IMAGE: FIFTH CITY

When asked about the nature and purpose of the community which is The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago, the faculty usually identify it as a research and training center dedicated to the task of the renewal of the church through the renewal of the local congregation, for the sake of the entire world in which we live. In that statement is contained everything that needs to be said. And in a way, it is not much different from what any responsible churchman would have to say about the particular organization of which he was a part. And yet there are a number of unusual facets to the life and program of the Ecumenical Institute that have caused friends and opponents alike to describe it as a 'mystery'. Taken part by part, there is little that the Institute has said or done that could genuinely be termed new. What is new, and what lends vitality to everything that

it touches, is the remarkable integrity of the synthesis which has been formed out of a multiplicity of diverse concepts and ideas taken from many sources.

This article will attempt to describe some of the elements of that multiplicity. But more important will be the effort to describe the wholeness of the program, and the interrelatedness of the separate parts. The Ecumenical Institute is a missional community. The mission alone is the source of all community motivation and power. We shall begin with a descriptive summary of the entire project, establishing a context for the more detailed program analysis. In each of the three major sections on the national teaching program, the 5th City community reformulation project and the residential faculty community which comprises The Ecumenical Institute, we shall generally proceed by giving the operating presuppositions for each part, and then return to the concretions.

Cultural revolution, technological revolution, social upheaval, 'mutation in humanness', 'systemic revolution', ­ all these are terms that can be found in the recent literature from any field of the humanities. Where once words like these had the stimulus effect of a red cape in a bull ring, now they are almost clichés. Sociologists and churchmen, psychologists and economists, city planners and art critics, share a notable degree of consensus in their diagnosis of the modern world situation. And rarely is such a diagnosis omitted from their writings. What is striking about all of these terms is not that they are pointing to the ancient observation that the world is going to pot. But rather, there is a note of hopefulness in them, a lurking suspicion that some special opportunity is upon us, if only we could grasp it. It is a deep sensing after that suspected opportunity that drives and motivates the Ecumenical Institute faculty in all that it does.

The mission, or the task, of The Ecumenical Institute has two primary elements to it which are really a single complete thrust: the national program in theological education and the 5th City community reformulation project. The first is a curriculum of sixteen intensive, highly condensed courses of study, usually given over a forty­four hour weekend. Over this past year more than 16,000 people participated in these courses. The Institute normally teaches between two and three hundred per weekend on its own Chicago campus. Roughly another 9,000 attend courses arranged by interested laymen and clergy around the nation. In the Spring 1967 teaching quarter, for example, 56 courses were sponsored in 35 separate U.S. cities, representing 20 states. The remainder of the participants are taught in special, extended week­day programs for clergymen and in week­night schools in the Chicago area. A first this year was a team of teachers sent to Southeast Asia for the specific purpose of presenting the curriculum in that part of the world. The effort was warmly received, and plans are now well underway to extend this international thrust considerably in the coming year. It is interesting to note that each year since the present faculty assumed its assignment in Chicago, the program has doubled in size.

The name for the 5th City Community reformulation Project comes from a topological scheme for classifying the people of the metropolitan area into sub­cities'. (For example, the second city are people who have decided to return to the city, living in the larger downtown apartment buildings, liberal in orientation but not working structurally for the reformulation of the city.) The 5th City are people who have decided to pick up the task of reformulating the city in our time.

5th City includes sixteen blocks and about 4560 people. The project is designed to provide the initial enabling thrust which will make possible a self­conscious community capable of mobilizing its own leadership and resources to care for the needs of its own people. Project strategy falls into two parts: the development of a strong sense of community identity and pride, and the implementation of simple yet flexible organizational structures to provide or channel all necessary community services. The role of the Institute staff is that of starting motor or perhaps a pump primer. It provides the initially high input of resources and personnel to get the structural machinery operating.

Put in these terms, the job sounds comparatively simple. It is not, of course. But the project is pushing in the direction which seems inevitable if American cities, and cities all over the world for that matter, are going to be able to destroy the fatiguing disease which is gradually sapping urban life. By now it is clear to everyone that no amount of low rent high­rise housing will solve the fundamental problems of the inner city any more than soup and bread lines could solve the problems brought on by the great depression of the 30's. Nor will the best of individually directed social services solve the problem, although as adjuncts to community reformulation, all of these things and many more are utterly necessary. The intention behind the 5th City project is not merely to do a fancy job of 'clearing up the neighborhood'. it is primarily intended to develop methodologies to work in this situation, and which will be readily transferable to any urban slum or ghetto situation

It is at this critical point of transferability that the 5th City project and the national theological education program are tied in with one another. To speak of the renewal of the church without an adequate demonstration of what this would mean in actual practice is simply to pose more riddles for those faithful but benumbed churchmen who have long ago grown weary of struggling to separate theological wheat from chaff. Yet without the education program, 5th City would be but one more church initiated social service project, no matter how clever its method, no matter how effective its result. This is not to say that such Projects are not important and praiseworthy. They are, and a great debt of gratitude is owed the men who had the courage to begin them. But the church's responsibility in history has been to hold individual and local needs in constant tension with the total human need. And the history of the church has demonstrated over and over again that this is only possible when the 'Word' and the 'Deed' are held in the same relationship of tension.

Therefore, in principle, the national theological education program corresponds to the Word, and the 5th City project corresponds to the Deed. In practice, of course, both become the expression of the Word and the Deed. And if this is so, then whatever contribution The Ecumenical Institute may have to make to the historic church hinges upon the accomplishment of both foci, and not just on one or the other. Success at one point and failure at the other is tantamount to failure at both.

