Samuel Proctor - "Personhood in the Computer Age" (March 4, 1973)

Download
- Rights
- No Re-Use
  In Copyright
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4125qr2g?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' loading='lazy' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4125qr2g
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

	♪ Evermore ♪	0:02
	♪ Lift up your heart ♪	0:07
	♪ Lift up your voice ♪	0:12
	♪ Rejoice, again I say, rejoice ♪	0:15
	♪ The Lord, the Savior, reigns ♪	0:25
	♪ The God of truth and love ♪	0:30
	♪ When he had purged our stains ♪	0:35
	♪ He took his seat above ♪	0:39
	♪ Lift up your heart ♪	0:46
	♪ Lift up your voice ♪	0:51
	♪ Rejoice, again I say, rejoice ♪	0:53
	♪ His kingdom cannot fail ♪	1:03
	♪ He rules o'er earth and heav'n ♪	1:08
	♪ The keys of death and hell ♪	1:14
	♪ Are to our Jesus giv'n ♪	1:17
	♪ Lift up your heart ♪	1:24
	♪ Lift up your voice ♪	1:29
	♪ Rejoice, again I say, rejoice ♪	1:32
	♪ Rejoice in glorious hope ♪	1:42
	♪ Our Lord and judge shall come ♪	1:47
	♪ And take His servants up ♪	1:52
	♪ To their eternal home ♪	1:56
	♪ Lift up your heart ♪	2:03
	♪ Lift up your voice ♪	2:08
	♪ Rejoice, again I say, rejoice ♪	2:11
	♪ Amen ♪	2:21
-	The scriptures move us to acknowledge	2:32
	and confess our sins before almighty God,	2:34
	our heavenly Father with a humble,	2:38
	humble voice unto the throne of heavenly grace.	2:41
	Let us confess our sins before God.	2:45
	Most merciful Father, we have done little	2:55
	to forward Your kingdom in this world,	2:58
	to foster the brotherhood of man,	3:01
	and to establish love as begotten.	3:04
	We have allowed self to blind us,	3:07
	pains to embitter us.	3:10
	We have forgotten that whatsoever is done	3:12
	to one of the least of your children	3:15
	is pure heart intent on pleasing you.	3:17
	Help us in all our seeking to seek first	3:21
	Your kingdom and Your righteousness	3:24
	and make us to come as came your son Jesus Christ,	3:26
	not to be ministered unto, but to minister.	3:31
	All of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.	3:35
	Amen.	3:39
	Oh Lord, we beseech Thee	3:42
	absolve Thy people from their offenses,	3:43
	that through Thy bountiful goodness	3:46
	we may be delivered from the bonds of those sins,	3:48
	which by all frailty we have committed.	3:51
	Grant this, oh heavenly Father,	3:54
	for the sake of Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Savior,	3:55
	who taught us to pray,	3:59
	Our Father who art in heaven,	4:01
	Hallowed be thy name.	4:05
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done	4:07
	on earth as it is in heaven.	4:11
	Give us this day our daily bread	4:13
	and forgive us our trespasses	4:16
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	4:19
	And lead us not into temptation,	4:22
	but deliver us from evil,	4:25
	for Thine is the power,	4:27
	the power and the glory forever,	4:29
	Amen.	4:32
	(soft organ music)	4:35
	♪ Children of the heav'nly Father ♪	5:23
	♪ Safely in His bosom gather ♪	5:29
	♪ Nestling bird nor star in heaven ♪	5:35
	♪ Such a refuge e'er was given ♪	5:42
	♪ God His own doth tend and nourish ♪	5:50
	♪ In His holy courts they flourish ♪	5:57
	♪ From all evil things He spares them ♪	6:03
	♪ In His mighty arms He bears them ♪	6:10
	♪ Praise the Lord in joyful numbers ♪	6:18
	♪ Your Protector never slumbers ♪	6:24
	♪ At the will of your Defender ♪	6:31
	♪ Every foeman must surrender ♪	6:37
	♪ Though He giveth or He taketh ♪	6:45
	♪ God His children ne'er forsaketh ♪	6:52
	♪ His the loving purpose solely ♪	6:59
	♪ To preserve them pure and holy ♪	7:06
-	The Lord be with you.	7:31
-	And also with you.	7:33
-	Let us pray.	7:35
	Almighty God whose most loved son went not up to joy,	7:40
	but first He suffered pain and entered not	7:46
	into glory before He was crucified.	7:48
	Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,	7:51
	may find it none other than the way of life and peace	7:56
	through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.	8:00
	Amen.	8:04
-	The lesson today is from the letter of Paul	8:11
	to Galatians, chapter five, verses one through 14.	8:14
	For freedom Christ has set us free.	8:20
	Stand fast therefore and do not submit again	8:23
	to a yoke of slavery.	8:27
	Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision,	8:29
	Christ will be of no advantage to you.	8:35
	I testify again to every man who receives	8:39
	circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law.	8:42
	You are severed from Christ,	8:47
	you who would be justified by the law.	8:49
