After seven years:

WHEN THE MADISON AVENUE ADVERTISING BOYS dip snuff up there in New York, the whole nation sneezes; or more accurately, coughs up the cash for whatever they have convinced us we've just got to have. They work night and day to help someone get their hands in our pockets through motivational research, psychological gimmicks, and appeals to our self­interest and our sensitivity to status. A recent book entitled Status Seekers points up all too vividly our naive value structure by which we make our decisions. Perhaps you remember the song from the thirties: "I wanna go where you go, do what you do, love when you love, then I'll be happy." If the song had just added "buy what you buy, join what you join," it would have pegged our present decade right on the button. This is not to say that motivational research or any other aspect of contemporary psychology should be stopped or considered evil. It is part of the vast accumulation of factual data about man and the world that science is piling higher and higher. The only question is the ends to which this knowledge will used.

One parent in Georgetown, Texas, could have been somewhat shaken when he discovered that advertising symbols were molding his small son's self­understanding and making inroads into the boy's theology. Fresh from the television set, the lad was asked to return thanks at the dinner table. His prayer was, "God is good, God is great, clear across the Lone Star state. Amen." We even have the man who thinks for himself thinking that he thinks for himself when he thinks what they thought up for him to think!

Few people would recognize it as such, but these issues are indications that the world about us is urgently involved in the problem of worship. Modern men are becoming newly aware that to be a genuine human being requires some kind of participation in the symbols through which we understand ourselves. At least, the advertising men know this, and they are providing the symbols of self­understanding for the millions. The child or adult in front of the television set is appropriating a self­understanding (or a theology) that is funneled to him in and through the symbols of our society. Such symbols communicate the values we will choose to live by, or the ends we will seek, or the gods we will serve. That is how it is a problem of worship. And if the Church does not deal with her own symbols self­consciously, we cannot even begin to understand what Christianity has to say to the world.

The Christian Faith­and­Life Community, like the Church at large, is in the continuous process of trying to understand the Faith that is in us. As just this one illustration in regard to worship points up, such an understanding is not a simple matter in our day. Not that the Christian Faith is so complex, but Christians are. They are complex to the extent that they take seriously the brand new world that is bursting into being all around us or to the extent to which they are willing to probe beneath the surface of their relationships.

Not long ago I talked with an eminent geologist about the work of the Community and told him how we had discovered by trial and error over the past seven years that the place to begin in any training program for adult Christian laymen was with the question of the meaning of human existence. He was thoughtful and attentive as I tried to explain the features of the Community. Here was a man who had "arrived" in his profession . . . successful, prosperous, lovely home, family, socially prominent, active in his church . . . yet he was troubled and perplexed by life itself. As I talked with him, I could see that he was relating the program of the Community to his own situation. Finally, in utter frankness, he said, "Many a night when I go to bed and reach up to turn out the light, I put the question to myself, 'What the hell is it all about?' and I get up next morning and start out once more to try to stuff some m­eaning into what I'm doing."

continued from pogo one

reflections on Community

WHETHER IMPLICITLY or explicitly, this is the number one ques- tion people are asking today, whether college age, middle age, or at any age when they begin to think reflectively. Mental hospitals are loaded with people who have chosen the way of delusion rather than face this question head on. Mental health education and research is on the increase in our nation to try to cope with the question.

The person who has reached this crucial point in his life is no longer content to fulfill society's concept of success alone. He craves to be more than the images which are dramatized before him in television commercials. He wants to be more than the embodiment of factual in" formation, an object among other objects. He sees the restlessness, bewilderment, and turmoil of an age which has challenged all of his former assumptions about life. He is caught in increasing loneliness and tension. He has, in fact, awakened to the crucial question that lurks always in the depth of being: How to be free, how to render meaning into his intimate and public relationships, how to understand himself and live as a whole person, how to contribute significantly to the world, how to be authentically involved with life as an intellectual being. To this person, these questions have been addressed in such a way that they can not longer be ignored. A contemporary writer, Albert Camus, puts it this way:

Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or factory, meal streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday ac" cording to the same rhythm-this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. "Begins"-this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening. At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the con sequence: suicide or recovery.

Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we hay­e to carry it. We live on the future: 'tomorrow," "later on," "when you have made your way," "you will understand when you are old enough." Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for after all, it's a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy.

