University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER 7
The Question of Strategy: Conflict in Context

The Congregation for Reconciliation has, throughout its life, attempted to induce or encourage social change by calling business, service, and governmental organizations to public accountability. A number of features distinguish their manner of action and need to be identified and analyzed. First, they have typically operated in the public arena. Seldom have they privately approached individuals and in effect said, "Hey, this is a community problem for which we believe your organization bears some responsibility. Why don't you go talk with your board and see if you can't do thus and so?" Rather, with the skillful use of the media, they have taken on organizations in full view of the total community. This means, secondly, that they have willfully placed themselves in an adversary relationship with organizations they consider to be in need of change. This, in turn, has placed representatives of the organizations under attack in a position of (a) attempting to ignore the charges, (b) defending their policies, or (c) launching a counteroffensive against the Congregation. As a result of deliberately generating such adversary relationships, the Congregation has created community conflict.

America, perhaps more than other nations, has difficulty in dealing with conflict as a "normal" or "healthy" social process. We tend to view conflict as a breakdown of everyday social relationships, an abnormal interruption of man's normal state of being, cooperation. Conflict thus is a condition demanding quick remedy, lest the social order be threatened and torn asunder. There are some peculiar ironies about this cultural attitude

toward conflict. First of all, democratic governments invariably include structures deliberately created to provide legitimate processes for the resolution of conflict. The very nature of democracy assumes the existence of diverse interests struggling for scarce resources and a voice in public policy. Only tyrannical power, squelching all opposition, suppresses conflict.

Our founding fathers not only assumed conflict as normal but also wanted to assure its inevitability. Those-gentlemen, in forging the Constitution of this nation, themselves struggled to protect vested interests while at the same time they compromised to assure the institutionalization of the ongoing struggle so as not to give one side an unchallengeable advantage. At stake in the conflict in Philadelphia was the democratic process itself; they assumed that men of divergent interests and origins would make conflicting claims to status, power, and resources, that the existing arrangements of power and authority were not permanent.

Conflict pervades our history. Sometimes it has been a means for forging unity out of discord and disharmony. Sometimes it has erupted into violent attempts to annihilate the opposition, scarring our heritage. But, amazingly, no group has ever managed to gain sufficient advantage to silence the opposition permanently and thereby terminate conflict. This, we believe, results from an ingenious constitutional system which regulates the parameters of conflict. Between the lines, the Bill of Rights protects an individual's right to engage in legitimate conflict in the pursuit of his own interests, without fear of tyrannical exercise of power by government, neighbor, or adversary. Strange, therefore, that we should come to regard conflict as disruptive, dysfunctional, and abnormal, rather than as inherent in social process.

There is another irony in our cultural attitude toward conflict. In contrast to our uneasiness about conflict, competition is a revered cultural value. Competition is the sacred potion which kindles the spirit of free enterprise, capitalism, and the National Football League. Without competition, we are taught to believe, the furnaces in Pittsburgh, the assembly lines in Detroit, and the stockyards in Omaha would grind to a halt. Stifle competition and you strangle initiative, the backbone of our way of life. If anything rivals apple pie as Americana, most assuredly it is the spirit of competition.

At base, competition and conflict are both forms of struggle. But, as Kenneth Burke succinctly says, "the names for things and operations smuggle in connotations of good and bad-a noun tends to carry with it a kind of invisible adjective, and a verb an invisible adverb." [1] Competition carries desirable connotations in our society and is sometimes used to launder abuses and distortions of power in business and government; conflict bears innuendos and is used to describe threats to our social stability, as in marital conflict and the Vietnam conflict. The former implies a fair, and perhaps even friendly, struggle; the latter suggests hostility and foul play.

As a nation, we condone and support such maxims as "May the best man win" and "First among equals." But in the reality of any contest, be it for power, prestige, or resources, we reject such an objective, nonpartisan stance. We define good guys and bad guys. And we also define the nature of the struggle along the spectrum from competition to conflict, thus imposing a judgment on the controversy. Obviously, the attachment of such value-laden words can affect our normative response and distort our perception of the struggle itself. Just as "healthy political competition" is a grossly inappropriate description of the activities of the Committee to Re-Elect the President in 1972, so too is "instigating community conflict" a misnomer, as normally understood, for the activities of the Congregation for Reconciliation. They play by the rules, honor their commitments, and genuinely respect, perhaps even love, their adversaries. They just happen also to disagree with some aspects of the status quo and are engaged in competition to effect social change. Persons who rock boats are seldom very popular, but, in being labeled as engaging in conflict, the Congregation has had the job of communicating the justice and legitimacy of its goals made even more difficult.

Conflict, as we have conceptualized it, and not as it has been culturally defined, can be a positive rather than a negative social process. Rather than being itself disruptive and dysfunctional, it may help to resolve dysfunctional, disruptive, and inequitable social arrangements. "Rubbing raw the sores of discontent," as the late Saul Alinsky used to put it, may well heal social wounds which might otherwise fester and eventually produce far greater social ills.

