UP THE REJANG River in Sarawak in Northern Borneo the Ibans a primitive but emerging people, dwell. I was there once. I do not claim to know their language, but one phrase I did understand. A group of little boys and girls in my presence lifted up three fingers and said, "Isa Ke Tuhan," which means "Jesus is Lord." Since that day I have had a pause.

All of us recognize in these words what is probably the oldest Christian creed. Indeed, it was the confession at baptism in the ancient church, the affirmation at the very initiation into the Church. The earliest Christians knew their very salvation to be in confession "that Jesus is Lord." They grasped that the oneness of the Church vas based on this confession and they were persuaded that God had ordained that "every tongue confess that Jesus the Christ is Lord." In brief, they saw Jesus the Christ as Lord of their lives, as Lord of the Church, as Lord of All. To see and embody is vas to be the Church of God.

Receive life as it is offered, as good and significant, and goes about man's proper business of living it to the full. This he understands is what it means to be in authentic relation to God, the giver of our lives. In that relationship, he understands himself' in a final sense, and he knows that he has no real existence outside of it. Furthermore, he is aware that this experience and self­understanding is never in isolation but is

realized in fellowship with others who also so comprehend themselves. Indeed, to make this affirmation of Christ's Lordship is to be this fellowship. The very word, Church, as used in Northern European languages 'kirk", "Kirche", "church"-means literally "that which belongs to the Lord." This is to say that the Church today, as always, is her affirmation that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now this affirmation of being, in and through which the Church is the Church, embodies within it the proclamation of that affirmation in and to all the world. In other words: to be, in this sense, includes the witness concerning this being. This witness is the Gospel that is preached in the Church. The preaching of the Gospel, then, is not the relating of a biographical sketch nor a bit of recollected history. It is not instruction in metaphysical truth. It is not the articulation of a philosophy, a world view, or a way of life. Neither is it the declaring of the revelation of some moral principle such as the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. Rather, it is a proclamation that, in the happening of Jesus the Christ, God discloses himself as the ever­present giver of our lives and therefore we are free to live our lives as they are given moment by moment. It is the announcing of the Word of the Cross and the Empty Tomb: that when or whenever we surrender our demands that life be as we desire it, just then do we live, just then are we resurrected into life. This is the Christ­happening.

The preaching of the Gospel is the setting forth of this Christ­event in such a way that for the hearer it becomes a current event. His own event. What God did, he does ! What happened, happens! God's time is not two thousand years ago. It is Now. This is to say that the preaching of the Gospel is not a testimony to any abstract idea that God is Love, but a witness to the concrete and personal fact that God so loved that he receives us. However the message is put, when it is heard it will be heard by the hearer that God loves and accepts him as he is. As a matter of fact, whatever goes on in this world, either loves us as we are or he does not love us at all. For if he loves only the person we might have been or can become, that person does

(continued on page six)

by BISHOP JAMES K. MATHEWS

BISHOP JAMES K. MATHEWS of the Boston Area of the Methodist Church writes out of long acquaintance with, and involvement in, the ecumenical movement, which makes its basis for theological unity the creedal statement, "Jesus Christ is Lord." Bishop Mathews, a member of the National Advisory Council of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community, here develops the under. standing that this affirmation, which symbolizes the meaning of human existence, is the sole foundation for the Church in the twentieth century as in all centuries.

JESUS IS LORD

This bold assertion is still made today. And when it is made as the confession of an experience and not as a metaphysical statement, there is the Church. The very being of the Christian, today as yesterday, depends upon this affirmation. In acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord, he acknowledges a new relationship with life into which he enters wherein he is enabled to receive

A unified theological curriculum for laics which deals with the meaning of being a free. critical. intelligent person in the given orders of life from the perspective of the self­understanding of the Christian faith for the sake of raising up creative lay theologians in the midst of the world.

THE

LAOS

HOUSE

The Laic Theological Studies for the 1960­61 year will consist of two eight­week terms in the fall and in the spring. The curriculum is composed of two types of courses:

1. Theological Core Courses. General survey offerings which provide the layman with the rudimentary background necessary for genuine and creative participation in the theological enterprise in our time.

II. Advanced Reading Courses. Seminars in special subjects: problems, significant hooks of the past and present. The intention of all of them is to deal with relatively compact areas in depth for the sake of the student developing the ability to do his own thinking.

Four courses, two theological core studies and two advanced reading seminars, will be offered in both the fall and in the spring terms. For this term a slight alteration is made for the sake of those who have not had the opportunity to take Core Course 1­B.

1960 THE FALL TERM 1960

The Modes of Human Existence of the Christian Life as Faith/Unfaith: This is a study of the various ways in which man in the modern world is present to his existence in relation to nature and history. Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer and Camus will be the authors considered. The last half of the above offering for all who have had just the first required course 1­A.

The Role of the Church in the Modern World or The Local Congregation: An examination of the new understanding of the Church in our time, dealing with: the mission, the worship, the community in the Church, and an analysis of the various self­images forged by the Church by studying works of such men as Luther, Wesley, Thomas Aquinas, and Augustine. Open to all who have had Courses l­A and l­B.

Readings in Theological Ethics: An elective seminar which deals with the concerns of Christian ethics in our time through the study of 1) Bonhoeffer, as reflected in his Ethics. Open to all who have had courses I­A and l­B.