What about the Church ? Does it have a word to speak to this existential question? If so, how is the word spoken? Do we talk about life the way it really comes to people? Are new structures being called for in the life and mission of the Church? What does it mean to say that the church is MISSION . . . is MINISTRY . . . that the layman is THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD? How are the mission and ministry of the laity related to their individual and corporate responsibility in the world? Is there a functional relationship between worship in the church and life in the world? What does it mean to be a man, as a laboring man, as a medical man, as a business man? What is the meaning of faith in the midst of rearing children, selling goods, or making laws? The concern of such questions is to recapture the significance of responsible involvement and leadership in the Church and in the world.

Our fathers in the faith talked about life and the interrelationships of life in a way that had meaning for their generations, but today the language our fathers used has gone dead as verbal symbols have broken down. Therefore, many folks are clinging to driftwood in the midst of turbulent waters, deadwood waterlogged with sentimentality, drabwood laden with innocuous orthodoxy ubich points to a past vitality rather than to life-giving reality.

MANY PEOPLE, whether self­consciously Christian or not, see that the agonizing problems of our time are giving to the Church the opportunity to respond creatively with a fresh vision of her ancient though ever modern, mission in and to the world. They see that her

Page 2

mission is thwarted troth inside and outside her walls. As bearers of the only relevant Word to mankind, it is our most serious failing that Christianity . is increasingly indicted for being irrelevant to life, for refusing to receive our new age and to look at life as it really is. The Church is accused either of being narrowly sectarian and provincial or of being just another social club. We must be open to tbe charge that at the critical point of understanding the faith that is in us. most laymen are intellectual cripples, unable to relate their faith to the categories of twentieth century thought. There is an alarming dearth of Christian laymen who are informed on current issues at depth, who dare to think creatively for themselves, who have the courage to decide and act in the light of their convictions. Few laymen have given, or have any opportunity to give, serious and honest reflections to the matters of faith, to the question of the meaning of their lives. In desperation, many of them have sought solutions in platitudes of former times or in magical notions or in autosuggestion techniques palmed off by charlatans who have stole'' Christian terminology and applied it in areas of outmoded psychology. In the Church, it is to our dishonor that the phrase, "post­Christian era" has been applied to the mid­twentieth century.

THROUGHOUT its history, the Church has met the crisis of each new age through education, preparing her members to live their lives freely and fully to the end that the world be transformed through their ministry unto it. It is also true that the Church has frequently cut herself off from the gift of new life. has perverted her self understanding has enslaved herself to the powers of the age to which it was given. We are always threatened with this temptation to forego the cross and to teach men so, even by reducing the symbols of our faith to the subservience of society's view of the meaning of life. In our day, the crisis has come through the gift to the world of vast new knowledge, scientific information about the universe and about man's internal being. Man has thrust into outer space and has delved into his own interior psychology far beyond the limits anticipated only a few years ago before the age of technics began. The increasing breadth of horizons on all fronts has given birth to a new quality of anxiety, for we finally have no choice about being caught up in this new era. Bewildered or not, we must respond.

THOSE OF YOU who lend your support to the Community have responded. You have helped establish a research and training center that deals with all the questions I have raised up to this point and many other perplexing problems that face the Church. It does so through experimentation not only on behalf of the Church at large but also on behalf of culture in which the Church is situated. I like to think of the Community's history in terms of a youngster that you have adopted and helped out on occasion since birth, September 21, 1951. This child is really growing!

There was just the seed of an idea for this Community back in '51 but nine months later on May 16, 1952, the babe was born in the lap of an interdenominational Board of Directors. Then came three months in the incubator and the infant went to its first home at the Men's Residence to set up a hue and cry on September 15, 1952. Thirty young men attending the University served as baby­sitters and lived in the house. They did a lot for the baby although they got little in return,- except experience and a few ulcers. By September, 1953, women students insisted they wanted experience at sitting with this baby, and so the Women's Residence was secured. Scores of students came and went for the next five years, each year learning more and profiting from past mistakes. By September 1958, the youngun' was so rambunctious that men and women on up past middle age were asking to have a go at the accumulated wisdom the students had left stored up with the professional baby-sitters known as the staff, although the staff could tell you they were always learning more in working with this toddler than anybody else. It has often been said that everybody's baby is nobody's baby . . . and you know what they call nobody's baby. Some folks have called the Faith­and­Life Community worse than that because it is interdenominational, interracial, international and lives on the cutting edge of the theological thinking in our time.

In all seriousness, we have been grateful for the criticism and suggestions of persons whose interests are not provincial or localized but who are willing to act faith out in advance of the ideas of the current day, seeking the well being of those who are not yet awake to the needs the Community is meeting.