Few in our society today challenge the proposition that significant inequities and injustices exist. The bone of contention usually revolves around the question of means to effect social change. The argument advanced by the Congregation for Reconciliation, as well as by most groups engaged in so-called direct action or confrontation tactics, is that conflict offers an effective means to move otherwise recalcitrant, reluctant, and resistant institutions. Confrontation is the means, they argue, whereby otherwise powerless change-oriented groups can pressure much more powerful groups to initiate change in the public interest.

The strike or threat of strike is the labor union's institutionally legitimized weapon to pressure corporate structures in the ongoing struggle to foster the interests of labor. Governments threaten banks, corporations, and other governments with economic sanctions to achieve their will in the struggle to determine domestic and foreign policy. Parents threaten children by withholding rewards to gain compliance with their will. Members of voluntary associations threaten to withhold financial contributions to convince leaders to pursue policies consonant with rank and file expectations. There are hundreds of ways individuals and organizations struggle with other individuals and organizations to achieve their will. Usually, however, we use words like negotiation, competition, exercise of proper authority, and the like to describe the process of struggle. Individuals and organizations, whether implicitly or explicitly stated, unconsciously or consciously, seek out effective means (strategies) for getting what they want. The Congregation for Reconciliation has chosen conflict in the public arena precisely because they believe it to be an effective means for achieving their goals.

In this chapter we shall examine their conflict strategy within a framework of dramaturgical social theory. [2] Our approach is neither polemical nor intended to attempt to legitimize their approach to social change. Rather, we seek only to provide a theoretical model which both "makes sense" of their action and can explain their measure of success. Having explored their strategy, we will then examine their own perceived link to a theological rationale. Are the Christian goals of love and reconciliation compatible with their conflict strategy? And finally, we will present a verbatim interview with Righter which reveals some

thing about the value presuppositions informing his style of social ministry.

Footnotes

A Dramaturgical Model
for Interpreting Action and Conflict

Social order is a matter of consent; leaders must persuade followers to accept them. Once done, maintaining approval becomes an ongoing activity, varying in degree with the openness of the system involved. A dictator with strong military support is relatively safe in his power position; a congressman in Washington seldom leaves the campaign platform. The legitimacy possessed by any leader is his key to power; without it he loses not only status and prestige but also his ability to achieve goals.

Maintenance of legitimacy is not unlike a drama. When the script is written as comedy, its plot deliberately sanctions doubt. The audience is invited to suspend its presumptions and convictions and to focus on the incongruities and hypocrisies being dramatized by the actors. Unlike tragedy, which envelops its audience on an emotional level, comedy ultimately appeals to reason. The audience must judge the stage action: Does it confirm or deny the unmasking of the heroic figures? That is, are the power- and status-wielding actors deserving of their legitimacy, or ought they to be denuded and dislodged?

Heroes generally appeal for audience support to maintain the existing social order-i.e., their own legitimacy-on grounds of stability, orthodoxy, tradition, and the like. Their challengers, the villains who may be wearing the white hats all along, appeal for change in social order-and hence in heroic figures-on the basis of obstinacy, heresy, and stagnation in power circles.

Real-life drama flowers as comedy in environments where open criticism is considered valuable; in a democratic social order many of the mechanisms for change and development assume the public form of comedies acted before the voters, the financial supporters, the volunteer workers, etc. In the words of Hugh Duncan:

Thus social action often assumes the form of comedy played before significant audiences. It aims to challenge the credibility of the goals espoused by organizational elites in light of their (organizational) behavior. Both the heroes and the villains plot and act to win audience approval and assurance of legitimacy and cooperative support. Although some kinds of dialogue and action can always be predicted by past stage plays and the experiences of the actors and audiences involved, the outcome is seldom inevitable. In the unrehearsed and unscripted drama of social action, the heroes in the last act will be those most able to woo the audience while discrediting their opponents.

Viewed from a dramaturgical perspective, the adversary relationships engendered in the public arena by the Congregation represent a form of competition. Both parties are competing for public support. Both operate within a framework of rules, those of fair play. To do otherwise could be to draw boos from the audience and to strengthen the opponent's appeal.

Yet, differing from competition in one significant respect, such dramas are termed conflict situations. The struggle's reward is not the same for both parties. Unlike an election, where opponents compete for a particular public office, or an athletic event, where teams compete for the higher score, in social conflict situations the parties seek contradictory goals. Ordinarily such struggles in the public arena focus upon issue-relevant behavior or policy. One opponent challenges, the other defends the status quo. Both seek to have their will prevail. From the challenger's position, the goal of conflict is social change.

When a social-action group appeals for social change, the individual or organization from which such change is sought may respond in one of three ways. First, it may ignore the challenge and continue business as usual. This is an appropriate response when the challenger lacks visibility or where the request is so outrageous as to greatly undermine credibility. Second, it may defend present policy or make cosmetic modifications to give the appearance of reasonable flexibility and accommodation. Third, it

may counterattack and seek to destroy the credibility of the challenger.

The Congregation for Reconciliation, in its major action projects in Dayton, has enjoyed a great deal of visibility through the news media. This has rendered the first counter-strategy option useless to their opponents. The second option, since its use is only slightly disruptive to normal routine, has been the favored one, while the third possibility has had mostly surreptitious use.