Oct. 13 Oct. 20 Oct. 27 Nov. 3 Nov. 10 Nov. 17 Dec. 1 Dec. 8

LIFE IMAGE:

Emerging, Symbolic, Common

On the fourth Friday evening in September, Dr. Donald Weismann of the University of Texas department of art, initiated the Friday Dinner Series in the College House of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community. Dr. Weismann, who pulled out into the reality of our world as brought to focus in the art of each period in Western Civilization, was the first of seven alert, sensitive, and creative persons who will address the College House on The Emerging Life Image of the Contemporary World.

The Friday Dinner Series is a facet of the College House program in which the stage is set directly for the conversation between the Church and the world to become conscious. The Emerging Life Image of the Contemporary World is one of three contexts through which this conversation will proceed.

Dr. Weisman will be followed on October 7 by Dr. Clarence Ayres on economics, October 21 by Dr. Alchibald Lewis on history, November 4 by Dr. John Silber on philosophv, November 18 by Dr. Ronald Dugger on politics, December 9 by Dr. Roger Shattuck on literature, and Januarv 6 by Dr, Wayne H. Holtzman on psychology. Each of these men will be dealing with the outer edge of thinking in their field, grasping for the life image of the new twentieth century world.

Through the haze of our blinding despair. a figure is beginning to emerge. Slowly, deliberately, as though trying to brush the cobwebs of meaningless from his head and shoulders. his hands and feet. he is coming to consciousness only to retreat into the gray fog of the future. We strain to discern his shadow against the curtain of time, though he is indistinguishable from the bleakness of the unknown. But he is there. and his presence controls our lives. He is the life image of the contemporary world.

In the midst of the twentieth century world the Church raises the symbol of the possibility for significant life. In order to examine this strange historical community from the vantage point of its cultic symbol, the College House will discuss secondly, The Symbolic Life Image of the Church. These Friday evenings addresses, delivered by the Collegium of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community, will discuss, on September 30, "The Symbol and Cultic Ritual," on October 28, "The Symbol and Cultic Design," on December 2, 'The Symbol and Cultic Time,'' and on January 13 The Symbol and Cultic Poetry." Each of these addresses will he grasping for the internal meaning of the Christian Church, or the life image of the body of Christ.

From all sides the strata emerge, coalesce, disperse, and join again. The past becomes the present and the present becomes the future, which is then the present and then the past. only to merge as a stratum with all the others, moving with tremendous force toward the apex of time, this moment, yanked into concretion as the symbol for the symbol of meaningful life. The poignant light of the symbol sears forth into the world. as the life of a community, a people, the Church, which blinds out illusion and exposes reality with relentless will. We flinch from its light, but it is there, and its presence controls our lives. It is the life image of the Church.

As a part of, and within, the Church, the College House will be grappling with what it might mean for the group gathered there in residence to become alive and sensitive, concerned to be a self­conscious mission for the sake of the life of the Church and our times. The College House will gather as a community three times during the fall semester to raise before itself the Common Life Image of the College House. These "Community Discourses" are to be held on October 14, November 11 and December 16, will be concerned to discover how to live together as mission to the university: the life image of the College House.

They come from the north. They come from the south. They come from the east. They come from the west. They come. And in the center we meet. In the center is a table and a chair for each. We sit. We talk. We eat. Then, slowly, deliberately, as though trying to brush the cobwebs from his head and shoulders, his hands and feet, a blinding symbol emerges, retreats, emerges, and escapes once again only to break forth in a scream of anguish in glory. We have come. We discern. We are afraid. But the glaring, foggy symbol is there. and its presence controls our lives. It is the life image of the College House. .

6 O'clock

Thursday

Evening

NEW RESIDENT SOJOURNERS

The persons pictured above are sojourners. Sojourners are people who live on the edge of time, who receive the future becoming the present as their permanent homes. These. sojourners are welcomed to the Collegium of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community, a community of sojourners, a community of persons who affirm with the psalmist: "I am Thy passing guest, a sojourner, like all my fathers."

The new resident sojourners are, standing Mrs. Elaine Lubbers, Don Warren, David McCleskey. and seated, Wesley Poorman and Miss Betty Stewart.

Mrs. Elaine Lubbers comes to the Community from the position of Director of Christian Education at Parkway Presbvterian Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her theological training was done at Austin Presbyterian Seminary.

Donald Warren, a Methodist layman, has just completed the S.T.B. degree at Harvard Divinity School. While he was at Harvard he served as Director of the Teenage Program at Cambridge Neighborhood House.

David McCleskey received the Bachelor of Divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville, Kentucky, after which time he returned to the University of Texas to complete work on an MA degree in Latin American history. He comes to the Community from employment at the Government Employee's Credit Union in Austin.

Wesley Poorman is spending a year with the Christian Faith­and­Life Community as a Danforth Seminary Intern, between his second and third years at Western Theological Seminary A Presbyterian he is particularly interested in becoming acquainted with the campus ministry as a genuine possibility for his life's involvement.

Miss Betty Stewart, a native of Florida comes to the Community after five years with the Japan Mission of the Presbyterian Church and one year of psychiatric social work. Her theological training is from Presbyterian School of Christian Education.