When the Community was started, the University Branch ( The College House) was only the first of four steps envisioned for the future: the College House, the Laos House, Publications, and Extension. Through the influence of the Community's National Advisory Council

Letter to Laymen

continued from page two

reflections on Community

and Board of Directors, the College House was in the process of continuous upgrading in staff, facilities, program and curriculum. News of this venture, its success in meeting the needs of both society and the Church through new techniques, its development as a genuine research center in the field of lay theological education, brought increasing requests for detailed information about the entire project. Along with this encouragement came increasing demands for:

-A program that would provide a similar opportunity for laymen of post­college age;

-A program that would provide a similar opportunity for married couples who are students;

-A program for clergymen through which they could study the techniques of the Community and apply them in their own parishes;

-.4 program for interns who are preparing to teach in the area of theological education' of the laity.

IT WAS FELT that such new programs would act as a corrective for the College House as well as achieve their central function of providing residential training in the Christian Faith for laymen in all walks of life, of all ages. and for clergymen seeking new experiences through which they might cultivate an adequate program of theological education among the laymen in their local congregations. The board of directors saw fit to establish the programs so that now, in addition to the residential coeducational College House which serves ninety men and women students and up to twelve married couples annually, the Community is conducting concentrated programs in the Laos House for post­college age people, the Parish Ministers' Colloquy for clergymen of all denominations in the Southwest, the Second Year Fellows Tutorial Program a program for Former Residents of the Community, and a Publications and Extension division reaching out to 42 states and 34 foreign countries.

Perhaps the most important aspect of all these projects is the fact that the courses have been developed and tested with live human beings in the midst of their countless other responsibilities as persons so that the education that takes place is entirely within the scope of practical, day-to-day existence, and in no way is it a matter of dealing with mere theoretical or abstract possibilities. The eight basic courses in the curriculum have been developed over a period of seven years with constant revising in the light of the continuing experimentation, so that now it is the most comprehensive course in theological education for laymen to be found anywhere in the world. The teaching and theological methodology have received the highest commendation of noted educators and clergymen.

Current staff and facilities cannot meet the demand that has come from persons and groups wishing to participate as well as those seeking the results of the research to apply in other areas. There are more requests from other lay training centers for information and consultation from persons who wish to intern, and from parish ministers than our present resources can meet.

Our staff is peanut size compared to the amount of work involved: seven professionally trained theologians (clergymen and laymen), five secretaries and bookkeepers, and a domestic staff of twelve. I don't know how we got people who will work from 6:50 in the morning until eleven or twelve o'clock at night, but they are here, and they are dedicated. As you can imagine, a program of this depth requires hour upon hour of counseling and individual attention, especially among the university students but also among the older laymen, the local church groups, and the professional and occupational groups that participate. As writers, teachers, counselors, and researchers, their lives are tied up around the clock at least until financial aid brings relief. I know one thing: they are outstripping the boys on Madison Avenue in the expenditure of energy.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT PHASE of the Community's work is in its direct outreach to groups who are inaugurating similar ventures in the worldwide by movement. Since the Community was founded, the staff has been in continuous conversation with other lay training centers and has conducted intensive consultations for Christian leaders and educators on many college and university campuses through visits to

June, 1959

this Community and their invitations to our staff to hold conferences at their respective campuses. A number of Christian leaders from Britain and the Continent have made special visits to Austin for first hand observation of the Community. Among such persons, the following are representative:

George F. McLeod, founder and leader of the Iona Community in

Scotland

Hendrick Kraemer, Director of the Ecumenical Institute of the World

Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland

Hans­Ruedi Weber, Chairman, Commission on the Laity, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland

Francis House, Associate General Secretary, World Council of

Churches, Geneva, Switzerland

Christian students and leaders at several colleges and universities have begun to adapt the basic structure of the Faith and Life Community to their own situation. Each is related in purpose and direction vet remains autonomous:

Southern Methodist University, "The Community House"

University of Wisconsin, 'The Community of Life and Faith"

Montana State University, itame unsele~ted

Boston University, "Experiment in Christian Living"

Brown University, "Residential Seminar in Christianity"

Pennsylvania State University, "Koinonia and Oikeia"

In addition, Christian leaders and faculty from forty­seven other colleges and universities across the nation and in Canada and Australia have consulted with the staff about the Community's programs. The concern of all these people is that the society in which we live be constantly penetrated by thoughtful, reflective laymen who are awake to the contemporary relationship between Christianity and culture.

