish us from good liberal humanist people in general. There has been a response to the theological emptiness of social action by middle-American clergy and laity emerging within the churches. It is a conservative reaction [in the form of] a new evangelism and fundamentalism. Liberal clergy and laity are extremely vulnerable to this reaction. We have nothing concrete to offer as an alternative since we have, in the Nixon years, become so goalless and rudderless on social concerns. There may have been an external storm gathering a few years ago, but now the storm is internal, inside the church, and social action is losing out. . . ."

INTERVIEWER:

"How have liberal clergy responded to this new privatism in the churches?"

PASTOR:

"There is now a crisis of confidence. Those who were out there on the picket lines, going south to march, going to city council meetings, have now capitulated in many ways. Some have started playing internal games in their churches, some of which I think have value but tend to ignore the social content of the Christian gospel and thus, in my view, are inadequate in themselves. Some have gotten out of the ministry and gone into social work and planning jobs. Then there are some others, and I think I count myself among them, who are saying, `Oh, my God! Where is the lever? How can I rally some troops to really take something on? And how can I tap into a transcendent dimension without just staying in the church building, withdrawn from the world?' That is, how can we continue to be on the move and involved in the suffering of the world and at the same time say that we are experiencing what it means to be a Christian?"

INTERVIEWER:

"Are you saying that some clergymen who saw the church as a viable institution from which to mount social action campaigns in the 1960s no longer see it that way?"

PASTOR:

"I still read The Christian Century every once in a while. Andrew D. Templeton wrote in a recent issue that there is still no institution in American society as capable of social transformation and redemption as the church. I don't believe it anymore. I wrote in the margin of the article that I wish that I still believed it as Templeton apparently does. . . .

"I think the church is much more obviously on the fringe now. This is a judgment on the illusion that it was meaningfully involved in the sixties. One of the things that the churches historically specialize in is inspiration and crusades. And, of course, some horrible things have been called by that glorious name. When social involvement and social change were seen primarily in terms of inspiration and crusades, and revivalism, of course then the church was very inclined to be in the center of the arena. But when social change means hard digging and reading through reams and reams of [bureaucratic] reports in order to understand how the system is doing its job, only to discover that you need still more information in order to pin down the concrete, bureaucratic lever which dispenses injustice in certain concrete

circumstances-well, you know, that's not very inspiring. This does not call for charismatic leadership so much as dogged persistence. It is not going to light the fires of crusades or revival and it does raise some rather serious questions of staying power. . . .

The action-oriented clergy are having to go back to where the troops are now that the crusade is over. This may indicate the shallowness of much of what went under the banner of social action and social change in the sixties.

"But wasn't it fun while it lasted? We were turned on by the feeling that we were tilting at windmills and the monsters were really falling. And in a way, I suppose, by creating asocial climate in which legislation could take place, we did have some effect. Our cause was so obviously just and the enemy was so dumb as to use knives, sticks, police dogs, and fire hoses. You got some victories then. But the enemy is not so dumb anymore; in fact, the enemy is us. At least we are coopted into the system. Those who are still seriously into social action, who are now doing the hard drudge work of making the system move, they are in the main no longer clergymen, or at least no longer active pastors. But it was such a groovy trip while it lasted. . . .

During the 1960s liberal Protestant leaders, at every level of church structure, made noble efforts to push, pull, and drag the churches into the twentieth century. But their efforts, having fallen short, instead churned to the surface all the latent conflict and tension simmering deep within. They are now experiencing tremendous pressure to stifle their efforts to enact policies consistent with their understanding of the implications of Christian theology in matters of brotherhood, justice, and peace. They are also discovering that the problem runs deeper than mere resistance to committing the institution to programs of social change; the churches themselves have been and continue to be stalwart agents reinforcing and providing legitimacy not only for the status quo but also for prejudice, intolerance, and hatred.

Our culture has at least momentarily retreated from the central struggles for human justice. And in the respite from battle, liberal church leaders are realizing the folks back home supported the

enemy all along. Or, in the immortal words of comic-page philosopher Pogo, "I have seen the enemy and they is us." Some religious leaders are now advocating that the churches should pay attention to survival and maintenance goals at all costs. What seemed a clearly charted course in the mid-sixties, they argue, was an ill-conceived game plan long overdue for the shredding machine. But for a very large proportion of clergy deeply involved in the struggles for social justice during the sixties, the present is a time of confusion, apprehension, and guilt. They know the problems remain. They also know the unfinished business of creating a just social order involves acting upon the structures which breed injustice.