Sojourners are people who live on the edge of time, whose every future is unknown, and who receive that future as their life. Five more sojourners have come to the Christian Faith­and­Life Community.

John Wesley's injunction to his lay preachers was to visit from house to house, remaining no longer than absolutely necessary in any one place, a command which falls strangely upon the ears of our "public relations"' world. Modern visitants might take to heart John Wesley's words, and go, declaring the Word, and listening for the Word from those whom they visit, and then move on.

The visitants who have come to the Christian Faith­and­Life Community in recent months have hearkened wel1 to Brother John's instruction. They have come to declare that this life is Good, and to hear this Word as it is articulated through the programs of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community. and have then moved on.

Among recent visitants to the Communitv was M. Jean Joussellin, Director of Centre de Recherches Civiques in Paris, France. M. Joussellin, representing the creative thought going on in France as the Church meets the changing world of the twentieth century, contributes the article, "Crisis in Education," appearing in this issue of Letter to Laymen, which grew out of conversations held during his visit to the Community last Spring.

Miss Joan Macneil, of the Presbyterian Department of Christian Education in Australia, visited with the Christian Faith­and­Life Community, bringing news from the Church in Australia and learning from the work being done at the Community in lay theological education.

Dr. Loren E. Halvorson brought tidings from the Board of Education of The American Lutheran Church and Mr. William Summerscales brought word from the Board of Christian Education of the United Presbyterian Church. Each of these men is concerned for the life of the Church as it develops lay theologians to bear the burden of the Church's ministry in the world.

Campus ministers are coming alive to the great possibilities in their unique ministry. The Reverend Mr. John W. Wright, Jr. visited with the Community Collegium, bringing word from the campus ministry at the University of Florida, and talked of the beginning of a resident student program on that campus. In a forthcoming issue, Letter to Laymen will be sharing news of other creative student ministries about the United States.

Word was received directly from the lay movement in Europe when the Reverend Mr. Douglas Alexander and his wife visited the Community during the summer. Mr. Alexander, a part of the lona Community off the coast of Scotland, spent several days in meaningful conversation wherein both he and the Colleguim received valuable insights into the other's mission.

Many times, when visitants from a neighboring congregation came to the regular meeting of the Church in the early days, they would be asked to stand in the midst of the congregation and make their testimony.

So, today, members of the Corporate Ministry of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community have been asked to stand in the congregation to testify as they visit from place to place. W. Jack Lewis has borne testimony in Europe this past summer

(see "Dear Everybody:") and other members of the Corporate Ministry have spoken at the Campus Christian Workers Seminar (Danforth Foundation) at Stony Lake, Michigan, at the meeting of the American Baptist Association of College Workers in Green Lake, Wisconsin, at the Campus Christian Life Staff Conference of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. at Montreat, North Carolina, at the Danforth Seminary Intern Conference near Shelby, Michigan, and the Regional Training Conference for the Methodist Student Movement at Camp Magruder Oregon.

In addition, groups from the Christian Faith­and­Life Community visited for several days in each of the following churches: First Presbyterian Church in Liberty, Texas, St. Lukes Methodist Church in San Angelo, Texas, Parkwood Methodist Church in Pasadena, Texas, Parkway Presbyterian Church and the Church of the Good Shepherd in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Witness to the Word in Jesus Christ was made by individual members of the Corporate Ministry at the following churches and organizations: First Presbyterian Church in Yoakum, Texas, First Presbyterian Church in Hillsboro, Texas, St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Abilene, Texas, First Methodist Church in Texarkana, Arkansas, Koenig Lane Christian Church in Austin, Texas, Wesley Methodist Church in San Antonio Texas, the Business and Professional Men's Club in Houston, Texas, and the MSM at Rice University.

Visitants come and visitants go in the Name of Jesus Christ. They go to declare that this life is Good, and then hurry on, for time is brief in our new world, too brief to tarry when there is mission to become.

CHRIST IS BORN: In every age this is the eternal Word of the Christian Church At Christmas, the Church bursts forth in the song, "Christ is born!", before all the world. In order to cry forth this Word in special greeting, the Corporate Ministry of the Christian Faith-and­Life Community has prepared two special Christmas cards. The card pictured on the left utilizes a theme from the book of Jonah in declaring the good news of the Church, while the card on the right holds up the sign of the Christ Mass from the book of Job. These cards are available, with envelopes, at the cost of 52.00 per dozen and may be secured by writing Editor, 2503 Rio Grande, Austin, Texas, and indicating either "Jonah" or "Job."

FROM ALL SIDES our solidified understanding of life is besieged, menaced, and challenged. In meeting this challenge we ought to understand its origin, which lies in the rapidly changing essential characteristics of our age.

The situation of young people is radically different today from what it was a few generations ago. The phenomena which constitute the characteristics of this difference, appearing first in the West. have become universal rapidly.

Among these phenomena we should mention, first, a new demographic

situation. In the place of a relatively backward middle­aged population composed of few old people and of many children and adolescents, an ever progressive middle­aged population has appeared Ns here the aged become more numerous and less sensitive to the reactions and preoccupations of the younger people.