Interestingly, the Congregation has met little public challenge to their credibility and tactics in the form of attacking their label as a Christian social-action group. Such assaults have issued, however, within private conversations and meetings, both from those being directly challenged by the group and from others more peripheral to the action. In terms of dramatic action, such gestures are specifically directed only to segments of the public audience and are used to sway important persons' opinions through the device of invitation backstage, or into the inner circle. We learned in our interviews, for instance, of one clergyman (peripheral to the target of Congregation challenge) who endorsed negative reactions among civically influential laity by privately expressing his own disillusionment with Righter. Though he had actually had only minimal acquaintance with him, he made claims of close personal ties now suffering because of Righter's credibility. Such conversations, while outside the rules of fair play, are an effective strategy technique.

In the public drama, elites-i.e., those with legitimacy-tend to make the rules, and they do so to maximize their advantage. Those who would challenge their legitimacy and authority to write the script and determine the action of the drama must do so without resorting to foul play. Surprise, then, can become an important weapon to catch elites off guard, without script or stage directions. Comedy and irony are institutionally sanctioned forms of disrespect which can be disarming to adversaries in political struggle. While no one in Dayton seems to know the actual size of the Congregation, there is a general awareness that they are not a very large group. This itself, a tiny band of activists taking on the most powerful institutions of the city, is a form of comedy and irony which the Congregation has used well.

The Congregation's image as a conflict group is firmly established. Thus, to those opposing any kind of conflict or confrontation to achieve social change, the Congregation is by definition illegitimate. Three important factors tend to offset this disadvantage. First, some people have come to accept social protest as a legitimate means to redress grievances in American society. Second, the drama is seldom played to win the approval or attention of the total community. Third, in any confrontation, the Congregation's primary objective is not preservation of their own legitimacy but the questioning of the legitimacy of their adversaries. They need be concerned with protecting their own legitimacy and credibility only within certain parameters and to certain audiences, especially the media and community leaders who tacitly support their objectives even though they may disapprove of their means. To achieve this entails honesty, avoidance of the double-cross or other forms of betrayal, accuracy in their research, and faithfulness to their theological rationale.

This is not to say the Congregation can abandon concern for image management in the broader community. Indeed, public perception of its action tactics is important, and it has usually avoided tactics likely to alienate virtually the entire community. For example, at no point in the life of this group has any member strategically used, or threatened to use, civil disobedience. No member of the Congregation has been arrested during their demonstrations. By any comparable measure, the tactics pursued by the Congregation have been milder than those followed by other social-action groups in Dayton during the late 1960s. This pattern emerged at the onset. In their first social-action project, the Christmas card leafleting of the National Cash Register Company in 1968, the message was so mild as to belie interpretation as threat. After introducing themselves as a Christian action group sponsored by the Presbyterians, their message stated:

Since this is a rather typical tone for the group, the question arises as to why others perceive them as "militant'' and "radical." Also, we should make explicit that, contrary to the image of Righter as belligerent and uncompromising, we found few who openly view him as so. On the contrary, most people, including his adversaries, find him mild-mannered, soft-spoken, well organized, and persuasive in presenting his views. Why such dramatically different images? There is no simple answer or easy explanation, but let us consider several issues related to the public image of the Congregation and its pastor.

First, the idea of a Christian church for the expressed purpose of pursuing social action is itself incongruent to a very large majority of the American public. Hence, from the onset, the problem of establishing credibility for this experimental congregation loomed large. For many, any social-action project would be "too radical." Had the proposal for an experimental social-action congregation been submitted in the form of a general referendum -to the lay people of the Miami Presbytery, approval would have been unlikely.

A social-action project in the name of the church threatens the average person far more than the same project pursued by some secular group. The church-based group creates cognitive dissonance. When a Black Panther, for example, indicts white society as racist, the average individual has a whole multitude of cognitive apparatuses for dismissing the legitimacy of the charge. But when a white middle-class Christian congregation makes the same charge, the process is complicated by their claiming legitimacy in the name of the same faith as those indicted. To dismiss the issue, the average person must find some basis to discredit his accusers. Hence, fault-finding becomes the name of the game. Retaining public legitimacy becomes an extremely difficult and precarious task.

For those most disturbed and threatened by the presence of a social-action congregation, fault-finding leaves few stones unturned. Its pastor emerges as an outside radical, understanding neither the problems of the community nor the tremendous progress already made. Members of the congregation are typified as radical or misguided idealists mesmerized by a Pied Piper, the Presbytery is controlled by kooks, and any pastor expressing the slightest sympathy becomes immediately suspect. That this reservoir of ill will was not more successfully tapped in Dayton by the Congregation's opponents seems remarkable. We can only surmise that perceptions of the particular role of religious belief in the individual and collective psyche lent this option an air of fragility. Thus, such tactics seldom occurred on front and center stage, where the audience might respond defensively and render the counterattack counterproductive.