	You have fallen away from grace.	8:53
	For through the spirit, by faith,	8:56
	we wait for the hope of righteousness.	8:59
	For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision	9:02
	nor uncircumcision is of any avail,	9:06
	but faith working through love.	9:10
	You were running well; who hindered you	9:13
	from obeying the truth?	9:15
	This persuasion is not from Him who called you.	9:17
	A little yeast leavens the whole lump.	9:21
	I have confidence in the Lord	9:24
	that you will take no other view than mine.	9:27
	And he who is troubling you will bear his judgment,	9:31
	whoever he is.	9:34
	But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision,	9:36
	why am I still persecuted?	9:40
	In that case, the stumbling block	9:43
	of the cross has been removed.	9:45
	I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves!	9:48
	For you were called to freedom, brethren;	9:54
	Only do not use your freedom	9:57
	as an opportunity for the flesh,	9:59
	but through love be servants of one another.	10:03
	For the whole law is fulfilled in one word,	10:06
	"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."	10:09
	This is the Word of the Lord.	10:13
	Thanks be to God.	10:14
	(organ music)	10:16
	♪ Glory to God ♪	10:25
	♪ And to the Son and to the Holy Ghost ♪	10:29
	♪ As it was in the beginning ♪	10:36
	♪ Is now and ever shall be ♪	10:41
	♪ World without end ♪	10:46
	♪ Amen, Amen ♪	10:49
-	Let us in unison affirm our faith.	11:01
	We believe in God who has created and is creating,	11:05
	who has come in the true man, Jesus,	11:10
	to reconcile and make new.	11:13
	Who works in us and others by his spirit.	11:16
	We trust Him.	11:19
	He calls us to be in His church,	11:21
	to celebrate His presence, to love and serve others,	11:24
	to seek justice and resist evil,	11:28
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen.	11:31
	Our judge and our hope, in life and death	11:35
	and light beyond.	11:39
	God is with us.	11:42
	We are not alone.	11:43
	Thanks be to God.	11:45
	Let us pray.	11:56
	Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,	12:00
	Father of mankind and of all creations,	12:05
	having purified our hearts and our souls	12:10
	amid Your presence at the throne of grace	12:14
	by confessing our sins and transgressions.	12:16
	We now offer our thanks for Your goodness and mercy.	12:19
	We thank you for our creation and our preservation.	12:25
	We thank you for your inestimable love	12:30
	and the redemption of the world by our Lord, Jesus Christ	12:33
	for the means of grace, for the hope of glory,	12:36
	and for the blessings of this life.	12:39
	How can we cite them all?	12:43
	Yet, we recall the despondent heart made joyful,	12:45
	the saddened face made smiling,	12:50
	the tearful eyes made gleeful,	12:52
	and wearied minds, relaxed.	12:55
	We thank You for the consciousness and strength	12:59
	of fathers who keep their families	13:01
	within the fold of Your goodness and mercy.	13:03
	For the tenderness and love of mothers.	13:06
	For caring and concerned sons and daughters	13:10
	who do not neglect parents growing lonely with age.	13:12
	Thank You for those who have been brought	13:17
	into the faith and now find solace in serving You.	13:19
	For those who buy their faith in You,	13:25
	You have revived from sickness.	13:27
	Thank You for those whose lives are no longer	13:31
	plagued by internal battles.	13:34
	And most gracious God, let us not forget	13:38
	to thank You for the quelling of wars	13:40
	and for the work of the church	13:43
	in striving to aid the oppressed and poor.	13:44
	Now, heavenly Father, may we stay ever mindful	13:49
	that it is You who made us and sustains us,	13:53
	that by Your love for us are we able	13:58
	to benefit from the redemptive power of Lord Jesus Christ,	14:01
	through Whom we realize grace and glory.	14:05
	May we beseech You, be ever aware that	14:09
	it is You who bestows the blessings upon mankind.	14:13
	Continue to bless us.	14:18
	Keep us cheerful, kind, and loving.	14:21
	Keep our families united.	14:25
	Motivate us to be missionaries and bring	14:28
	others in to share your grace and to be comforted by You.	14:30
	Attend to the sick and shut in,	14:35
	that peace abound throughout the world	14:38
	and forever guide the church in ministering	14:41
	to her community, the source of her life.	14:44
	And now having been uplifted by a most radiant sun	14:49
	this morning, we submit this prayer to You	14:52
	in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.	14:53
	Amen.	14:56