Can educators accept the imperatives that such a situation seems to impose on them? As the active population (the producers) diminish in relation to the passive population (children, students, sick people, and old people, it sometimes appears necessary that instruction accord additional importance to the problems of production and that priority be assured to the applied sciences. But such a solution of elementary solidarity and of immediate efficacy imposes a false concept of man. It opens up the risk of knowing man as a producer or consumer and of losing the sense of real humanism.

Secondlv, youth has taken on new meaning and new dimensions.

Whereas formerly youth was available only until the 10th or 12th year for the majority, it is possible now for all until the 16th or 18th year, and even for a great number until the 20th or 25th year. Youth and the time for education have lengthened considerably. This extension demands the multiplication of educators, and it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit educators who consider their function as vocation.

In addition pedagogy is no longer concerned with the formation of an elite but with the promotion of the multitude of young people. This demands the quest for more direct and immediate stimulants. Formerly the fact of knowing oneself intended for the framework of society and the prestige which proceeded from this promise, created a certain climate of exception and meaningfulness. Today youth is not a privilege anymore, and education has lost its character of prestige. It is no longer stimulating and, indeed, seems like servitude which is not even compensated, later, by, a pre­eminent position.

A change in the behavior of adolescents is to he noted, particularly in their social rebellion. This is evidenced bv the teddy­boys, halbstarken, vitelloni. boubons noirs. and hooligans. Their relatively feeble effective forces should not obscure their universal character. From the moment when civilization attains a sufficient degree of urbanization and technical advancement. From the moment when the acceleration of history (which we will analyze later!) separates adolescents and adults, one sees adolescent bands and gangs form themselves in the west as wel1 as in the popular democracies. It would be false to see them only a moral phenomenon.

Now that the phenomenon of lengthened adolescence is world­wide, society tends toward a unification. Yet one can discern a compartmentalization relative to diverse social and economic strata. A psychology of individuals has been replaced by a sociology of economic groups. The peasant adolescent represents a human reality different from the adolescent worker or the student. Each is fashioned by his life framework. The process of his maturation provokes in him behavior and sensitivities different from those evolving in another environment. Yet education based on the idea of the unity of man and the universality of culture treats equally all those of whom she has charge.

A NEW HISTORY

Our time is one of an ever more rapid rhythm of economic and social change and a growing accumulation of information which indicates an acceleration of history. Each individual is aware of an even greater number of contingencies, and it is necessary to adapt himself ever more frequently to new situations. If this adaptation is relatively easy for adolescents, because, not having a past they are not prisoners of it, it is far more difficult for the greater part of adults. Rare are those who evolve as quickly as do the events

As a consequence, at the level of education, the relations between adults and adolescents cannot be any more by what they used to he. The analysis of the word "experience" clarifies this difficulty. The adult depends on his past: that which he has been until now serves him as a guide for the present For the adolescent experience means above all experimentation. That is to say ... the quest for new situations, attitudes, and proofs.

In a stable society which evolves little or slowly, the experience of adults is the foundation of education. Those who know the society solidify its continuity and introduce their juniors to it. But from the instant when there is acceleration of history this type of education becomes an obstacle which prevents adolescents from preparing themselves for society in the making. The experience of adolescents should, therefore, play now an even greater role in the thinking of all who are concerned for education. Some people think it should be top priority.

The terms "adult" and "adolescent" point to the same situation. Both come from the same root: to grow. With "adult," the root is employed passively: he who has grown! With "adolescent," it is taken actively: he ubo grows! A society in the midst of growth cannot tolerate the growth stop to which the word adult points. This is not one of the lesser ambiguities of our civilization. We need the mobility and the availability of adolescents or society and its education rests forever upon the wisdom and the stability of adults who have been left behind.

Such a situation poses some questions for educators. How is it possible to recruit and create a sufficient number of educators so sensitive to reality that they can prepare adolescents to confront and control the course of evolution? How will educators point youth toward such discernment that they will not abandon themselves to what some call "the movement of history" and which often leads to a sort of determinism?

The search for solutions to such problems already obliges educators to consider their function as a public responsibility. They can no longer avoid producing a result on the economic and political structure, for they are concerned with all that influences civilization. In the face of an evolution and a society which continually questions the reasons and the objectives of their action, they should attempt to control or bend the course of history. When, formerly, objectivity and neutrality was demanded of the educator, the pressure of history obliged him to judge the community which he knew. The same situation is imposed on him in the new age, but because he cannot be in permanent opposition, he must, at the same time, search for compromises and provisional agreements. To understand such a problem is to recognize that education without a philosophy of history is not real.

The evolution in the course of history which, among others, expresses itself by the phenomena of economic concentration and of urbanization leads to a growing socialization. Such a phenomenon should normally have implications for education. Should education assure an economic and social promotion which, in augmenting a person's efficiency and his social insertion, makes him a defender and preserver of society? Or, on the contrary, should it propose to favor his individuality at the risk of aggravating his alienations and social tensions?

The majority of specialists in popular education (a term used in European countries for adult education) establish it on the tastes, preferences, and initiatives of its beneficiaries. They describe it as a reciprocal or cultural co­operative. It develops itself by mutual help, exchange, and shared existence. This is a menace to culture. It tends toward a pseudo­science and a false knowledge, detrimental both to individual and to society.