Footnotes

Symbiosis: The Congregation and the Media

just as television and motion pictures have occasionally disseminated fine dramatic art beyond the theaters of major cities, so too the mass media extend the audience of social drama. Where newspaper editors and reporters are interested in issues of social change, the presence of an action group gives them opportunity to call such issues to public attention. For some newsmen in Dayton, the Congregation became a convenient vehicle for exposing social issues. In the process, the spotlight unavoidably illuminated the Congregation and contributed to its public visibility.

The dramaturgical model assumes the presence of an audience, and the news media, in a sense, can provide a stage on which the actors advance and retreat before the audience. Of course, the public relations skills of the opponents relate to the media. But in situations where activist challengers provide the initiative and their opponents assume a passive or defensive stance, the former group will attract greater attention. They command the initiative in the conflict. Only if they encounter an unusually aggressive opponent, or if the media are disposed to protect the status quo, will the activists carry less natural affinity for the media. Like bees and flowers, each meets, to some extent, the other's needs. In the following paragraphs, we will attempt to trace this symbiotic

relationship between media and activists, illustrating with the case of the Congregation and the Dayton newspapers.

The Congregation needs the media for several reasons. First, in order for social issues to become "issues" rather than private concerns, they must corner public consciousness. The most effective channel for doing this is obviously the news media. The Christmas card distribution directly reached six hundred persons with a message. The media coverage, on the other hand, probably extended the message to more than a hundred times as many.

Second, organizations desirous of the favorable opinion of large numbers of people to vote for their candidates, buy their products, or contribute to their causes fear adverse publicity as a blow to the efficiency and viability of their enterprise. In this way, a small well-prepared group skillfully using the media wields social power far out of proportion to its wealth or numbers. Thus the Congregation can take on opponents to whom it stands in relative power and size as a flea in a kennel.

Third, the media can create both name identification and image; they can reinforce the credibility of an otherwise anonymous group. Support mechanisms thus fan out far beyond the range of personal penetration into a community. If the Congregation champions a cause and through media exposure gains some lever of public support, subsequent issues more easily find favor with the same audience. Ralph Nader, for instance, has used this transference effect quite extensively as Nader's Raiders have moved from one issue to another. The end result is an escalation of influence in the public arena, a mustering of more clout for future confrontations.

Finally, for the Congregation for Reconciliation, lacking the active support of the Presbyterian clergy to recruit members, the media inadvertently serve to "advertise" the Congregation to potential participants. For activists seeking group-based, issue oriented involvement, each exposure serves as an altar call for the Congregation.

The media, too, derive benefits from their relationship with this activist group. First, with few exceptions, action committees of the Congregation endure the tedium of research and present credible issues. The "facts" presented to reporters prove easy to verify with committee help and are in most cases accurate. This

emphasis on their own credibility manifests an activist professionalism impressive to news people. The Congregation also eschews . resorting to vendettas or smear tactics and discourages drawing attention to personalities. They focus on issues, and where attack is important, their bead is drawn on institutions or organizations rather than on individuals. The advantages to reporters are self-evident. It is clear from editorials, as well as from interviews with media people, that many journalists in Dayton disapprove of some of the Congregation's tactics. Nevertheless, they give coverage to the group both because they feel the issues it raises are important and because its activities usually fit the definition of "newsworthy."

Covering congregational activities also helps anticipate controversies. News people do compete with one another, and a good working relationship with key members of the Congregation offers an advantage for scooping stories. Journalistic competition, on the other hand, gives action committees bargaining leverage, ensuring fuller and more conspicuous coverage.

But the symbiotic relationship goes even further. The journalist's role reaches beyond reporting the news accurately and fairly. Journalists also judge and select community issues which they think deserve attention for editorial and feature story coverage. Sometimes they latch onto a problem and refuse to let go. Other times an equally serious issue absolutely eludes journalistic imagination or indignation. As the Congregation serves as a resource for the media through its research and involvement in action projects, the media also influence the Congregation. Feature stories bring problems to the attention of the Congregation, and at least some have grown into projects. Also, the Congregation's decision to pursue or drop a project may be directly, but certainly subtly, influenced by whether reporters pay attention to their initial efforts.

Finally, in a countervailing circle paradox, we need to recall that the Congregation began its foray into social action with direct confrontation tactics. On the one hand, Righter had already established media contacts, but to assure wide coverage for the Congregation daring action was needed. On the other hand, the attention-getting event led media people both to report the happening objectively and also to brand the Congregation as

"controversial." From this initial point, the circle of mutual expectation has grown.

But What of Conflict and Christian Theology?

Branded as radicals and heavily engaged in community conflict, the Congregation has received frequent attacks in church circles for not demonstrating the spirit of reconciliation for which it was ostensibly created. Contributing to this impression, the Congregation seldom interprets social-action projects to outsiders in religious language. They tend not to wave the banner "in God's name." Arguments from political and economic ideology serve as a public rationale for action far more often than does theology. Many churchmen no doubt translate this to mean the Congregation is essentially a secular organization parading beneath the banner of the Cross. In this view, their theology, to the extent they have any, has been gobbled up by the world. Otherwise, how could they justify such divisive confrontations in the name of Christian reconciliation?