So The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago is attempting to provide a prototype for the operation of the local church. It is obviously impossible for one or even a small committee of men to carry the burden of such responsibility. Yet illustrations of such are known to everyone where competent and courageous men have tried to assume this burden, and failing, have left the church. What is required is a community. This means not just an organization, but a genuine community. In a conventional organizational hierarchy, the difficulty in holding the Word­Deed tension becomes a near impossibility. Unless there is a specific precise task, like mining coal or building automobiles, the tendency of an administrative structure is to pull talent and resources off the production line and into its own system. The actual line operation tends to lose out in status, and therefore in talent and efficiency. For these reasons, and a great many more, the faculty of The Ecumenical Institute has constituted itself into a community, or an 'order' if you like.

The Order has often held the greatest interest for those observing the Institute life, which is a bit unfortunate, because it is like watching the hammer instead of the nail. Still, this is understandable, for a religious order seems to be something of an anachronism in the 20th century. Actually, it only becomes an anachronism if one focuses upon the community for its own sake, and forgets that it exists only to accomplish the missional task. The power of any community comes from its preoccupation with the mission, and not the other way around. It enables whole participation in a total mission by people who find themselves unwilling to allow their working lives to be reduced to one role or specialty. Not that the community does not have specialists. It does. But the specialists are also engaged regularly in making the overall policy decisions for the entire operation, not normally a possibility in conventional organizational structure.

Let us now proceed to a more detailed description of each of these three major aspects of the life of The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago.

The purpose of this program is as already indicated, to assist in the enormous task of the renewal of the church for the sake of the world. I n order to accomplish this the curriculum is designed to give historical, Biblical and theological grounding to the life and mission of the church. This, of course, is the objective of any valid effort in Christian education. Materials are often produced by the churches which are on a level of sophistication and quality competitive with the best of non­church teaching materials, and much is vastly superior to the average sort of text­book writing. But the problem, as any church publications editor knows, is usually in the classroom, and has to do with the teaching methodology.

So that even if the theological education task is done well, churchmen and laymen together have often had the problem of finding practical material which could genuinely be described as practical. Materials which attempt to describe and analyze cultural, political and economic life in the modern world tend to be obscure and 'unreadable.

The faculty of The Ecumenical Institute has set itself the task of building curriculum which handles all three of the above tasks: the theological foundation, the cultural description and analysis, and the practical description of field method. In addition, the corporate faculty has developed its own pedagogical methodology over a period of years, which it has found to be highly effective. In all of this, articles and papers by the best of contemporary and ancient writers have been used in preference to second hand interpretations. For instance, the theological curriculum uses sections from the work of Tillich, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer and H. Richard Niebuhr to name only four. The cultural curriculum uses selections from Mumford, Sartre, Ortega y Gasset, Eliade and May. The selection has been made over a period of years and is constantly being expanded.

The cornerstone of the pedagogical method has been the course structure. Always the progression of movement is from the actual concrete situation being dealt with, to viable alternatives which the situation offers, to the attitude or activity, which can make the possibility into actualities. Within this structure, there is a fundamental correlation between the theological content and the theological method. As those who have experienced an Institute course are aware, the juncture occurs through the particular understanding of the Trinitarian formula of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit which is presented. Further analysis would require a detailed description of the course content itself, which the space does not permit. But suffice it to say, the faithful adherence to this structure has been both the unique genius of The Ecumenical Institute curriculum and the point at which it has received its greatest criticism. That this is so is no accident, and it has had ample precedent throughout the history of the church.

The primary role of the teacher in every session is to enable dialogue. This does not mean dialogue between the teacher and the student, or between one student and another. There are times when that sort of dialogue is necessary and important, but the Institute faculty has not sensed its primary role in this way. Rather the emphasis has been upon the dialogue between the student and the document he is studying. The struggle is, first, to find out precisely what it is that the author is saying, and secondly, to pin down where in the students' experience of life he has seen the particular idea or situation occurring. It is the belief that only in this way can the usual tendency in so-called 'lay theology' toward playing intellectual or romantic games be avoided, and the actual profundity of our greatest theological thinkers be encountered.

Hence, the theological method is primarily life descriptive rather than life prescriptive, as so much second­rate theologizing has tended to be. This would seem obvious on reflection, and yet the essential insight here has been obfuscated by a great deal of amateur philosophizing, psychologizing and sociologizing, The struggle over the word 'relevance' in the Church today is only one symptom of the fog. It is correct to say that much of the thought that comes out of the Institute has been deeply influenced by existential and phenomenological thought as they have impacted Western civilization. But finally, if there is any justification for this, it comes in the sense of freedom and release which so many experience upon encountering these insights.

While we are considering method, there is one further feature which must be pointed out, particularly with reference to the theological side of the curriculum. Usually, the logic is inductive rather than deductive: which is to say, the course content is not arrived at by taking a survey of church opinion on the meaning of the doctrine of God, or even a survey of the theologians. Instead, the procedure is to describe the critical on-goingness of life, and then name them in theological categories. If this seems a bit arbitrary, one might examine the work of the 20th century church's leading theologians-Tillich, Bultmann, H. Richard Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer, or Barth-in order to discover a clear precedent. It might also be suggested that, with this in mind, even the most skeptical of religious skeptics might find new insights in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel of John, or the works of the Fathers: Augustine, St. Bonaventure, Aquinas, Luther, Wesley, Schleiermacher or Rauschenbush.