Modern society accords an even greater importance to leisure. But this term is ambiguous and lends itself to much confusion. It points toward the reality that it is only in the free choice of his activities that man expresses and expands himself, and that in our actual society this free play is not generally possible except in the occasion of leisure. It is only in the refusal of habitual obligations, and particularly of those of production, that man can find himself again.

From this new prestige of leisure springs a series of problems to which education ought to respond. The being, adolescent or adult, has been formed and prepared in view of his leisure. Therefore, a minimum load of education must he directed toward the an awareness which, al1 of his adult life, will quicken his curiosity and sensitivity in the midst of deliberate and capable decision. He should be taught new techniques of leisure activity which, at the same time, are those of participation in a great diversity of associations and groupings.

In insisting on the importance of leisure one runs the risk of heightening dangerously the notion that the meaning of life cannot he discerned in one's life work, one's profession. Too great an emphasis upon leisure opens up the possibility of denuding one's profession of its vocational reality.

Thus, rather than admit the validity of the distinction between leisure and work, placing emphasis either upon one or the other, the meaning of vocation must be recovered. All cultures have distinguished between the productive effort of the free man, an effort which depends on his on free choice and initiative, and the task of the slave, which is imposed upon him by others. At the level of reality, it is the work of the free man which points beyond the dichotomy between leisure and work, leaving this distinction to the lot of the slave. The transcendent and meaningful category is now vocation which knows all work to be leisure and all leisure to be work.

Education, in particular, cannot abide by a dogmatism which puts work and leisure in opposition to each other. It ought to know that men are necessarily constrained to produce. At the same time. education ought not to exalt servitude to production, supporting the efforts undertaken to reduce the time involved in professional occupations, which insists on the compensational role of leisure, thus favoring a negation of the unity of man and his life.

Such insight shows us anew that before undertaking any educational task it is necessary to have decided on an understanding of man and of his being in the world.

The growing complexity of society and above all the even vaster domain given to the public authorities render the role of citizen more and more important.

It is easy to pretend that the most elementary reflection and the least moral sense demand that one oppose himself to the intolerable pressures which certain regimes use to subject the consciousness of persons. But one knows also how much the commonly admitted myth (defense of Christian civilization. greatness of the nation, civilizing mission of the West, etc. ) has led to some such enterprises. How can education delineate with clearness and definiteness the injunction to be informed and responsible in a world such as this? This is a question to which a satisfactory answer has not been found to this day. It is thus that new questions are still posed for us.

In what measure can a collective be considered as having a more absolute value than the people composing it? What are the criteria which authorize such a group, or such another group, to establish itself in exclusive judgment of the common good? This question concerns all those who must make a decision for or against such a group, such a discipline, or simply such an academic concept.

Yet, education has become the task of government. The various kinds of "conditioning" of man, brain washing, subliminal influence, or more simply the services of propaganda and information, provide technical avenues for implementing the temptations which accompany power. All these enterprises pretend to ally themselves to the education of adults, and, indeed, one cannot deny that they are founded upon a science of the behavior of man.

Therefore, where there would be a need to organize the information of the citizens, the first stage would consist in determining the means for liberation of individuals as, for example. an ensemble of enterprises which would facilitate the making of their judgments and their own decisions. But there remains a sort of contradiction between wishing to guarantee the autonomy of persons and interfering in their existence even in view of such an objective. This paradox in education is, essentially, the paradox of all of life.

The acceleration of history presents us with the problem that the ethic which ought to orientate and fix all education is opposed by the condition in whicl1 it finds itself today, the relation between the adult and the adolescent. Until now, education was founded on imitation of the aged, that is to say, on the recognized authority of experience and on the respect which was its due. Now this imitation is less necessary and, now and then, is even dangerous. Frequent and rapid changes demand new behavior of which the aged are ignorant, which involves automatically a perceptible diminishing of the respect which was traditionally accorded them.

This loss of respect is aggravated still more by the contradictions which adolescents discern in their parents' homes. How many parents demand for their children what they refuse for themselves? For example they impose on their offspring a moral discipline (singularity of labor, deportment, truth, etc.) and also a spiritual discipline (religious instruction, piety, etc.) of which one does not find any evidence in their own lives. Indeed, this contradiction. and even this hypocrisy, has been present in all times. That which is new is the cynicism with which parents justify themselves by the present state of society. They themselves proclaim in this manner the inadequate character of the education to which they subject their children.

An example is the vigor with which. in a number of Western countries families make the maintenance of religious elements and school programs the object of political battles. On the one hand is their incapacity to assure the spiritual education of their children themselves, as was the case in the past, and on the other hand. even when they no longer live their faith and fear the consequences of it for their children, they count on "religion" to be an obstacle to the mass of social and political tendencies which they fear. In a number of cases, Christianity is more a pretext to cover anti­Communism and the exaltation of free Western enterprise, than faithfulness to a God whose intervention in our society would be the cause of tensions, difficulties, and risks but also of unforeseeable renewals.

Rather than ignore the contradiction between the behavior of adults and their pedagogical demands, we must search for a way to respond creatively to the present situation. In fact. it is necessary, while condemning the contradictions and the cowardice of adults, to recognize the necessity of maintaining in education the rigorous character which the mass does not accord it except with the tip of the lips. In this case, one should note clearly the obligations and the consequences of serious education, and, in particular, announce its revolutionary implications.

