[Oe List ...] Salmon: When did Joe Mathews image shift?

Wed Aug 3 19:41:52 EDT 2011

David-- I found this fascinating! It filled in some early blanks. When I was at Perkins, Outler was the leading light, but spent all of his time at Vatican II--thank heavens; he bored the hell into me. At the time I considered him a non-entity, which I believe the situation was mutual. 
    Geez, I never went to seminary until I attended the Global Academy anyway. 
Bill
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Walters 
  To: Order Ecumenical Community 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:12 PM
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] When did Joe Mathews image shift?

  I spent a week in the early part of '72 with a friend at Perkins. I was in the library on afternoon prowling in the stacks when I found a small office behind a Mosler safe door. To left of the door I found the name Albert C.Outler. Aha! I went in and introduced myself and we proceeded to have an interesting conversation. At least until I asked him about Joe Mathews. Conversation over. He went back to his work and I left.

  About the safe. Outler had convinced some group in England to loan him all of John and Charles Wesley's papers. I mean every thing. Diaries. Letters. Sermons, the works. Abingon Press published a 25 volume set of the works of John Wesley edited by Outler.

  Bishop Jim in Bending History tells that Oulter was one of Joe's professor's at Yale. One of the 1st courses he took was taught by Outler and required each student to write an assay entitled "How My Mind Has Changed Theologically in the Last Ten Years" 

  Joe left Yale ant to teach at Colgate in New York. When left there to teach Perkins there was his old professor Albert Outler. As I understand their relationship degenerated pretty quick. Some one once said that the major contradiction in their relationship turn on the fact that Outler was committed to intellectual pursuits and Joe was committed to being a radical churchman. Outler eventually found a way to have Joe removed from the faculty.

  Bishop Jim tells a great deal about Joe and H. Richard Niebuhr. During the '47-48, Joe and another student Herndon Wagers had lunch daily with Niehbuhr where they would engage i deep conversation on theological issue of the day . Another interesting comment was about how Joe would go to library in the afternoon and read Nebuhr's works - all of them a rather lage task.  I guess he was trying take Kierkegaard seriously - to will one thing.

  Earlier in the book Bishop Jim talks about he and Joes time at Biblical Seminary. He described it as a middle of the road place - neither liberal or conservative.  He tells that became close to Wilbert W White the schools founder who had done to Yale in the 20s and had been influenced greatly by William Rainey Harper who had founded the University of Chicago. They were exposed to people like  Edwin  Lewis, Karl Hein and Julius Richter, a German who had at one time been the pastor to Kaiser Wilheim. 

  I remember talking once with Bishop Jim and his talking about how they would often attend lectured series' at other nearby by schools like Columbia, NYU and Union Seminary. This would have exposed them to vroad range of thinkers.

  Joe left Biblical after two years ago to go to Drew wher he graduated, Joe was soon installed at a Methodist Church in Conneticut, He then enrolled at Union Seminary which was short commute from his church.  There he studied under Rinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.

  When I took a PLC in the spring of '700 and when the Cihicago to work on the Locaal Church Experiment therre was something fa
  familar about the stange charts they drawing on chalkboar4ds, especiall those that Joe drew. On of Joe.s professorrs at Biblicall was Dean G. McKee, who would later be mamed its president, In the early 60s he learned of his boards' intention to retire him when he reached 65. He beat them to the punch and obtained an appointment as proffessor at Columbia Theological Seminary, a Presbyertian scgoll in Decatur, Ga. I spent a year ther in '68-69. I never had any of his classes, but when it was his turn to speak at Chapel he wuld arrange for an easel and chalkboard to be place next to the pulpit. There he would draw the same kind of charts I would find in Chicago. When he would  step away from the pulpit and start drawing, groans and snickers would be heard in the congregation from students and faculty alike.

  An interesting note about Mckee, His wife had died about thime he was deciding to leave New York. Three or fours years after I left seminary he married a younger woman who an organist at a lrgee Presbyterian chuch in Atlanta. Dhe had been a student in sacred music at Union in the mid 50s. She is still living across the road in Dr. McKee's house across from Columbia Seminary. I had a delightful conversation with her a few months ago about her late husband and his charts.    
  -David Walters

  --- geowanda at earthlink.net wrote:

  From: George Holcombe <geowanda at earthlink.net>
  To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] When did Joe Mathews image shift?
  Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 16:12:43 -0500

  The other question here is what persuaded Joe to leave Perkins, an established institution, and go to Faith and Life in Austin?  In a discussion I had with Dr. Albert Outler, the famed Wesley expert and professor at Perkins, about a year before his death, he talked about how he had tried to talk Joe into finishing his dissertation, which would have meant tenure at Perkins and a comfortable life, etc.  Something happened, maybe Slicker knows, that sent Joe to Faith and Life, which was a struggling student program in Austin, which conservative church people had taken aim.  His education from WWII had boiled into something.  That illustration about stepping out over 40,000 fathoms of jello, was probably not a cute invention.

  George Holcombe
  14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
  Austin, TX 78728
  Mobile 512/252-2756
  geowanda at earthlink.net

  ‎“...we have the choice: we can gratefully cultivate the relationships that make us part of a vast network, or we can take them for granted and allow them to wither and die.”  Brother David Steindl-Rast, Deeper than Words

  On Aug 1, 2011, at 7:31 PM, David Walters wrote:

    You have to read Bending History and the other  transcribed talks that we have along  with Brother Joe to understand what happened to Joe in the 40s which are decidedly different from this journey in the 30s. As I remember it, Joe went into the army a year or less after he had finished  seminary in New York where he had encountered the Neibuhrs, Tillich, and others,. I think his experience in the Pacific radically grounded what he had learned from them. Transformation became a new word for him. He finally knew what Wesley was talking about. 

    -David Walters

    --- jfwiegel at yahoo.com wrote:

    From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
    To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
    Cc: Springboard Dialogue <springboard at wedgeblade.net>, Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
    Subject: [Oe List ...] When did Joe Mathews image shift?
    Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 15:07:11 -0700 (PDT)

          so, I have a question:  what was it that radicalized Joe Mathews?  In 1946, he was going on about how his theology had changed because of the war (WWII).  By the time of these talks he is all about the social revolution and the radical revolution and the people of God are revolutionaries.  What happened?

          Was Joe ever engaged in the civil rights movement?  Did he go to Selma?  I have testimony that David Scott was there, and he met Betty Pesek there . . . What about Bonnie Swain?  did she play a role?

          Jim Wiegel

          Life isn't meant to be easy, it's meant to be life. -- James Michener, The Source

          401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
          +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel
          jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com

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