Those familiar with the history of conflict within the Congregation may interpret the low profile of theology in justifying action as resulting from the rapprochement between the God-talkers and the secular humanists. This offers only one element in the answer; the fuller answer is more complex.

When pressed, the theological rationale for mission most often cited by members of the Congregation is consistent with The Confession of 1967 and with the theological justification for the establishment of new congregations, both adopted by the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. In this sense, the Congregation is orthodox. One word most frequently used to signify a complex of interlocking theological statements, both by the Congregation members and by the denominational documents, is reconciliation. "God's reconciling purpose is to make and keep man human according to the revelation of himself in Christ. . . . The Church is committed, through the Spirit, to his ministry of reconciliation in a broken world." [4]

This ministry of reconciliation, as set forth in national Presbyterian documents, is marked by action focused upon specific contemporary issues and crises. It is both personal and corporate

and lives by risk in relating to the conditions of humanity. In its dialogue with the Miami Presbytery, the Congregation has never strayed far from its charter regarding the theological rationale for its mission. The legitimacy of this rationale has encountered challenges primarily from main-line churches, placing the Congregation in the curious role of defending the orthodox faith, as interpreted in the Confession, from those who see themselves as the most orthodox of all.

In June 1973 the National Mission Committee of the Miami Presbytery met to consider the continuance of its affiliation with the Congregation for Reconciliation. During the continuance hearing, an interesting exchange occurred between one of the committee members and Righter. It clearly sets forth the Congregation's theological position.

COMMITTEEMAN:

"Dick, I would like to ask a theological question. . . . Is it possible to transform society without first transforming the individuals within it? Can we accomplish a better society by confronting various groups with a set of outward demands, or would it not be better to confront their members with the inward demands of Jesus Christ so that their hearts can be changed? Is it not from the person's heart that flows the transformed life? Didn't Jesus say that it was out of the heart, the inner being, that flowed the evils of society?"

RIGHTER:

". . . in the story of the Tower of Babel there is the idea of `corporate sin.' In the first chapter of Coalescence, Paul talks about all things, visible and invisible, being created through and for God. All things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities-which I would understand to be institutions [like governments, businesses, large organizations]. Now, what I'm getting at is that I don't see it as either/or. I see it as both/and. Proclaiming Jesus Christ is something that is both personal and corporate personal evangelism and corporate evangelism."

COMMITTEEMAN:

"In the work of the Congregation for Reconciliation, have you coordinated the two, the personal evangelism with the corporate evangelism? Maybe I'm not close enough to it, but all I hear is the corporate, the confrontation of society. I don't hear about the confrontation of individuals with the claims of Jesus Christ."

RIGHTER:

". . . The Presbytery established this congregation with a special mandate to relate to the area of racial reconciliation. Because of that, and because the Congregation attracted people who have a bias toward corporate or action evangelism, that is where our emphasis has been. There has been an abrupt personal conversion experience by one of the members in the past year, however, the kind within the personal evangelical tradition. . . . We see both kinds of evangelism as a response to the Lordship of Jesus Christ."

COMMITTEEMAN:

"There's just one more thing I'd like to ask you about. Your church has `reconciliation' in its name. Do you feel that in your work you have been a reconciling force in the community, or a divisive force?"

RIGHTER:

"I would argue that we have been a very reconciling congregation. But you have to get your definition of reconciliation straight. That term is used about six times in the New Testament. Generally what we think of when we hear the term is the reconciliation of men to men or men to God as in 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Romans. But the other passage we don't talk about very much is the one in Coalescence that says all things are to be reconciled to God. . . . Now, how are institutions reconciled to God, to carry out their God-given purposes? . . . What is the church's role in relationship to those powers, those authorities, those institutions? Are we to be part of reconciling all things to God and his purposes for them? I would argue that scripturally we are. To do that, when we call institutions to reconciliation, we're calling them to change, just as we call individuals to reconciliation, to conversion, to change. Reconciliation changes people's lives; it changes institutions' lives, too. Whenever you have change, whether personal or corporate, you have periods of flux, and sometimes crises, and sometimes controversy, and sometimes upheaval and division. . . ."

COMMITTEEMAN:

"While Jesus did confront the Pharisees with rather strong and vigorous words, yet at the same time he was seeking to reconcile not only the scribes and Pharisees but also all men to himself and to God, without setting one against the other." RIGHTER: "I can't see that we're trying to set-"

COMMITTEEMAN:

"Well, you may not be trying to; I'm talking about the results of what you are doing."

RICHTER:

"I don't believe that that is the result either. You see, for me, I think the church needs both kinds of reconciliation going on. I don't see very much of the institutional reconciliation going on within the church. I think that there is a crying need for it, too. Not every church is going to be able to do action or institutional evangelism. Some will be programmed for the work of serving those Christians who see corporate evangelism as their calling. There are other congregations-perhaps most-who will be programmed for a ministry of personal reconciliation. But we need both at all times, and I feel that when we are attempting to reconcile, for instance, people who live in slum housing with the kind of institution that allows that to happen, that is a positive reconciliation and that is following the life-style of Jesus."

COMMITTEEMAN:

"I would differ with your understanding of the life of Jesus."