There cannot be education if there is the least hypocrisy among its diverse protagonists, parents, educators, and those responsible for the public services controlling the schools and educational institutions. Tension and conflicts are, in this case, preferable to lies.

An ethic is not true unless it is a living reality. It cannot be repetition of formulas and attitudes of former times, but should manifest its power over the men and events of today. It should ''clutch'' upon reality! He who does not do so, wants to say that education aspires to a tractability of man in order that he be subject to the demands and to the modes of the moment. This is not educa-

tion, This is its rape! Making education firm and conscious preserves for it its absolute value and permits it to have an effect upon the course of history. But today's educators have not known how to formulate a definition of such rigor and above all have not established pedagogy upon it.

Secularism is of particular interest to our new age. It should be examined by the unbelievers as well as by the believers. In effect, secularism has obviated the foundations of the solidified self­understanding which until now justified the diverse forms of education and in suppressing their lawfulness, has considerably reduced the dynamism and efficacy of them. Thus, a primary question is posed: What will be henceforth the source of the enterprise of common education? How wil1 it be possible to assemble children and adults which different concepts of the world divide?

This problem has both political and spiritual implications. At the political level, two terms point to it and its importance and difficulty: how can tolerance among citizens be assured in guaranteeing the cohesion or the unity of the nation? Isn't the latter obtained by renouncing all effort at tolerance, that is to say, in refusing the co­existence of different understandings?

At the spiritual level, if the Christian faith and ethic fix a minimum in the domain of education, this minimum is not a private problem and will always suffer from being divided among different sections, they themselves prescribed by distinctive and perhaps contradictory principles. The pretension of certain Christians to impose on all a "Christian" concept of education now appears intolerable because it heightens still more the tension between "believers" and "unbelievers." The plan to organize an education framework reserved for those who are members of the Church is dangerous both to the Church and to society. It creates a sort of ghetto and reduces considerably the sense of responsibility in Christians which increases, in turn, their difficulties in living among their brethren in the world.

As far as the Church is concerned, this suggests that it ought to state precisely its own self­understanding, and then indicate the necessity for the Christian to know well the world in which he lives. The Christian must be able to recognize, in the real events and phenomena of the world, the Word that this world is judged, condemned, and redeemed.

The Church must be aware of the distinction between education as cultural imitation and education as proclamation and decisional, the former pointing more especially toward the acquisition of knowledge and the latter toward the acquisition of a life image and the willingness to judge, choose, and decide, oneself, what constitutes life or culture.

The crisis in education is, thus not a simple pedagogical or methodological problem. It cannot be met by the discovery of new techniques in education but rather demands that we ourselves live the confrontation of Christianity with the world. On the one hand, we must recognize the implications of Christian faith and hope: loyalty to one Master who is the same eternally and who is the source of all that is. Only He creates and gathers together men without fear because they do not look for preservation in this world. On the other hand, we must know truly the world of today and know how throughout our whole civilization, it determines the kind of men that we are.

(Continued from page one - Bishop Mathews) not, has not, and never shall exist. The impact is always, "as you are." It is this unbelievable quality of the Gospel that makes it Good News. Luther called John 3:16 "the Gospel in miniature." It is all right there: its inclusiveness, its exclusiveness. Its decisiveness is there too.

The preaching of the Gospel summons men to decision. The hearer is accosted and affronted by it. It involves him. His whole presumption of self­reliance is challenged and undermined. The issue is put very sharply to the hearer: Will you die and receive life as it is given by the ruler of life and death? And the accosted answers either Yes or No. There is no escape. To say Yes is to experience the event of the Christ in our lives. And this, to say it again, is what is indicated by the confession, "Jesus the Christ is Lord." In and through this experience, which becomes the illuminating event of our total everyday life, one finds himself in a great company, the Church: a member of a body that lives in the Christ­happening, dwells in this Word of the Lordship of Christ.

The confession that "Jesus the Christ is Lord," then, is the very meaning of the Church's being and, at the same time, it constitutes her pronouncement. These are not two separate entities. To be and to proclaim are here but two facets of the same reality. The Proclamation is dependent upon the being of the Church and, more fundamentally, the Church is dependent upon the Proclamation. It is this Word that is continually told to one another within the Church through the drama of worship and the office of preaching; through fellowship and common study. The "priesthood of all believers" means not that every man is his own priest, but that each Christian man is his brother's priest. We continue existing as the Church, continue to be who we are, precisely by the telling of this Word one to another. But if we really do tell and hear it among ourselves, that is, if we really are the Church, we must and will tell it to the world. Here is our task, our mission, our historical significance. Proclaiming to the world this Gospel, that the world is received, is finally that without which we are not the Church and that without which we fail to grasp the meaning of the confession that "Jesus the Christ is Lord."

This brings me to the last emphasis in our pause: the Church as mission to proclaim this Word in and to the world, which, as was said above,

is included in what we mean by the declaration of the Lordship of Christ. It would appear that the Church goes about being this mission in the world in two ways: first, by articulating through verbal signs the gospel message (kerygma) and, secondly, by performing acts of concerned, involved service (diakonia). Yet these tuo aspects of the outreach of the Christian Church, the word and the act, cannot finally be distinguished. There is abundant New Testament evidence of their utter interpenetration. Together

and never separately, they constitute the proclamation of the Church in and to the world.