The basic theological course (RS­1 ) is a prerequisite for all other courses. Having completed this, the student then goes on to a series of twelve advanced courses in both the theological curriculum and the cultural curriculum. Three courses in each are designed to deal principally with theory, and three in each with practice, although both are rooted in theological understanding and in the wisdom of 20th century thought. Literature is available through The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago giving the course schedule and a brief synopsis of the content of each course. But perhaps a word or two about several of the courses selected at random is in order to give some of the flavor or mood of the curriculum

The course in Church History is particularly interesting from the standpoint of method. Rather than beginning at some arbitrarily chosen point in the past, it begins in the present and moves back through the writings of some of the key Church Fathers: Walter Rauschenbush, John Wesley, Martin Luther and on back through Aquinas to Augustine. The course in local congregation dynamics includes a number of workshops on organizational method and theory. Another course of special interest has been world religions because of its organization around the 'UR­image' concept. Simply understood, the UR­image provides a way of focusing the key elements in the life styles of the several major racial and cultural groups of the world.

Each cultural curriculum course is an effort to get a grasp of the dynamics of cultural change which characterize our era. They progress from the individual, seen as the smallest cultural entity, to the larger social groupings. For example, there are courses in the individual and the Family, the Community and Polis, and the Nation and the World. In another course, Psychology and Art are the categories used to interpret the role of the individual in modern life, and Sociology and History deal directly with social dynamics per se. There are three major cultural shifts which are dealt with: the emergence of the 'scientific world view' as the new common sense, the shift to urbanization as the key to cultural style, and the emergence of the contemporary secular mood.

The primary value of ail of these courses is not that they convey new information, although they very well may. Their chief value, however, should be understood as that of drawing together a confusing welter of almost common cultural and theological insights into a unified picture, or gestalt. It is not the purpose of these courses to impose any particular set of views on anyone. But they do present a firm stance and an interpretation of the ongoing events of our time which can enable others to crystallize and mature their own thinking.

In general, the thought which has arisen from the work of The Ecumenical Institute aims at a quality of inclusiveness and comprehensiveness which seeks to place all decision-making in a universal context. This is based on the conviction that parochial thought is no longer safe, much less productive or creative, for example, in the current racial conflict or in national policy. For most of us this again is self­evident. But old habits of thought are strong, and the Institute has attempted to develop a framework of thought that can aid in developing alternative habits.

The process by which the new habits of thought are presented for testing is called 'Imaginal Education'. The understanding which this term represents has a very long history, but it remained for The Ecumenical Institute to name it and refine its use for application for both general education, and for theological education in particular. Actually, it does systematically what every good teacher knows to do instinctively. It simply draws together each discipline in a series of mental pictures, or 'images', rather than through a set of abstract constructs. Near parallels to this approach can be found in the literature of educational psychology, but particularly striking has been the work of Arthur Koestler and the anthology assembled by Brewster Ghiselin, as well as Kenneth Boulding in the area of the psychology of the creative process. All of these point to the conviction that genuine creative thought occurs most readily on the level of mental image formation. To this we have the direct testimony of men of such undoubted but diverse talents as Einstein, Henri Poincare and Henry James. Through the method referred to as 'Imaginal Education' Institute courses make it possible for an individual, if he so chooses, to take a new kind of relationship to his own self­image, and to others and to the world at large. It is intended to stimulate the kind of double reflection which makes it possible for a person not only to know, "but to know that he knows what he knows". For phenomenologically, it is through the 'image' that the individual and his world find their meeting Point.

The process of imaginal education itself is essentially that of progressively deepening the students' sensitivity and awareness to his world. The whole process can be illustrated through the meal conversations and the discussions of contemporary art forms. It begins first by eliciting the most transient kinds of mental images (e.g., "Quickly now, what comes to mind when you hear the word 'vocation'? ). The point here is to get out thought associations, not definitions. The next step is the concretization of these images in some specific life situation. ("Now where, other than in this painting, have you seen this activity going on?"). Here the individual reflects upon the relationship between himself and his world. The third step is to evoke a decisional response to the student's actual life situation as it is perceived in the subject of the conversation or in the art form. ("What bit of crucial advice would you have given to Mr. Jones in this play?"). The same progression is followed in the combination of the lectures and the seminars. The lectures evoke the images, and the seminars press the reflection and interpretation.

When analyzed into components, the process sounds simple. But the kinds of sensitivity which make it possible for a group to move in this way are not easy in coming, and the number who are considered qualified to teach the full range of courses grows very slowly. Despite the rapid increase in the size of the program, the emphasis continues to be upon the quality of teaching, even when it must come at the expense of severely burdening the most able members of the faculty. Programs are now underway to train teachers on a regional basis. The one­year internship program is perhaps the most thorough and effective method, but in terms of numbers the one month parish training program in July is perhaps the most productive.

Participants are often impressed and intrigued by the Institute emphasis upon team teaching. There are no specialists in one or another aspect of the curriculum. Every teacher is expected to be able to pick up any teaching task, or any role necessary with the teaching team.

The course content is under constant evaluation. Each teaching team does its own evaluation of each course after hours, and at the end of the quarter the entire Institute teaching staff gathers for an overall evaluation. Sensitivities are plumbed to discover new cutting edges to the curriculum. Emphases are shifted during this time, and new papers are introduced into the curriculum. While the structures remain essentially fixed, each teacher has his own distinctive technique in the application of his methodological tools. Throughout the entire curriculum, and through each individual course, the emphasis is upon the integrity of the whole.