Although not all members of the Congregation interpret their motivation for social action in theological terms, those who do also share Righter's view of the centrality of reconciliation.

The last comment by Righter in the exchange just quoted merits special attention. He mentions the relationship between the disinherited and the institutional structures of society implicated in their suffering-if only by allowing it "to happen." The goal of social action thus becomes the adjustment of institutional structures to address the needs of those at the lower end of the social hierarchy more effectively and humanely. Participants and members of the Congregation, regardless of theological position, share this goal. It can be justified in humanistic or religious terms. And it is consonant with the definition of social action prevalent in America since the mid-1960s: action directed toward the humanization of social structures.

The ideological basis of the Congregation's mission was perhaps best phrased not by a member of the group but by a local pastor: "I have not been directly involved in the Congregation's work, but I think I see a thread going through all that it does in the community. It insists on the right of persons and communities to participate in those decisions which affect their own destiny . . . they really rub against the organizational grain." He then described several situations in which the Congregation repre

sented the interests of the poor in pressuring local government or businesses to reconsider their courses of action. The Congregation, when viewed in this manner, stands as a public protector of those who lack the power within organizational structures to defend their own interests in the institutional distribution of social benefits.

In taking an advocacy position and setting themselves against powerful organizations, the Congregation appeals less often to theology than to American values for legitimating their right of organized dissent. They affirm the corporate structure of society as existing by the consent of those affected. This appeal to Enlightenment philosophy could not be more ideologically American. Those affected by corporate decisions, they argue, have not only the right but also the duty to make their views known. Ultimately, in a democracy, power does reside in the people. Free enterprise not only calls for "caveat emptor" but "caveat vendor" as well.

The Congregation possesses a theological rationale for action. Their infrequent use of it to justify their social action, however, reflects more than a lack of consensus on God-talk among members. It is better understood in strategic terms.

Political and economic ideology, they feel, simply have greater persuasive appeal than has theology. When challenged by a spokesman of a skeptical public (outside the church), they feel they can generate more support by appealing to concepts of "corporate responsibility," "institutional accountability," and "fair play" than of "corporate evangelism" or "institutional reconciliation." The tailoring of messages to audiences is the primary step, as Madison Avenue knows so well, in the art of persuasion. And persuasion, after all, is the bread and butter of social action.

Footnotes

Another Side of Righter

Throughout the life of the Congregation for Reconciliation, Richard Righter has served as its principal action strategist. His primary technique has been confrontation and conflict. We have attempted to interpret this from the theoretical perspective of symbolic interaction or dramatism. This seems to us a useful

model for understanding the Congregation's activities and explaining their measure of success.

Other social scientists might well employ other theoretical models and see Righter and the Congregation in a different light. To be sure, our approach is not without limitations. When pressed for an explanation to the question of why confrontation, our model can say little more than "because it works." In the American tradition of pragmatism, this may well be sufficient. In another sense, it begs other important questions: How do you know that other strategies wouldn't be equally effective? What can be said about the motives or value presuppositions which led Righter and the Congregation to pursue confrontation?

The fact of the matter is the Congregation has seldom employed other strategies. Thus, insofar as the community of Dayton and the specific projects of the Congregation are concerned, we cannot be certain that other strategies would not have worked. We have presented Righter's theological rationale for confrontation, but this too may beg the question of motive. Are there not other ways than conflict to seek reconciliation of " `all things' to God's purpose?"

Conflict theory would argue that institutions are extremely reluctant to change. Only the mustering of countervailing power can pressure for institutional change. For those who are essentially powerless, their main hope for building power is in the street and through the media, that is, in the public arena.

The "power elite" thesis has traditionally been associated with the "radical left" and Marxist ideology. In recent years, however, the growing evidence of massive concentration and abuse of power by certain sectors of society has moved scholars heretofore considered to be only slightly left of center to entertain more seriously the power elite thesis. [5] Perhaps we now need seriously to consider the possibility that the labeling of potentially effective strategies as "leftist" may present a most valuable tool for elites in the public drama. [6]

As already noted, Righter's quiet, low-key style is disarming to his adversaries. It is not easy to dislike him, and even more difficult to pin him with a "leftist" label. As a student of economics, with a master's degree in business administration, he can't be easily snowed with free enterprise rhetoric. He believes

in free enterprise and invests in the stock market. His bone of contention is not with the economic system but rather with corporate and individual abuse of power. Theologically, his views are far more conservative than most Presbyterian and United Church of Christ pastors in metropolitan Dayton. Were he theologically liberal in a conservative denomination, he would be vulnerable to the charge that his "radical" theology has led him astray on social issues. But as a theological conservative, he is immune to such attacks.

At the beginning of this book, we indicated that in telling the story of Righter and his congregation we would not make them wistful heroes. It is not our intent to do so now. What we have tried to say in this chapter is that, in terms of strategy and personal style, Righter has some things going for him that help render his actions effective.