The outreach of Christian service obviously can be performed by the humblest individual but it must also, and especially in our massively complex age, be performed corporately. This corporate thrust is made through the direct efforts of innumerable local congregations; and through the thousands of varied denominational institutions, all of which constitute a manifold witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as they set forth the fact that there is no human need and no human concern which is not His concern.

But whatever be the particular form or fashion of it, the Church is, by its very nature, service in society. To proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord is to be engaged self­consciously and wholeheartedly in history with al1 its wonders and tribulations. First of all, the Church is in the midst of life ministering to life because she is liberated to care for life The reality of acceptance before God actually is in itself the grateful involvement in the enterprise of human culture, and always with particular and peculiar concern for the outcast and the suffering ones in the midst of that enterprise. It is apparently not obvious to just any man that he should care for the need of others, but to be Christian is to identify oneself with humanity in its deepest suffering and highest glory. To be the Church is to be all that can be meant by the term "responsible neighbor" and for no other motive than to be just this responsible neighbor in serving others.

Now in responding to the needs of men, the Church shows by these very actions that the sick, the dispossessed, the illiterate, the unlearned, the young, the old, the widows, the fatherless, in sum, that all men, are accepted in this world. If other men are to take seriously the affirmation Jesus the Christ is Lord, the Christian must take seriously his own role as mission. The eyes of faith knows that the deepest, and final need of every man is for the Word of Christ, the word that his life significant and that he can therefore receive his life and live it. Our ministry to his every day need makes possible our ministry to his final NEED. Here diakonia and kerygma merge.

Think for a moment of the acts of mission of Jesus. It is a pity that we commonly call so many of them "miracles," thereby setting them completely apart from our own experience. It was out of the very soil of these acts of service that there arose questions as to His identity. The structures of the synoptic Gospels clearly reveal this. As he went about doing good, the air in Galilee was electric with this question: Who is he? Provoked by his engagement with others, this question were asked by his disciples, his enemies, by his home townsmen, by the common people, by religious authorities, by John the Baptist, by Herod the King. Finally, it was asked by Jesus himself, to which question Peter affirmed, "You are the Christ." The movement here is from service, to the question of life, to the announcement, to the possibility of the Christ happening in the life of an individual. May I suggest that today our corporate witness of healing, of teaching, of social service and social reform, of judgment and forgiveness in society provokes precisely the same question. And when the question is asked, then there is unrivaled occasion and maybe the only occasion, for preaching the message, for declaring the word of possibility for life. There is ample evidence that this is exactly what happens. In Calcutta a mission executive went to a photographer's shop to pick up colored slides he had left there. The Brahman owner asked him if he wanted to see his pictures projected on a screen. Finally the reason for this request was made clear. He came to the picture of a missionary nurse holding in her bare hands the foot of a man afflicted with leprosy as she bound up his wounds. Then the Brahman said, "What I want to know is the secret of that?'

The met need here opened the possibility of dealing with the need behind all human needs. Service opened the way for the kerygmatic Word which ministers unto the illness of the human spirit. Genuine concern provides the opportunity to point to the source of that concern. Not pious service, but service which is always a provocative deed. It provokes mans deepest questions about life to which the proclamation of the Church addresses itself. When one has fathomed these depths, he may have some idea of what Jesus meant in saying that those who served the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, in reality served Him. When they are served, He is there. The Proclamation in the world that Jesus Christ is Lord is both the deed and the word.

In the midst of the Church's bearing the everyday burdens of man, she discovers that the question of life addresses them in such a fashion that they themselves can ask about the meaning of life; to which query can be directed the witness that the meaning of life is to receive life as a gift from God. The one who finds courage to embrace this Word knows it to be the only relevant Word. It is indeed Lord of ALL.

Our pause is ended for this moment. The proclamation "Jesus the Christ is Lord" is the very Church of Christ. It points to an ever­occurring happening in which a people find their self­understanding, an aspect of which is the very proclamation of this happening-which proclamation is both deed of concerned involvement in life and witness in the face of the life questions that such involvement provokes - through which the Christ­happening happens to others and in turn, becomes their life meaning. That One, in and through and about whom this ever contemporary happening intruded into history, is Jesus the Lord.

As I was saying: up the River Rejang in Sarawak, Borneo the Ibans hold up three fingers and say, "Isa Ke TuLan."

EAST LAUNCHES

NEW YEAR

THE AXNUAL FEAST of beginnings held last month in the College House patio was the official opening of the Christian Faith­and­Life Community's cluster of programs that will be conducted in the new academic year of 1960­61.

All participants in the university theological studies, representatives from programs involving parish laymen, past and present members of the board of directors, campus laymen interns international interns, and a number of College House alumni also attended the feast which is a part of orientation week.

Executive director W. Jack Lewis was unable to be present due to a minor surgical operation which he underwent shortly after his return from a tour of European lay training centers.

The academic year's full schedule (See calendar, September issue of Letter To Laymen) rivals that of the preceding year in which 531 people of 21 denominations participated in the various research and training programs, coming from 28 states and 24 foreign countries.