The intention of the 5th City project in community reformulation is the development of a practical operating model as a demonstration of what serious, responsible and significant mission for the local congregation could be. Perhaps it would be well here to make the observation that has been made many times before, that as distinct from government or business, the objective of the Church is to work itself out of job. Only with this objective clearly in view is it possible to say that the Church exists for the sake of the world and not for its own sake. When this principle has been forgotten, the Church has frequently succeeded only in building an expanding clientele of dependent half­human beings. Despite misfortunes in theological understanding, the basic criticism of the Church offered by Sigmund Freud at this point is difficult to refute. It may be common currency among the theological unsophisticated to disregard any concept of eschatology, but, finally, what more could it mean for the Church to live eschatologically than that it live for the time when there is no mission for the Church? At any rate, this perspective on the task of the Church is fundamental to understanding the operation of the 5th City project.

This does not mean moving into an area, creating a temporary hope and then leaving. Inner city ghettoes have seen too much of this, as have many of those who have been the 'harvest' of the 19th century missionary efforts. Nor does it mean the temporary alleviation of even real human needs. The 'cup of cold water' is never to be despised, nor is the quality of the act of the Good Samaritan. But in a world capable of caring for the basic needs of its entire population if only it would direct its technical resources in this direction, justification of activity on the 'cup of cold water' principle is often beside the point. Instead, what is needed is the creating and shaping of new social structures to enable the dispossessed to care for their own needs. For when this happens, they are no longer dispossessed. Neither patronization nor bureaucratic efficiency is any substitute for the basic sense of human dignity that comes from caring for one's own needs, individually and as part of a community.

The 5th City project is built upon five basic presuppositions which developed out of the corporate struggle to find a realistic starting point to begin work. To give the fullest possible description of the project within the limitations of space, we need to state each of the presuppositions, give the rationale for it, and describe the most pertinent facets of the program. It will be helpful also to explain that there are two fundamental aspects to the project. The first is the task of building the actual sense of community identity. The second task is building the structures which will provide or channel in the necessary community services. The first is to a large degree dependent upon the concept of imaginal education, which has been briefly discussed earlier. The second is fundamentally the job of hard­headed community organization.

By way of introduction, a word should be said about models and model building. This is a skill which is taught in each of the practice courses in both the theological and the cultural curriculum, but it was not mentioned earlier because its application is most visible in the work of 5th City. Still it is a significant part of all the work of The Ecumenical Institute. Model building is the task of developing the short and long range constructs for action programming. It is applied not only to individual concerns, but also to the entire range of concerns which move out from the individual in concentric circles ­ the family, the local community, the nation and finally the entire human community. Procedurally, it involves the development of the series of charts which contain all the relevant information pertaining to the objective or the whole complex of objectives to be accomplished. It includes timelines, problem analyses, the format of the various organizational structures to be built, the type and source of the various resources to be employed, and is integrally related to the administrative concept of system analysis. It should also be said that model building is ideally suitable as a methodology for corporate planning, for it is capable of drawing together the contributions and insights of many minds into a related composite whole.

Sometimes one encounters a kind of romantic opposition to the whole concept of model building, particularly when it is related to private life and personal concerns. Often it stems from what might be called a 'Christmas tree psychology' usually learned in childhood, which would rather operate on the naive assumption that the future will always work out for the best if only you leave it alone. This attitude probably does little harm as a private assumption. But when it makes itself evident on the national or metropolitan level, even the level of the family, its results can often be tragic­witness, for example, the phenomenon known as 'urban sprawl', or the very existence of slum ghettoes itself. Building models for the future of mankind is neither a matter of arrogance nor humility, of selfish conceit nor faithful trust in the future. Humility and trust come after the decisions have been made.

5th City is built upon a model which is the product of three years of work by Institute staff and faculty. It is both systematic and comprehensive. Not only does it indicate the direction in which work must move, but it helps maintain balance in the allocation of personnel and resources. And it effectively blocks arbitrary decisions made on the basis of either expediency or romanticism. The categories used in the model are often highly abstract and sometimes obscure. This too is intentional, for it is an obvious fact that the formulation of a problem tends to predetermine the solution. Therefore, if the categories are conventional, so also will be the solutions. This is no problem if the conventional solutions work. However, it is clear that they have not in the slums and ghettoes of American cities.

Let us proceed now to the five operating presuppositions of the 5th City program and the description of the program itself.

PRESUPPOSITION 1: A community reformulation project must be conducted in a limited geographical area.

The sixteen­block 5th City area was deliberately chosen as the site for the reformulation after a full year of research and careful exploration of Chicago's slum ghettoes. The Institute staff was clear from the first that the project had to be conducted within a limited and clearly defined geographical area. Resources of money and personnel were in short supply from the first. This had necessarily to be the case, for even the most outstanding success in the endeavor would be of small use if excessive cost made duplication elsewhere impossible. But this fact meant that an area much larger than 5th City's population of 4560 people was prohibitive.

'a critical part of the project program was the building of a strong sense of community identity and pride'

A number of other factors entered into the selection of the area. One was that a comparatively small amount of the land was taken up by industrial or institutional use. Another was that the housing, while in a state of serious decay, was fundamentally sound in its original construction. Together, these two things meant that the fate of the community was not as likely to be altered in the near future by extraneous developments, such as industrial expansion or total demolition for urban renewal by the city. Another important initial item was the relative absence in the area of other social or welfare services. That meant fewer political complications due to any real or imagined infringement upon the functions of other agencies. It also meant that evaluation of the project, successful or not, would be more definitive.