	I'd like to call your attention to one special announcement	15:00
	concerning special services this week	15:03
	printed in your bulletin.	15:05
	A special Ash Wednesday service,	15:09
	marking the beginning of the Lenten season,	15:13
	will be celebrated in the Duke Chapel	15:15
	Wednesday, March seventh at 4:30 p.m.	15:17
	Members of the Duke/Durham community	15:23
	are invited to attend.	15:26
	We're so happy to have with us this morning,	15:30
	sharing in our university service of worship,	15:33
	the reverend Dr. Samuel Proctor,	15:37
	Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem, New York.	15:40
-	It is a very great pleasure	16:02
	to visit Duke University once again,	16:05
	to worship in this altogether magnificent chapel,	16:11
	and to renew fellowship with many friends	16:18
	of mine in North Carolina.	16:24
	I was especially pleased to see the president	16:28
	of your university at the front door,	16:33
	a distinguished former governor,	16:37
	who was once my boss when I was president	16:41
	of North Carolina A&T College.	16:44
	He's the person who gave me a leave of absence	16:48
	to spend some time with the Peace Corps in Nigeria.	16:52
	I was glad to see him here as a friend.	16:58
	I was also glad to see that there's some hope	17:03
	for higher education when the president	17:06
	serves the Lord on Sunday morning.	17:10
	The text for today is from the epistle to the Galatians,	17:14
	the fifth chapter, the first verse.	17:19
	Stand fast in the liberty	17:23
	wherewith Christ hath set you free,	17:25
	and be not entangled again to the yoke of bondage.	17:30
	Saint Paul was saying to the people in Galatia	17:39
	what needs to be said to us.	17:43
	Namely, we all have a lot more freedom	17:46
	than we choose to use.	17:52
	The human spirit is capable of exploring	17:56
	margins of freedom that most of us never see,	18:02
	never recognize because it is so much simpler	18:08
	to go through life imitating those about us	18:13
	and with a blind loyalty	18:20
	to custom and tradition	18:23
	that remain unexamined.	18:27
	We all talk about freedom and we claim	18:33
	that this is the highest thing that we prize,	18:36
	especially in our society.	18:39
	You can get almost any kind of rally going	18:43
	if the rallying cry is freedom.	18:46
	But I'm often afraid that this is hypocritical	18:51
	and it's a grand illusion because most people	18:55
	are terribly afraid	18:59
	of the use of real freedom.	19:03
	And this is what Paul found to be the case among	19:05
	the people in the churches of Galatia.	19:08
	They had been set free from the law.	19:11
	They had been set free from narrow proscriptions	19:17
	about life and how it should be lived.	19:21
	They had been called to a new liberty	19:25
	with the reign of love within their hearts.	19:28
	With Christ and a new rulership over their lives.	19:33
	But this frightened them, and they wanted	19:38
	to crawl back to their old ways	19:42
	because this seemed to be entirely	19:45
	too much freedom for them.	19:48
	And because of this, our freedom is always being taken	19:53
	from us by someone who knows this.	19:58
	There's always some demigod after another	20:03
	who will rise up in our midst	20:05
	and who will convince us that one quick	20:07
	easy slogan is better than another.	20:10
	There's always someone who would exploit	20:15
	this trait of ours.	20:18
	Someone who knows that we are not earnest	20:20
	about the use of freedom.	20:23
	Now the last threat to come upon us, I perceive,	20:25
	is the threat of the Computer Age.	20:30
	Now, this is not just some trifling complaint	20:35
	about a new machine that's in our midst	20:38
	because it's bound to do good.	20:42
	It would take an awful lot of ignorance	20:46
	for someone to be against an advancement	20:48
	like the hasty recall of data through electronic processes.	20:52
	The computer is here to stay.	20:58
	It's a good thing.	21:01
	But the misuse of the computer could be,	21:03
	in our time, one of the major	21:06
	threats to our freedom.	21:09
	You see, personhood means	21:13
	being totally aware of choices.	21:16
	It means being awake and alert to options.	21:19
	It means standing on the threshold of decision,	21:23
	looking over the entire horizon,	21:28
	choosing the way we want to go.	21:31
	The latest challenge to all of this is	21:36
	that data on us is going to be lumped together.	21:40
	Policies are going to be made on the basis	21:44
	of averages, means, percentages.	21:47
	And the next thing we know,	21:54
	all of us are going to be robotized	21:56