To fail to see Righter as a complex man, however, would do him a great disservice and fall short of providing data to those interested in studying leadership style. Of our many conversations with Righter, the one most revealing of his value presuppositions about the nature of the social order and how one effects social change occurred late on a hot summer night in 1972. We want to quote this conversation verbatim, not to malign him or point to weakness in his character. Such a conclusion, in our opinion, would be an unwarranted value judgment. Rather, we want to provide readers an opportunity to see an important dimension of a complex man. Let us further preface this transcript by explicitly acknowledging that this conversation also reveals a good deal about our own presuppositions about change. At the conclusion of the transcript, we will attempt to interpret it further in light of our different presuppositions as well as in the context of the interview itself.

We asked Righter to talk about how the United People campaign emerged as a central project for the Congregation for Reconciliation and why they decided to pursue a boycott strategy.

RIGHTER:

"This was kind of an issue that I always had in the back of my mind. In my opinion, United Fund was kind of irrelevant in Philadelphia and I knew it wouldn't take me long to research this issue in Dayton. Also, one of the church executives

responsible for starting the experimental congregations in Ohio mentioned the United Fund to me as a possible social issue. I was not in any way directly responsible to him, but his mentioning of the United Fund as a possible issue led me to believe that I had some kind of institutional `blessing' to pursue the project.

"Shortly after arriving in Dayton, I asked a campus minister if he knew anything about United Fund locally. He gave me the name of a gal who's a social worker whom he knew to be concerned about United Fund. I went to talk with her and she encouraged me to get involved in this area. I can't remember if we talked boycott at that time or not. At any rate, I decided that this was an issue that I ought to pursue and I encouraged five or six people in our congregation to form a study group. I went around and collected several key reports from United Fund agencies and passed them around to the study committee. I also went around and interviewed five or six agency executives.

"At that point in the life of the Congregation I promoted the concept of study committees and action committees. After the study committee had prepared a brief report, some of these people opted out of pursuing any action. The Congregation then voted to try and get other organizations concerned and to develop a coalition. That was along toward the end of 1969 or early 1970. We got seven organizations into this project. . . . We had a couple of community meetings. We had some people come and talk, with different points of view presented. Sam Morris of the United Fund [as throughout this manuscript, the names of individuals other than the Righters have been changed to protect their anonymity] came to one of these meetings. During the spring we met with some of the staff people, but I don't believe we met with any board people. At this point we weren't rattling fences or threatening boycott. We were simply trying to relate to some of these people and recommend changes.

"Sometime during the spring, at a peace demonstration, I talked with a guy named Bob Shifflett who was very active in a group called Social Welfare Workers Movement. We decided to get our two groups together and sit down and talk about this. . . . In late spring, SWWM and the Congregation voted to work together on a boycott."

[Righter then discussed in considerable detail the next six

months of planning for the boycott, launched in the fall just prior to the annual United Appeal campaign.]

"After that campaign we moved into some serious work to detail what we wanted to recommend. We didn't do this because anyone was screaming but because we felt we really ought to get ourselves together. We came up with a five-page list of recommendations which we sent to United Fund and released to the press."

INTERVIEWER:

"From what you told me, it seems you really decided on a boycott fairly early, and now you tell me that it was not until after the first boycott that you presented United Fund with a series of demands or recommendations. I am of the opinion that a boycott is a pretty serious kind of action which one takes only as a last resort, after everything else has failed. It seems to me that you either proceeded on the assumption that the boycott was only symbolic, or underneath your rhetoric you did not desire reform but sabotage of the United Fund."

RIGHTER:

"I don't see those as the only alternatives, but let me respond. First of all, we could not, even with a tremendously effective boycott, hope to touch more than five or ten percent of their funds. . . . A very large percentage of their funds comes from big business and from employees of big businesses who are pressured into signing pledges. On the other matter, there has been a long history of establishment-type efforts at reform and the United Fund was absolutely unresponsive. In 1963 there was a very extensive study done by a professor from the area, under the aegis of the Health and Welfare Planning Body, as to how United Fund was serving the community and who was getting services. That study was ignored. They also ignored editorializing by the newspapers for reform. Then there were the riots in 1967 which failed to produce any response. Furthermore, our attempts to relate to the executive director indicated that he was totally unwilling to sit down and negotiate with us. It was my opinion after not being here too long, and knowing something about the board members, that a boycott was the only way to relate to the situation. They weren't going to make any changes without a power base for change over against some fifty-five agencies who have full-time lobbyists at the United Appeal to get funds.

Moreover, these agencies have interlocking boards that assure the continuation of the status quo. I take it that you were saying that you would have functioned differently?"

INTERVIEWER:

"Yes, I think so. . . . You said that your coalition group presented a list of demands to United Fund. Do I have that in my files?"

RIGHTER:

"They didn't present a list of solid demands but they raised some of the basic questions of who United Fund is serving and not serving."

INTERVIEWER:

"From what you and others have told me, I would say that the boycott tactic was pursued without first pursuing other alternatives, including presenting the United Fund Board with a formal set of demands."

RIGHTER:

"Oh, yes, no doubt about it. We did not use proper process. We never used proper process. We never go the proper way."

INTERVIEWER:

"Why?"