But how are they to act? They know their personal ministries cannot survive direct confrontation strategies. They know their congregations cannot survive continued polarization. The foregoing excerpt from an interview we conducted in mid-1973 with a former "activist" summarizes well what we sense to be the mood of thousands of clergy whose great expectations now lie shattered. They are discontent with the prospect of returning to a privatized, pietistic faith which knows not and cares not for the problems of our society and world.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of clergy involvement in social action during the 1960s was their acting in groups. "Where two or three were gathered," commitment to act was reinforced and the brainpower to develop strategies was enhanced. In contrast, the struggle of the seventies to find new handles, new strategies for meaningful ministries, has become a very private affair. Loneliness can breed despair. We hope this volume may in some small measure contribute to dialogue and collective strategies for new vistas of involvement.

Concerning This Book

This is a book about a group of turned-on Christians in a conservative midwestern city who haven't found out that the civil rights movement is dead. No one has told them the churches' hands are tied in doing anything about human injustice. They don't know that confrontation politics are at best unproductive and at worst counterproductive. Nor do they seem to have learned

that being a "good liberal" no longer requires one to be against poverty, war, and injustice. Their heads are impervious to the proposition that "little people" are helpless to do anything about the policies of the military-industrial-government establishment which make us all angry and a little less human. A few have tried to tell them that sensitivity training, consciousness expansion, personal growth, mysticism, and other such answers are where it's at now for the churches. They've experimented a bit with these things, but none of them makes the adrenaline flow like a good confrontation with a corporate executive or a politician. They keep plugging away on problems nearly everyone else has become resigned to or about.

This is a book about troublemakers. Their tactics are often abrasive. Their strategies are calculated to anger and frustrate. Nearly everyone in the metropolitan area hates their guts. And to add insult to the injury they have caused the proud town of Dayton, Ohio, they call themselves the "Congregation for Reconciliation." A cartoonist for one of the Dayton daily newspapers delights in portraying their pastor, the Rev. Richard Righter, tiptoeing in bare feet, Bible under arm, across the top of an old porcelain bathtub. And one gets the impression there is little affection implied when the group is referred to in the media as the "Congregation for Reconciliation."

But a funny thing is happening in Dayton, Ohio: this tiny band of people is winning. No, the armies of the corporate and political structures have not fallen to their knees, but Gideon's gang is still very much in the battle. Moreover, they can claim. some proud victories in the long war.

This is not a book to glorify their heroic endeavors. Perhaps someday, if they stay in business long enough, someone will write that book. And perhaps they will deserve the praise. We see them as a group of people who believe in a radical God who gives a damn, a God who has no hands but ours to do his work. They are ordinary human beings: sometimes ingenious and other times rather thick-headed, sometimes altruistic and compassionate and other times struggling and losing in the battle to suppress their egos for a cheap moral victory, sometimes grasping an opportunity and other times failing to see it staring them in the face. Were they otherwise, we would find them uninteresting or have serious

doubts as to our abilities to be, in some measure, objective observers. They are people who have earned our respect the hard way. We were hired to be critical evaluators and we took that assignment seriously. But with our presence they were subjected to double jeopardy, for while we share their concerns, we are not by experience, sentiment, or theory social activists. We rather like these people, but we will not make of them wistful heroes. They deserve better.

This congregation is by no means a model which church leaders all over America should attempt to emulate. To the contrary, such a recommendation would be naive and irresponsible. As we assess the present mood of this nation and the Protestant churches, very few judicatory units in the country could attempt to create this kind of congregation short of suicide. There are, though, special circumstances wherein a similar congregation might exist without deleterious consequences. We will discuss these in the concluding chapter.

Why, you should be asking, do we bother to write a book about a group holding little promise as a model for the future? We offer three answers.

First, we hope the story of the Congregation for Reconciliation will serve to prick the consciences of Protestant leaders, to remind them that the goals to which they dedicated themselves in the sixties are as yet unfulfilled. We know well the problems which befell liberal Protestant leaders for pushing harder on issues of social justice than their laity and fellow clergy were willing to go. But what of the theology which informed their action? Are church leaders, whose zealousness exceeded their skill, to engage in a cover-up to convince themselves the churches ought not be concerned about social justice except insofar as it is a by-product of changing men's hearts? We hope not.

Our second objective in writing about this experimental social-action congregation is to focus on hope for the involvement of the churches in the struggles for social justice. Those who wallowed in the political process during the sixties learned about the inextricable relationship between social structures and life chances. They now know the unfinished business of creating a just social order involves acting upon the structures which breed injustice. A whole ministry, thus, must serve as more than a first

aid. or comfort station to the victims of the injustices of institutional arrangements. Nor can the churches continue to pursue schizophrenic policies which legitimize ignorance and indifference to structural injustice while simultaneously attacking that which it has condoned with monies from the same offering plate.