We have said that a critical part of the project program was the building of a strong sense of community identity and pride. In the first instance, that identity must be geographical identity. In order for this to develop, the area must have clear operating boundaries. Major thoroughfares bound 5th City on the East (Kedzie Avenue) and on the south (the Eisenhower Expressway). A major city park, including a low income high­rise apartment building, serves as the western limit, and on the north, is the 5th Avenue diagonal street.

Everyone who has had any experience in building anything from stores to churches knows the powerful effect these boundaries can have in shaping the flow of traffic and personal relationships within an area. This tends to be true, even if the boundaries are not recognized consciously as such by the inhabitants, even as they honor them.

Yet even a population of 4560 cannot understand itself without further subdivision. In the fall of 1966, 5th City was divided into five subdivisions called 'stakes'. Again, the boundaries of the stakes were determined by thoroughfares because the concern was to develop neighborhood units, not arbitrary population distributions. The stakes provide an organizational base from which the leadership can be recruited, individual needs and concerns learned, and program and service information distributed. Akin to the nature of block clubs, stakes enable the penetration of the community and the caring for the needs of its inhabitants. The first intention was to develop a hard core of leadership of perhaps twenty people in each stake. By Spring 1967, however, attendance at stake meetings had jumped considerably, and it became clear that the number of stakes would have to be doubled if the job was to be done adequately. This was done, and 5th City now operates with ten stake units which meet weekly for planning and regular house­to-house visitation. While originally it was necessary for pairs of staff members to do all of the calling, it soon became possible to pair off staff and residents in teams. Now much of the calling is done entirely by residents in informal fashion as should be the case.

Plans call for a considerable expansion of the 5th City area in the near future, once structural machinery for the present area is in full operation. An optimum size for such urban subcommunities has been suggested of between twenty and twenty­five thousand, although this is by no means an official decision. But at least this figure would provide a sound financial base for the operation of practically any kinds of services and the geographical area, considering normal urban population density, would still be manageable. Plans for this development are far from completion, however, and are dependent upon a ureas many factors.

'stakes enable the penetration of the community and the caring for the needs of its inhabitants'

The next two basic presuppositions are closely related to the task of developing a self-conscious community identity. We shall therefore save further comment on program development until these have been set forth.

PRESUPPOSITION 2: Community reformulation must deal with the depth human problem to be found in the area.

In the specific situation of an American Negro urban ghetto, the 'depth human problem' is what might be referred to as the self­reinforcing negative self­image of the Negro, or the 'victim image' for short. This is a very generalized statement, of course, and is subject to all the criticisms of any generalization, but the concept is one that has been referred to many times in many ways by such scholars as Lerome Bennett and Langston Hughes. A condensed, well­documented statement of the problem can also be found in the April 1967 issue of the "Scientific American" in an article written by James P. Comer of Yale. A brief quotation from this article which points both to some of the roots and some of the results of the problem follows:

"The Negro experience has been very different. . . (from that of white minorities in America). The traumatic effects of separation from Africa, slavery and the denial of political and economic opportunities after the abolition of slavery created divisive psychological and social forces in the Negro community. Coordinated group action, which was certainly appropriate for a despised minority, has been too little evident: Negroes have seldom moved cohesively and effectively against discrimination and exploitation. These abuses led to the creation of an impoverished, undereducated and alienated group ­ a sizable minority among Negroes, disproportionately large compared with other ethnic groups. This troubled minority has a self­defeating 'style' of life that leads to repeated failure; and its plight and its reaction to that plight are at the core of the continuing racial conflict in the U. S. Only a meaningful and powefful Negro community can help members of this group realize their potential, and thus alleviate racial unrest. "

'the depth human problem is... the self­reinforcing negative self-image of the Negro, the 'victim image'

Such is the quality of life in Chicago's West Side ghettoes in general, and in 5th City in particular. The subtle and overt expression of the 'victim image' are infinite in number. Clearly, the process of building authentic community identity must take this into consideration as a major factor. This moves into the next basic presupposition which is at once a key to the accomplishment of the task and something of a problem in itself.

PRESUPPOSITION 3: The key to the Identity building phase of community reformulation is the intentional use of symbols.

Every national, religious, ideological, racial or cultural movement that has ever deeply involved the hearts and minds of any substantial number of people has been deeply dependent upon the intentional use of symbols. This is just as true of the industrial revolution and the labor movement which have shaped our American life as it is of any communist or socialist enterprises. And although the difference between signs and symbols shades off at many points, it is evident all around us that specialists in the science of marketing have been quite self­conscious about the use of both. Symbols, then, are a part of everyone's life, whether they point to the emergence of the Cuban revolution or whether they point to the 'good life'. For example, in the last decade, the Negro freedom movement has made a most effective use of symbols.

Obviously, there are many types of symbols. Roughly divided into the categories of myth, rite and visual symbol, they include stories about individuals, peoples or nations, songs and the like. A rite can refer to anything from merely a habitual activity or way of doing things to a carefully written choric response for the opening and closing of meetings, or quasi­cultic t practices. Visual symbols are simply flags, insignia or documents. The 5th City project has made use of all of these at one time or another. All of these symbols have in common that they are pointing, beyond themselves, to some conviction or decision about the style of life of the person who relates to them. In 5th City, they point to the fact of pride in being a 'Black' or Negro human being. They point to pride in community identity. And they point to the conviction of the necessity of assuming responsibility for the lives of the residents themselves and for their neighbors.