RIGHTER:

"Because the proper way is established by those who control the system. The system has a proper way of functioning. First you go and meet with them. If you have some clout they'll set up a committee to work on it. But they don't want to change anything. Their proper way of dealing with problems never results in any change."

INTERVIEWER:

"Now you're telling me something very fundamental about your philosophy."

RIGHTER:

"Yeah, maybe so. Our tactics are not the acceptable tactics of the established decision-makers that we attempt to relate to. Most of the people we are dealing with are not really interested in change. We don't have any power to pressure change from within. This is the only way we have of relating to issues."

INTERVIEWER:

"What about the activities of your [Poverty Committee]? From what I have learned, your tactics here were quite different and some people I have talked with would say you have had relatively greater success in effecting change here."

RIGHTER:

"Yes, our tactics were very different with the [poverty] project. We functioned differently because we felt there were people within with a lot of clout that we could work cooperatively with to bring about change. I think we have had

some success with the [poverty] project, but I'd say we've been much more successful with the United Fund, no doubt about that in my mind. You see, most of the people you ended up talking with are pretty much establishment people and they have a different view of our effectiveness. But we don't get too much opportunity to work with those who really have some clout."

INTERVIEWER:

"But I'm wondering if you have thoroughly exhausted the possibilities of working with, rather than against, those who are establishment people. What I've picked up from some of your strongest establishment supporters is that they would like to see you doing many more things with them rather than against them. The scenario or model has repeated itself thousands of times in American politics. There are people on the inside who would like to effect change but do not themselves have the authority or power to do so. Then along comes a group from the outside raising hell or threatening to do so. At that point the person on the inside can go to others and say, 'We've got to respond to their demands.' Perhaps the community leaders I have been talking with are giving me a lot of rhetoric or hot air, but I have a sense that they are more willing to pursue issues with you than you may realize."

RIGHTER:

"Yeah, maybe so, but I'm not sure."

When confronted with this interview in an interim report several months later, Righter was quite defensive. "When I read it," he said, "I felt that I had been stripped naked." He would not have been so forceful in his statements, he argued, had the interviewer not pushed so hard. The interview and Righter's reaction to it in print seem to us revealing on several counts. We have little doubt that Righter overstated his views, but consider the context. It was late at night and terribly hot. Prior to this encounter, we had shown only sympathy for the cause. Suddenly and without forewarning, the rules changed. Not only did Righter learn we had serious reservations about the particular strategy in question but, in the context of our impending report to the National Missions Committee, our presence seemed suddenly to shift from support to threat. And Righter blew his cool.

But this is insufficient interpretation. Did he lose control in saying more than he normally would to an outsider or, under fire,

did he reveal something to himself about his own presuppositions? We cannot, of course, be certain, but we suspect a bit of each. In any event, this raises yet another interesting question. In the course of pursuing confrontation tactics, Righter has most assuredly faced many threatening and unnerving situations. While we met no adversaries who cited specific instances of Righter being backed into a corner and losing his composure, it is hard to imagine this has never happened. After all, what politician or public figure has not made his faux pas? And to one pursuing confrontation strategies while trying to guard an image of reason and credibility against adversaries looking to discredit, blunders can be costly.

Even if we assume Righter substantially overstated his views, the interview seems nonetheless revealing of certain assumptions about the nature of power and the social order. It is a view from the bottom, championing the causes of the powerless against powerful establishments immune to sentiment or pleas to ethical or religious principles. Power only acknowledges power. And the most viable power of the little man is his ability to disrupt normal activities, to embarrass powerful institutions and their representatives, to threaten public relations images; it is the power of the villain to ridicule and upset the hero.

Righter's overreaction to our probing resulted in his articulation of a harder line than he would normally espouse either privately or publicly. But it also permitted us to get a glimpse of the kinds of taken-for-granted assumptions which inform his action strategies. In sum, when we examine this interview from the perspective of what it tells us about Righter's underlying value presuppositions, we see a logical link between his views about power and social change and the types of strategies and tactics the Congregation has employed.

Alvin Gouldner, in The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, attacks the young American radical of the 1960s for viewing the task of developing theory as "a form of escapism, if not of moral cowardice." The following passage might well serve as an epitaph to the student radicalism of the sixties.

We also believe this analysis says a great deal about why Richard Righter and-the Congregation for Reconciliation are still in the battle long after social activists, inside and outside the church, have yielded to alienation, frustration, and despair. Our points of disagreemcnt with the Congregation's strategies and tactics are quite irrelevant in this context. What they boil down to, as Righter indicates in the interview, is that we believe we, in a similar situation, would pursue a different strategy informed by different assumptions. Our disagreement, however, cannot take away what we believe to be clear evidence that their action is informed by a theory of social order and change. As analysts charged with the responsibility to evaluate their activities, we see a clear relationship between their success and their adherence to strategies informed by theory. And as human beings who can imagine ourselves in the role of the Congregation's adversaries, their consistency and integrity commands our respect.

Having reviewed in some detail two social-action projects of the Congregation, and now having reflected on the nature and implications of its approach to social action, we will turn in the next chapter to an examination of the internal difficulties experienced by the Congregation and recent attempts to overcome them.

Footnotes