The churches' role in the years ahead must of necessity, we believe, be in substantial measure educational-but education as more than a shibboleth to cover a multitude of sins and failures. The churches cannot be content to label as educational that which fails, by objective criteria of evaluation, to make a difference. Black militant leaders, who in the late sixties told white liberals to help by going home to work in their own communities, were right. The challenge still stands. In fact, we scarcely comprehend the nature of the tasks implicit in the challenge, much less the magnitude of the assignment. But this is the business at hand for liberal Protestants who profess a desire to reduce racism, poverty, injustice, and whatever else they embrace under the banner of liberalism. Until unambiguous evidence confirms that those inside the churches are more vitally committed to the Christian ideal of concern for one's fellow man than the man in the street, liberal Protestantism has fallen short.

We are deeply concerned that liberal Protestants not run away from the task. They must find ways to change people and structures without tearing the church apart, a heavy assignment. There seems to be a growing feeling that the only options are radical social action or retreat to personal pietism, that the comfort and challenge roles are incompatible. We reject such simplistic thinking.

The story of the Congregation for Reconciliation illumines other options in a variety of ways. It is a story of a ,group of people too put out with traditional forms of congregational life to have anything to do with other churches in the metropolitan area, thereby rejecting one of the two principal goals the congregation's initiators intended. It is a story of other pastors so frightened by social action that they missed a golden opportunity to interpret the activities of the Congregation for Reconciliation, and thus an opportunity to educate and to enhance understanding of the problems the total metropolitan community faced. It is also a

story of pastors so threatened by the prospect of losing their own few socially conscious people that they missed an opportunity to multiply the number several fold. In short, the lessons about what didn't happen are every bit as important as the converse. This case study is pregnant with lessons about that which might have been, opportunities which involved neither confrontation nor retreat.

Our third objective in writing this book is to add one small piece to a very large puzzle liberal church leaders must fit together. Liberal Protestantism in America has fallen on hard times, and most church leaders now know this. But they do not agree as to exactly what the present falling barometers purport. To some, present declines in membership, church attendance, benevolence, etc., reflect an inevitable pattern of recession, normal after the long period of growth and development following World War II. A few even see the present trends as healthy and desirable purgation. Most, however, see cause for concern and even anxiety.

Two factors, especially, lend substance for anxiety. First, American society may be "catching up" with the process of secularization which defoliated many European churches decades ago. A very large proportion of the American population, according to this thesis, lacks deep religious commitment, and the cultural options created by our rising level of affluence and leisure entice away marginal participants. The second issue is the saturation and resentment of growing numbers of lay persons with the liberal pronouncements and policies of their professional leadership. Whether these persons in some measure account for the growth of conservative churches or have rather chosen to neither fight nor switch, their disenchantment has led to many empty pews and shrinking bankrolls.

In spite of a very rapid growth in the volume of social scientific studies of religion during the past decade, the field remains undernourished, and critically important issues are not as yet illumined with sufficient scientific data to interpret them confidently.

Social scientists themselves argue about the meaning of the sparse data. Although church records are notoriously unreliable, no one, to our knowledge, argues that the present impression of

decline arises from insubstantial data. Consensus does exist that decline, whatever its reasons or meaning, is real. The post-World War II boom in church members, with its accouterments of proliferating building programs, bureaucratic specialization of institutional structures, and rosy optimism about the future, has now ended for liberal Protestantism.

The anxiety felt is heightened by the absence of data and the uncertainty of appropriate theories, models, or analogies for interpreting what has happened or for sketching the morrow. In this age of discontinuity, where knowledge has become the principal asset for dealing with the future, the churches have little reserve capital. Although complex, the reasons for this can be summed up in two interrelated propositions: (1) social scientists have focused little attention on religion and (2) religious institutions have invested preciously few resources in seeking self-knowledge. Further, the churches' limited investments in research, by and large, reflect bad judgment. All too often the principal criterion in engaging a researcher has been the individual's loyalty to the institutional church. Competence to conduct research has received only cursory notice. As a result, much of the existing literature is thinly veiled public relations propaganda to legitimize programs determined before the investigations were ever conducted.

While the churches could, without increasing their knowledge gaining capacity or their utilization of knowledge, stumble through this critical period of institutional decline and emerge only slightly scarred, those are high gamblers' odds. Whatever else religious institutions may claim, they are voluntary associations competing in a pluralistic society for finite resources. To rely on providence to rescue religious institutions from their present nose dive, without their digging in and utilizing the various knowledge acquiring capacities of the social-behavioral sciences, stretches credibility.

The claims and hopes for social scientific inquiry have been heralded beyond reality by some. But every exaggerated claim can be paralleled by many instances of premature delimiting of the parameters of social scientific inquiry before the possibilities were understood. Social science offers only one of many legitimate

means for gaining significant knowledge about the life of religious institutions. It alone can never be sufficient, but we have entered an age where it is indispensable. Without a solid base of empirical knowledge, no institution can formulate conscientious plans and policies for the future.