AN ABSURD STATEMENT

I WARN YOU THAT you may consider what I am about to do a sneaky thing. What follows, dear reader, are comments that I made a few weeks ago when the Christian Faith­and­Life Community was gathered for our daily morning worship.

"Life is good." That is an absurd statement. For me to convey its meaning in my life I must share with you its past meaning, its present meaning, and its possibility of meaning in the future.

Last year I heard the words "life is good" many times, and each time my response was different in accordance with my stages of development. Early in the year, I responded with, "Yes, life is great. It is great to be young, to be at the university, to be seriously involved with one's boy friend, to be rising away from home for the first time.

Needless to say, that naive response was dead after the first serious reflection about life which the College House demanded. To say that God is the giver of my life as it actually is, and that this life is good, seemed like incompatible statements, and my response was one of anger, frustration, doubt. Then, as life began to grab hold of me and weight me down, I felt immobilized. To say that life is good seemed even more incredibly naive and my feeling was one of con fusion.

Christian Faith­and­Life

Community

2503 Rio Grande, Austin 5, Texas

W. Jack Lewis, Executive Director

Near the end of the year I was showing many scars from life slapping me from every angle. Then the words "life is good" simply provoked the wry smile of embitterment. But there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, not even home. I remember telling one of the Community's staff members that I felt like I was down in a hole and life was passing me by. I didn't know how to get out, but even if I did, I wasn't sure I wanted out. I didn't want anything any more. It took a lot of painful searching within myself before I realized that it was not that I did not want anything in life-but that I wanted everything from it, and I couldn't stand not having it. This realization gave me a whole new perspective on life and put meaning behind the words "life is good." It doesn't mean that one decision frees me from making all others, it doesn't mean that I can always ride on top of my problems; it doesn't mean that life is secure. For me the words "life is good" mean simply this: There is just me, and there is just life, and all we can ever have is just each other. I am the only person in all the wide world who can experience the joy, the pain, the indecision, the wonder of my new days. This makes what I do in every moment tremendously important. My moments are there, they are there to be lived only by me, and they are to be lived to the hilt.

Any response I fail to give to the moment just past is gone forever and can never return. Yet there is a new moment even now, and I can respond to it. When I lose grasp of this possibility, I am consumed with despair. But it is in this despair that I am called to take a long, hard look. What I see is just life, and what I see is just me, and what I see is the Word that I can live life as just me. Is not this good news?

In the light of my being able to offer this "witness" (which, by the by, I have just now addressed to you, my reader), I would like to ask why awake persons everywhere do not lend their support to the continuing venture of such a Community, where both the Christian faith and the twentieth century are taken with genuine seriousness, and where, with intellectual integrity, the Christian faith is apprehended as relevant to the real lives of us all. Is this not the renewal of the Church?

MARY RUTH LANKFORD, Second Year Fellow of the College House

Dear Everybody:

Mary and I returned to Austin August after nine weeks in nine countries of Europe and Scandanavia, conferences in Switzerland and Finland, interviews with scores of person involved in varied forms of lay work and witness in the midst of the new world. It was an exciting and fruitful time as we tried to grasp the meaning of flesh­and­blood mission glimpse emerging new structures of the Church among both Protestants and Roman Catholic investigate courageous pioneering thrusts 1 individuals and teams of clergymen and la men on both sides of the iron curtain.

During the next several months we will try to write about all this in sufficient detail for you to feel the pulse beat we felt, sometimes weak but more often surprisingly vital especially in East and West Berlin.

Bob Starbuck and his wife, American fraternal workers with the Gossner Mission

Berlin, plus Allen Lingo of Houston, an alumnus of the College House, were our indispensable guides and interpreters for six days including six visits of about three hours each to East Berlin.

We can hardly wait to tell you about this-the conferences with Bruno Schottst and his colleagues with the East Berlin Gosner Mission - our meeting with the two training secretaries of the East German Student Christian Movement - and a most amazing session with artist Herbert Seidel and his wife in East Berlin. A man with unbelievable artistic gifts combined with an articulate Christian faith which would put most of us formally trained theologians in

the shade, his story and his art would thrill you. In fact, I plan to tell you about him and reproduce, some of his woodcuts for you to share.

West Berlin and had a conference with l rector Erich Mueller­Ganglof who hopes to add

residential quarters for students attending the Free University and develop a program along the lines of our College House.

From Berlin we drove to Witten near Dor- mund in Westphalia to see the Folks­Missi~ work among vacationers and suburbanites. Then we went to Holland for a brief visit to the Kerk en Wereld Institute and to see the parents of the Dutch girls who were interns in the Community last year.

In England we had a delightful visit with Canon Earnest Southcott and his family. I experimentation with the "House Church" his parish has been a spark which has ignited similar experiments all over the world.

By the time we got to Scotland, we were weary from weeks of hard traveling that

regarded our week in St. Andrews as a 100% vacation although the World Council

Churches Central Committee was in session there at the time. We saw many. friends from the days ten years ago when we lived in Andrews. It is like a second home to us.

Finally, I flew back to Finland for a five day conference with the Directors of the European Lay­Academies, then met Mary in Glasgow

and headed hack to Texas.

Our thanks again to all of you whose special gifts made the trip possible.

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