'5th City Festivals... combining all the arts... anticipated for weeks by community residents'

As is already evident, the relationship between the use of symbols and the process of 'imaginal education' is very close. While imaginal education is used to evoke conceptions of a changed and expanded life style, the symbols operate to embody those possibilities and fix them in memory. On the level of community identity development, symbols operate in a way which is probably most closely akin to their use in marketing practices. Without these symbols, there could be no community.¹

The development of community identity has made use of the following 'instruments' or tools, each of which involves the symbolic understanding in one way or another. The Negro heritage education program is a study course focusing on key events in the history of the Negro people as a people, as opposed to the usual emphasis on particular individuals. It is largely concerned with the actual but positive interpretation of the whole tragic series of events connected with slavery and the struggle for complete freedom in the midst of the White culture. Most of this story has previously been told romantically out of a fundamentally negative perspective. 5th City Festivals have been part of this effort combining all the arts in a program performed by outside talents as well as community residents. Attendance usually numbers around 1000 or more, and has

¹"'This is the great function of symbols to point beyond themselves, in the power of that to which they point, to open up levels of reality which otherwise are closed, and to open up levels of the human mind of which we otherwise are not aware. " (Paul Tillich, Theology and Symbolism in Religious Symbolism' edited F. Ernest Johnson, New York, 1955, pp. 107­16, p. 109).

been anticipated for weeks by community residents. Community symbols proper include the wearing of the black beret with appropriate 5th City insignia at all community functions. The 5th City emblem, a red wedge shape with blunted tip set on a black circle representing the world, is printed on all materials distributed in the community such as the community newspaper or tracts distributed by the information service. Opening and closing rituals expressing the intention of the reformulation project ere used at all public meetings as are several specially written songs. Dramatic activity can serve many functions other than entertainment. They provide vicarious emotional expression, as well as the opportunity to 'try on' new roles and styles in a safe, neutral situation. The Community Forum is responsible for introducing the community to Negro leaders of many kinds. For the power that particular individuals have had in the last decade is clearly a matter of highly symbolic dimensions.

The first three basic presuppositions (limited geographical area, dealing with the depth human problem and the use of symbols) are all directly related to the task of building community identity. The last two presuppositions are more directly concerned with the building of a program of combined community services.

PRESUPPOSITION 4: Community reformulation must deal with all of the critical problems of a community simultaneously.

Of all of the five basic presuppositions, this one perhaps sounds the most presumptuous. Actually, it is quite elemental. It is well known that ghetto problems are the sort that reinforces one another, somewhat in the same way that the 'balance of nature', or its imbalance for that matter, is self­reinforcing. Economists in the field of international economic development presume this principle (the complexity of achieving momentum) almost as second nature, but it is rarely or only half­heartedly applied in urban development. Yet everyone is clear how income limits education, which limits job opportunities, which limits housing alternatives, which negates self­respect, which limits motivation, which limits cultural developments, which limits family stability-and so to limited education and on and on and on. All of the problems interact upon one another in a complex matrix of cries­cross relationships. All of which leads back to the initial point that to deal relevantly with any particular ghetto problem it is necessary to deal with all problems at once.

Only with this in mind is any problem analysis fruitful. The 5th City model calls for three basic categories of problems: the economic, the cultural, and the political. The economic problems are the most self­evident, including housing, employment, consumer education and health security. The political area is concerned with the internal relationship of order for common life within the immediate area, and the external relations with the wider economic and political communities in the metropolitan area called Chicago. Together this means community civil order, community maintenance, voter education, practical education in the operation of the city structures, human rights and civic responsibility.

The most complex and crucial of these three areas is the cultural. The most subtle of the three, this is the area which blends the 'common sense' assumptions as to what life is all about into the stance which defines 20th century man. In order to get at some of these complexities, the category of culture was broken into three sub­categories: education, style and symbol.

Education is concerned primarily with providing ways to increase the effect in depth of existing inner­city schools, and with providing supplementary programs. There is now in operation a nine­month program to enable adults to pass the high school equivalency examinations, and a two­week experimental program on a very intensive level to accomplish the same end, but in less depth. This latter is primarily a program in teaching examination skills, rather than a serious educational venture. It enables community people to qualify for jobs which they could have otherwise fulfilled quite well but for the diploma requirements. Another significant aspect of the education program has been the recruitment of teachers from around the country to pick up the task of teaching in the inner city. These teachers, who have become fully a part of the corporate faculty of the Institute, work together over the school year, struggling with the problems of curriculum upgrading. Work has also been initiated which will supplement the schools' efforts in gaining college admissions and scholarships for its students. Perhaps the most important of these has been the work on curriculum and teaching methodology. The inner city situation requires extremely sophisticated methodologies in order to overcome the motivational problems which stem from the Negro students' negative self­images referred to earlier.

'the economic problems are the most self­evident, including housing, employment, consumer education and health security'

Other work in the field of education includes the third largest pre­school program operated with funds from the Chicago Committee on Urban Opportunity with a full curriculum, including the teaching of reading through the experimental use of the I.T.A. alphabet, and the teaching of simple arithmetic using the device of Cuisinaire rods. The Mini­School program, in contrast to the usual baby­sitting, is highly sophisticated. Following the lead of Jerome Kagan of Harvard and William Kessen at Yale, this program has sought to apply the latest findings in child development research, first in a regular curriculum for children 21 days through one year, then in a second program for one and two­year olds.

The program in the area of Style has, to date been largely concerned with the problem of the expansion of cultural horizons for all age levels within the 5th City area. It has been the staff assigned to the area of style which has been largely responsible for the development of the after­school programs for the elementary age children, as well as work with the neighborhood gang structures. Perhaps the most dramatic effort made in this direction, so far as the residents have been concerned, has been a series of trips taken to cities around the nation: Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Washington, D.C. and most recently to visit Expo '67.