IN SHARING OUR EXPERIENCES with them, they have been helped to see that there is an intimate relationship between a genuine theological education and all the other aspects of a person's education in the liberal arts as well as in technical fields. Let me try to sketch this relationship briefly. It is just as significant for people who are not in college as for those who are. For, with the advent of "the new leisure" in America derived from automation and other technical economic devises (coupled with earlier and earlier retirement), it is not unfeasible to think that Christian laymen will be spending this time in greater study, fulfilling their lives through all kinds of education and through commensurate service in the world. Education 'from the cradle to the grave" is coming more as a necessity than a luxury in our time. Most of you already know of the plans in the large corporations to send their executives back to school to get a broader perspective on life. Also, large continuing education centers are being established even now in many parts of the country.

(continued on next page)

continued from page seven

reflections on Community

Briefly, then, the Community's developing philosophy underlying the relationship between regular education and theological education is that it would, first of all, attempt to communicate that which is actually going on in our world, the memory of our culture through which we are enabled to interpret the present situation, and supply the necessary tools to wrestle with the problems of the time.

Secondly, this would imply that any discipline or area of thought is a part of God's creation. This is based upon the firm belief that any and all attempts to understand the world are ultimately responses to God's sovereignty.

Thirdly, such education should include genuine interchange among the various disciplines of thought. Though the age of specialization will necessarily continue, the world is one and cannot finally be compartmentalized.

A fourth concern flows from the conviction that the real question of faith is encountered at the depth of any field of study. To see this, it is necessary to press for the beginning points be" hind the acknowledged presuppositions of any field of thought.

Such education would imply further that a person acquire an understanding of the history of the Christian life and thought as a part of world history with an eye to the contribution Christianity has made to our cultural memory and therefore to the present situation.

Finally. the over­arching concern would be the understanding and appreciation of the witness of the Christian Faith as one of the many possibilities of self-understanding in our day. Such education would spur each person to think through and decide for himself the way he will understand himself in the world, self­consciously choosing that which will be the center of gravity in his life and by which he will make his decisions.

A MAN TOL.D ME THE OTHER DAY that we needed to give you folks a better picture of the aims of the Community. Let me attempt a brief summary of our intentions which may fulfill this request. The purpose of the Community

-To provide the Church with well trained laymen who understand themselves as members of the ongoing body of Christ, living at every moment under the judgment and grace of God as they participate in, and serve with, the local congregations of their choice.

­­ To provide the world as well as the Church with Christians who are excellently prepared to

use their minds to think freely and faithfully as they confront the world with the relevance of the Christian Faith to every aspect of life.

-- To provide the setting, intellectual demands ethical claims, and avenues of expression through which such persons may more readily become such Christians.

-- To stand as one symbol of the current world. wide renewal of the Church in receiving God is gift of a new era in history, implementing this symbol through research that is thoroughly germane to the problems of the Church in our day.

MAYBE WE ARE "MAD" to try to expand the Community so rapidly to meet the demands that are pressing in upon us. Maybe you would be mad to encourage us with your sustaining support. This is a decision you have to make. The board of directors and staff have decided unanimously to continue to move out in faith... and if we succeed, God be praised. .. and if we fail, God be praised. These are revolutionary days . . . in science . . . technology . . . medicine

. and research is the key word whether "brain­trusting" for the government in foreign policy, or harnessing atomic power for commercial use, or searching out the elusive cause of cancer. Somewhere, my brethren, somewhere, somehow, millions of us have missed the point of what life is all about. Having eyes to see, we haven't seen, having ears to hear, we haven't heard . . . and so we go limping lamely on and look at life as members of the new cynic's club "O.D.T.A.A.," which freely translated means life is just "one damn thing after another." How many families today are torn by frustration, alcoholism, divorce, mental illness . . . how many husbands and wives live together for years as nuts and bolts with no sense of what life together Christianly can mean . . . how many of us pressure our children into some frustrated image of what we wish we had been ? Is there any word for us and for our world ? Is there any "Good News" that is communicable to mankind crying out the inescapable question, "What the hell is it all about?"

The answer is "Yes" . . . but it comes in the midst of the No's of life, and the Christian Faith incarnated in you and me through the Church of Jesus Christ must declare this Word . . . and so if we are "mad" it is for Christ's sake . . . and you may or may not decide to invest some of your "mad money" in this work. We hope you will, for we are more convinced than ever that the interchange between training and research that has started here can help all people in the family of the Church to be articulate spokesmen for the redemptive Word in Christ, utilizing their critical intelligence with wisdom adequate to mediate the Gospel to the world Christians are called to serve.