University of Virginia Library

Foreword

Only yesterday, it seems, in 1965, Dick Righter was a crusading pastor in Philadelphia, and I was a reforming bureaucrat in that city's Anti-Poverty Program. In those years we believed, along with many other activists, that we could help achieve permanent change in the structure of racial and economic injustices of American society. Now, almost a decade later, the national administration and the Philadelphia city administration both stand for a reversal of all that we believed in and worked for. And many former activists have modified their expectations and abandoned their high ideals for a smaller scale of achievement.

Today in Dayton, Ohio, the Congregation for Reconciliation under Righter's leadership stands for the best that the 1960s had to offer: clear analysis of racism as a basic social evil, intelligent and concerted action, and a faith that human life can be lived in wholeness and equality. It also stands squarely within the Western tradition of religious dissent. It combines degrees of rationalism and enthusiasm, anti-institutionalism and institutional seriousness, work and play. It has lived longer than many other social-activist attempts to encounter racism from a biblical basis. We need to ask why from two perspectives. One is the perspective of social scientific curiosity. How does a small congregation manage to meet its own needs and still confront the principalities and powers of the surrounding community? The other perspective is that of mission strategy. How is the drive for social justice, with its multitude of motivations and expectations, given an ongoing institutional framework?

The modern phenomenon of religious dissent has both Greek and Hebrew antecedents. The followers of Pythagoras, rebelling

against the stultifying conformity in the Greek city-state, set up their own community built upon the mathematical representation of cosmic order. The history of the Hebrews as a people summoned to be a light unto the nations is one of continual tension between establishment, in the name of order, and prophecy, in the name of compassion. The early church, born of both traditions, sought to embody a new alternative to prevailing political and economic practice. Its survival is the result, in large measure, of its ability to live in, but not of, the world-to accept the limitations of its cultural environment only with faith in the promise that wholeness and peace would one day be established throughout the earth.

But what about the future? Can the Congregation for Reconciliation succeed and, more importantly, can it be a leader for that part of the American church which sees itself continually addressing social issues from the perspective of the Gospel?

The paradox of religious dissent is that it is both anti-institutional and proto-institutional. The act of exposing oppression and injustice challenges basic institutional arrangements. Yet commonly held notions of ethical right and human possibility can

become patterns of social behavior, and thus the foundation for new institutions. Because of this paradox, success is difficult to measure; success won too quickly may indicate a less than adequate approach to the problem. Yet perseverance can lead to a series of subtle and perhaps unintended consequences. Old issues fade away, fresh problems are uncovered, and new people are recruited to the cause. The Puritan movement, with its wide variety of dissenting groups, survived two hundred years of struggle, finally achieving a lasting impact on the political and economic structure of American society.

The challenge facing religiously sensitive persons today is not only to find an authentic personal faith. The genius of religious faith is not that it inspires adherence but that it engineers critical judgment and creativity. In a democratic society there can be no enduring sense of personal identity without involvement in a process of continually examining the circumstances of equality. The challenge is one of finding ways by which creative possibilities are expressed and embodied in all our institutions. Our society

has a stake in the success and influence of the Congregation for Reconciliation.

This book is the product of a too rare collaboration among self-reflective leaders of a congregation, perceptive social analysts, and denominational executives with an ongoing concern for accurate evaluation. In this time of institutional change, the practical problems which the Congregation for Reconciliation has faced with imaginative solutions are of wide interest to all church leaders. We are deeply grateful to Richard Righter and "Gideon's Army" and to Jeffrey Hadden and Chuck Longino. We hope this book can stimulate further solid research efforts within the traditions of religious dissent.