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

Sat Aug 6 07:44:58 EDT 2011

Hahn might know best.  I think it was somewhere between 52-55 at Perkins.

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 6, 2011, at 3:13 AM, James Wiegel wrote:

> Getting back to the "O" level . . .  what were the years that Joe taught at Perkins?  did he also teach at Colgate??
> 
> Who was Jack Lewis (I know that he was director or something of the Christian Faith and Life Community -- is he still alive? -- I remember Judy and I having dinner with the Hilliard's a couple of years ago, and a joke from Jack Lewis and some stories and . . .) what influence did he have in Joe going to Austin?
> 
> Jim Wiegel
> 
> Life isn't meant to be easy, it's meant to be life. -- James Michener, The Source
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> --- On Fri, 8/5/11, JOHN L. EPPS <jlepps at pc.jaring.my> wrote:
> 
> From: JOHN L. EPPS <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] When did Joe Mathews image shift?
> To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> Date: Friday, August 5, 2011, 6:08 PM
> 
> Thanks George.
> 
> You're certainly right about Outler. I had the honor of working for him a
> year while at Perkins, and once over an Easter holiday, had the
> opportunity with my roomate of "house-sitting" for him and his wife while
> they went on vacation. He was a stellar teacher. I recall once a lecture
> on the 13th century which, in one hour, he put you there and walked you
> around in it with deep insight and considerable humor. He was also
> capable of taking you apart in class, usually without your recognizing it
> until you walked out of room! He was the best of the academics.
> 
> He was clearly not an existentialist. His claim was that they were
> emotionalists who have gotten over fundamentalism! He also claimed that
> most people never really understood orthodoxy, and that's why they
> rebelled against it. He was very much into the contemporary world, and
> could do a contemporary political analysis like few others.
> 
> Joe was gone when I got to Perkins, but stories about him were abundant.
> When Joe died, I phoned Outler with the news. He was appreciative and
> offered sincere condolences.
> 
> Clearly they were on different wave lengths. But not without appreciation
> for each other.
> 
> Thanks for your correction.
> 
> John
> 
> Quoting George Holcombe <geowanda at earthlink.net>:
> 
> > I find the comments about Joe and Outler a bit out of order.  And of
> > course we can invoke the "Lingo rule" that there are as many stories
> > about the Order as there are members.
> >
> > I began as a student at Perkins the semester after Joe left for Austin.
> >  There was no mention of him being forced to leave.  In fact he was
> > spoken of rather highly by profs and students, and the senior students
> > certainly missed him.  His decision to give up on his dissertation,
> > which he wrote some of it at Perkins (the reason for him being in the
> > stacks), and which was 2/3's the way home when he let it go, was
> > something he decided.  I doubt that Outler could force anyone out.  A
> > little history - Merrimon Cunningham was made Dean of the SMU theology
> > school in 1951.  SMU did not at that time support the Theology School
> > with their funds.  It was done by the churches.  Merrimom recruited and
> > took the Perkins family, a very wealthy oil family from Witchita Falls,
> > to Yale to look at buildings for the theology school that they wanted
> > to donate to SMU.  Somewhere in there it was decided that the SMU
> > theology school would be called Perkins School of Theology and would
> > become the Yale of the South academically.    They and a very few
> > others supplied the money for the buildings and endowment for the
> > professors.  Outler was one of the professors, along with others to
> > take the seminary from a "preacher factory" to a genuine theological
> > school.  Cunningham went after promising scholars.  Prior to this the
> > school had had a tough time with conservative church people both
> > Methodist and Baptist and the school had not been known for its
> > academics.  Cunningham fought for both academic freedom and naturally
> > against the fundamentalist.  He brought Joe to Perkins, and if there
> > had been a dismissal it would have been Merrimom not Outler to do the
> > deed, as Outler was also the target of the conservatives.  Merrimom and
> > Joe were pretty close, as some in the development department will
> > remember.  When Merrimom left Perkins he headed up the Danforth
> > Foundation from which we received generous grants and Joe and Merrimon
> > had a good relationship.  The deal at Perkins was that professors were
> > to have a Ph.D. or were working on one.  I think that is still their
> > policy, though they went off the rails as best I can see some awhile
> > back and surrendered a lot to the fundies and conservatives.
> >
> > Outler always had good things to say about Joe when I was in
> > conversations where his name came up, but understand Outler was an
> > academician's academician.  He brought John Wesley out of the grave to
> > the Methodist church and humanized him.  I remember him showing some of
> > us a copy of a bill from a pub for the ale of his preachers after a
> > conference.  I was never in his class but he conducted a weekly session
> > for Systematic Theology where all the students gathered into the main
> > auditorium and the various professors debated one another in the old
> > fashioned academic way.  He usually shredded all of them in his polite,
> > humorous manner.  Students, if they dared, could enter in at the close,
> > and he would politely chew them up too.  Whatever argument you brought
> > to him, he would take the opposite view and like a chess master he
> > would run you all over the board.
> >
> > I don't know for sure, but I think Joe despaired of the academic
> > approach.  He certainly poked fun from time to time at the academic.
> > This still leaves me with the question of what was Joe's struggle and
> > discernment to drop his Ph.D. and go off to a fairly uncertain future
> > of a very young organization, Faith and Life.  You need to understand
> > that this was a time when Universities and Seminaries were casting
> > about for talent as there was a swell in students and much generosity
> > from donors, had he needed another job.  While never explicit, his
> > speeches and his personal conversations seem to plead for expenditure,
> > giving up life to the world.  There was a scream in there that echoed
> > in your own soul.
> >
> > 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 3, 2011, at 6:12 PM, David Walters wrote:
> >
> > > 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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> >
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