[Oe List ...] EI history

[James Wiegel]

Dorothea Jewell was part of the support force for the 1954 WCC meeting in Chicago and quite likely she was the one who mimeographed the resolution.
 Jim 


[Pete Seeger] talks about how important it is to him to get an audience singing along. "I guess it’s kind of a religion with me. Participation: that’s what’s going to save the human race." -- Pete Seeger in The Power of Song


Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671 +1 623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com 




________________________________
From: W. J. <synergi at yahoo.com>
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Cc: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
Sent: Thu, December 24, 2009 9:04:49 PM
Subject: [Oe List ...] EI history


Bill Alerding wrote:
Question: Didn’t E.I. pick up this name when Bishop Jim invited Joe and the Austin group to take over the work of the “Ecumenical Institute” in Evanston ? This was an undergraduate school based on the educational philosophy of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossy , Switzerland?

Answer: The "Evanston Institute of Ecumenical Studies" -- housed in an old mansion/carriage house in Evanston -- had a library for scholars and was directed by Walter Liebrecht, who left his post when he decided to stay in Europe after Vatican II. The Church Federation of Greater Chicago became the umbrella group that invited Joe Mathews to the directorship. The carriage house burned down, the Evanston Institute of Ecumenical Studies became the Ecumenical Institute: Chicago, and the faculty decided to move to the inner city of Chicago. In order to acquire Bethany Seminary (with a balloon note on the mortgage), 'EI' became a separate legal entity as an independent division of the Church Federation.
Though in theory there was a parallel between EI:Bossey and EI:Chicago, in that the latter was formed as a result of an unfunded resolution of the WCC Assembly in Evanston in 1954 that called for a North American study center similar to Bossey, it was the energy and financial support of Chicago area churchmen who after several years saw a need for a practical study center to facilitate ecumenical dialogue among laymen that got the Evanston entity set up and running.
I would imagine that Bishop Jim had something to do with the invitation to Joe Mathews to come to Evanston, but probably in a smoke-filled back-room kind of way. I think it was Edgar Chandler who got it done for the Church Federation -- or at least who got us to the West Side.
Flash forward to 2009: the Church Federation is no more, and I think their little skyscraper headquarters on Lakeshore Drive was sold. All I can find is some sort of ecumenical media center function in Chicago which may still originate broadcasts/cablecasts etc on behalf of the original Protestant mainline denominational members. The explosion of nondenominational local churches never became part of the Chicago religious 'establishment' which has faded in its hegemony, prestige, legitimacy, and funding.. 
Meanwhile, as the result of an extraordinary gift by James S. Kemper, the Ecumenical Institute continues to flourish as the landowner & landlord of 4750 Sheridan Road, providing a 'container' for a multidimensional, multicultural, multiorganizational social services center serving the people of Uptown Chicago.
Any more corrections/additions to the historcal record? 
Marshall Jones


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20091224/fd0c2a0e/attachment-0001.html>