In the area of Symbols, the staff has been involved not only with developing the types and uses of community symbols, it has also been responsible for the remarkable success of the quarterly festivals. A community arts program is now under­way as well in both the plastic arts and the performing arts.

5th City now has in operation some 24 component programs. Some of these are in the nature of short­term programs to alleviate problems of an immediate and pressing nature. Other programs will be expanded, and new programs will be added. With each existing program there is set up, paralleling it, a 'Guild' program, which is specifically designed to train leadership and cultivate local talent to take over staff functions. Some of the programs, particularly those in the area of education, are well on the way toward the point when they will be totally controlled by indigenous residents. Other guild programs require more detailed technical training and will be longer in maturing, But the end product of a 5th City community structure, completely operated by permanent Residents of the area, is never to be lost sight of.

The fifth and last of the five presuppositions has already been mentioned implicitly. It Remains only to be specifically named.

PRESUPPOSITION 5: Community Reformulation must deal with all age levels in the community.

The rationale for this presupposition is quite similar to that for the previous one. Just as community problems tend to reinforce one another, so the attitudes of the various age levels within a community tend to reinforce one another.

5th City now has in operation a full program for every age level. At this writing, the youngest participant in a 5th City program is 35 days old, the eldest is 87, and a resident of the Garfield apartments, the Chicago Housing Authority 17­story high­rise for the elder citizens of the community. The program for the elder residents has been perhaps one of the most exiting of the accomplishments in 5th City. Not content with being passive participants, the elders are now teaching a five session course in Negro history and heritage in the public school system itself. Its reception was excellent, and the program has now been extended to other groups outside the immediate area.

Before closing the discussion of the 5th City project in community reformulation, a word should be said explicitly about the nature of leadership training in the project. This can best be summarized under three principal assumptions.

The first assumption is that the Negro ghetto situation contains a high number of persons of natural leadership. This has been verified by the 5th City experience as well as the experience of other kinds of community organization. Ghetto concentration tends to provide leaders as in any community.

Secondly, any leadership learns by doing. And the one critical leadership quality, the willingness to make a decision and stand by it, is learned in the actual process of decision­making. Formal leadership training is primarily for the sake of developing the quality of judgment and the self­consciousness that judging comprehensively is good leadership rather than creating leadership itself.

Finally, the 5th City staff is convinced that the most adequate method of decision­making r__ for local community organizations is that of consensus. It enables full participation by all persons. and it allows new leadership to emerge at any point in the growth of the organization. In the early stages of development, it has the additional advantage of allowing project staff to move in effectively whenever necessary, without engaging in a direct power struggle which would prove discouraging to ultra­sensitive new leaders.

The stakes, or geographical subdivisions, are the primary training ground for new leadership. We have already referred to the importance of the guild structures. In addition, each month there is a meeting of the presidium. The presidium is a name borrowed from Roman military practice, and here it designates the meeting of the key stake leaders for planning and policy determination. Here they are also informed of any significant intra­ or extra­community developments. These programs have taken on considerable importance in the last several months, and are due to become even more so in the very near future.

On a thirteen­week quarter, there is also the Community Congress, which is somewhat akin to the New England town meeting of earlier days. Among other things, this time provides the opportunity for a recapitulation of the previous quarter's activities, and for a public recognition of emerging community leaders. At this meeting, stake members and their families are invited to attend, along with guild leaders and educational program participants.

It remains only to describe something of the corporate life of The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago. Before anything else is said about the corporate body, it must be understood that it is functional. Romantic or mystical notions about the nature of community notwithstanding, it would not exist if it were not functional. The community gains its power from the task which it is intended to accomplish, and not the other way around. Like military life, no rational person would tolerate the pressures, the impingement on privacy or the perpetual restraints on personal will were it not for a strong sense of commitment to the necessity of the mission.

When this is clear, it must be added that there is a great deal about the life of the community which is both delightful and fascinating. It is an organic thing, and like anything alive, it has its own moods, its own inimitable peculiarities and its own special ways of expressing that life. And above all, it has its own distinct rhythm which can only be felt after living with it for awhile.

For instance, much of this can be understood in relation to the worship life of the community. In both a literal and a figurative sense, the morning office is the community heartbeat. Each morning at 6:15, six days a week, the community gathers to participate in worship. Sooner or later, everyone in the community takes on the role of the liturgist on behalf of the whole body. Of all the facets of the life and activity of the Ecumenical Institute, the liturgy is the thing which probably changes most slowly and most rarely. After all, even the most skilled surgeon does not operate on the human heart except with a sense of the most grave responsibility. And yet, despite fixed quality, the liturgy is never mechanical. One can literally feel the life of the community through the rhythm and volume and tone of the choric responses. If there is a special problem in the community, one does not have to be told of it to sense it. Nor does one need to be told if there is a special cause for celebration. There is, at the end of the corporate office, a rite known as the passing of the peace. This is performed to the accompaniment of a kind of rhythmic dance in which everyone participates, either by hand clapping, foot stamping or beating a rhythm on the backs of pews or chairs. It is this which is most sensitive to the mood of the community. Strangely, it is never the same two mornings of the year. Sometimes it has the quality of an exhausted chain gang work beat. At other times, it truly has the quality of a dance building to a victorious crescendo.

Nor is the rhythm of the worship indicative only of the corporate mood. It is understood throughout the community that ail of its members are to be present each morning, save with the exception of illness. Consequently, absence is to be interpreted as a kind of temporary excommunication. And thus presence or absence at the worship also becomes an expression of an individual's sense of harmony or displacement in the group, whether the absence is intentional or 'accidental'.

If the heart beat of the community is its Daily Office, perhaps it could be said that its backbone is the corporate discipline. It should probably be said at the outset that there is no discipline in the conventional sense of the word. For the Church is the community of people who have chosen of their own free will to surrender their lives for the sake of humanity, created and loved by God. The word discipline always carries with it the implied ultimate threat of force. In the Church, the ultimate threat has always been, and always will be, the threat of excommunication from the group. One simply does not intimidate a man who has committed his life to crucifixion. And yet there is no other word than discipline, finally, to express the relationship which exists between the individual and the corporate will. At any rate, difficult as it may be to express, at least the following elements are understood as essential to the continuance of the corporate life: attendance at worship, at the ceremonial daily breakfast meal and Sunday evening meal, participation in the decision­making process which determines corporate policy, and the acceptance of any assignment designated as necessary for the mission or the life of the community by the corporate body or its appointed representatives. There are many other points of greater or lesser significance, but these at least are crucial. Without them, the community could not truly be a community.

The administrative structures for the operation of the Order and the operation of the programs of The Ecumenical Institute are separate. The Order maintains the three traditional categories of the Elders, the Catechumens and the Novitiates, or the Permanent House Church or Confreres, the Fellows, and the interns.

Within the Order, it is the members of the Permanent House Church and the Fellows who take the responsibility for the major policy decisions. The opinions and insights of the interns, on the other hand, are always honored, but they do not finally make the decisions. In the actual operation of The Ecumenical Institute administration, however, it is often impossible to distinguish newcomers from old hands. Assignment of responsibility is made strictly on the basis of demonstrated competence and the willingness of the individual to assume major responsibility.

Decision­making is always by consensus. Leadership falls to those who are most able to express the group consensus. It has been suggested from many quarters that consensus is not efficient. But it is usually the case that time spent haggling over seemingly minor points is really but a way of getting at the deeper, underlying issues involved in making a decision. Often, had these discussions been cut off by an arbitrary vote, the deeper issues would never have come to light. There is also the other point, that consensus is really the only possible method capable of evoking the whole­hearted support and education of all members of a group. For once the consensus has been made, no one can claim that he did not have his chance to present his own alternate plans. Perhaps, finally, consensus decision­making is not efficient. But if a distinction can be made between efficiency and effectiveness, the experience of The Ecumenical Institute has certainly demonstrated its effectiveness many times under many circumstances. There are inequities, of course, for groups are not more immune than individuals to the possibility of acting unjustly. But again, if the criterion for value is effective functionally, the method of consensus will continue to be the rule.

If there is anything mysterious or mystical about the life of a corporate body, certainly it becomes evident in the exercise of what is called the 'corporate mind.' An individual can find his power seemingly infinitely extended once he has learned at least to some extent to be responsive to it. Though at times the reverse can be true, more often than not the 'corporate mind' shows an instinct for the possible which would seemingly contradict all rules of logic. That seven families could develop a national education program that literally spans the nation and the world out of literally nothing is an absurdity. Yet it has happened. That twenty individuals working full time could build a community organization where agencies with ample resources had often failed is likewise an absurdity, but it has happened. And all of it has come about as the result of a thousand miracles, no less astonishing for their comparative importance in the total picture. Festivals for thousands, world teaching tours, stand side by side with what is literally a hand­to­mouth financial situation.

In fact, it has been in the handling of its economic life that the Order has demonstrated in a concrete way, some of the special possibilities of corporate living. Once it could be said that "two could live as cheaply as one", That may not be true any longer, but the existence of The Ecumenical Institute stands as a witness to the fact that, if they are willing to combine resources, 200 can live as cheaply as 100-and if they are willing to do without a few frills. It is the understanding of all who join the Order that each family is to maintain itself economically within the life of the community. That means that one member of the family, husband or wife, must earn enough money to sustain the others. Perhaps one goes to work each morning down in Chicago's 'Loop' and his or her remaining 12 hours are poured into the direct mission effort after paid hours are finished. Or perhaps a Government contract pays the salary of the wife as a pre­school teacher, so that she is able to work directly in the mission program. Whatever the arrangement, all salaries are paid directly into the Order account, and out of that each family is paid a salary on a scale based upon the number end age of the children. Food and housing are handled corporately in a similar manner. Wholesale buying of household supplies, group health insurance and corporate ownership of a tiny fleet of automobiles for business purposes are other examples of the ways in which needs can be cared for. The standards of economic well­being in the Order are not typical of the dream of the 'good life', which many hold dear. But what is important from the stand­point of the missional community is that individual and family needs are cared for, with a maximum of efficiency. This means that all income which comes to the Institute, whether in donations, pledges, foundation gifts, or other, are poured directly into the program operation, for the faculty is essentially self­sustaining. And that in itself may provide a vision of future possibility for many in the modern church who are perplexed about securing support for critical needs in their communities.

Is the disciplined corporate life the answer to all of the Church's problems? Hardly. But it is a viable approach to dealing with many of them. Can divine sanction or eternal verity be claimed for it? Hardly. Participation is a decisional matter-that and nothing more. How long will this community called The Ecumenical Institute: Chicago last? No one knows. But all those who are part of it understand that the time will come when it will have to be replaced or destroyed. But by then it will be history. And history has its own judgment and its own justification. Some would call it the 'Will of God.'