	with what is tantamount to not just a new movement among us,	21:59
	but an entirely new age.	22:04
	I got a new insurance policy the other day in the mail,	22:07
	and I noticed the number on the insurance policy	22:12
	was the same as my Social Security number	22:14
	and I call back and they said,	22:16
	"All we do is put our number in front	22:18
	and then add your Social Security number."	22:20
	I went to a bank to buy a small savings certificate	22:24
	and she asked me for my Social Security number,	22:27
	and when I gave it she just put another little	22:30
	couple of letters in front of it and said,	22:32
	"This is your savings account number."	22:34
	I found out that the license plates in New York State	22:37
	and in many other states had been changed,	22:40
	and they're all now going to be three letters	22:42
	and three numbers.	22:44
	When I inquired about this, they said,	22:46
	"This is so that all of the states will have license plates	22:48
	that are made alike, and they can keep track	22:51
	of automobiles crossing state lines."	22:55
	Now some of this is bound to be good,	22:57
	and there is no need to question it.	23:01
	Why would anybody be worried about a thing like this?	23:04
	I would be worried about it because I'm afraid	23:08
	of what happens to people when everything	23:11
	about them gets quantifiable,	23:14
	everything about them gets to be punched on a card	23:17
	with eight or nine holes that says,	23:20
	"Don't fold, spindle, or mutilate,"	23:22
	and then great, big decisions are made	23:25
	on the basis of this kind of digital processing.	23:29
	Not long ago, a man came out with an article	23:35
	that said that black people were inherently	23:40
	inferior because he had made some intelligence	23:44
	test that proved this.	23:46
	And nobody really could deny that he had	23:49
	gone off and made some test that brought this out.	23:51
	But here is the mischievous use of data.	23:57
	What kind of test did he use?	24:00
	What kinds of questions did he ask?	24:03
	Whom did he ask?	24:07
	Where did he take these questions?	24:09
	What was the environment in which all of this went on?	24:11
	And why was this done in the beginning?	24:15
	When all of this data gets pumped into a computer	24:20
	and somebody comes up with the conclusion	24:23
	that here is a congenital, anthropological,	24:26
	basic inferiority, then people start saying,	24:29
	"Then why don't we cut out some of the money	24:32
	we're spending on schools?	24:34
	Why don't we cut out some of the special programs,	24:36
	because you can't do anything to help these people, anyhow."	24:39
	This is the mischievous use of this kind	24:45
	of electronic data processing, because of the likelihood	24:48
	that nobody will get behind the machine to ask	24:52
	the hard questions that need to be asked.	24:56
	When we were discussing this, I asked someone,	25:00
	"How did Mr. Jensen account for	25:04
	the smart black people	25:07
	who were in the world?", and he admitted	25:09
	that there were some.	25:11
	He said, "Well they had a certain gene	25:12
	that came because of mixed parentage.	25:15
	They must have had some non-black relative	25:18
	somewhere in the background."	25:21
	Well, that's all right, but this theory does not account	25:24
	for non-black people who may not be smart.	25:27
	And one must leave the possibility open	25:34
	that there could be some non-black people	25:36
	who are not so smart.	25:39
	The same thing happened when Mr. Moynihan	25:42
	studied the black family.	25:44
	He came up with the conclusion that the problem	25:47
	was that we had so many solo parents	25:50
	and the black male had run off and left his family	25:52
	in too large a number.	25:55
	Well now, that statistic standing all by itself	25:58
	is very indicting.	26:01
	But there isn't the commensurate data regarding	26:03
	what had happened to the black male	26:06
	to cause him to do this sort of thing.	26:08
	Who talked about the manner in which	26:12
	he had been treated as a boy	26:14
	and how he had been reduced to the status of a child?	26:17
	I can remember when I was a college graduate	26:22
	working at a department store in Norfolk.	26:24
	I was standing outside, shining brass	26:27
	for twelve dollars a week.	26:30
	And everybody who came by me, I had to call mister,	26:32
	and every one of them called me by my first name.	26:36
	That's all right, I didn't mind.	26:39
	Except when an 18-year old white boy came by who had	26:42
	just finished high school and I had to call him mister also,	26:45
	and he, too, called me by my first name.	26:49
	Mr. Moynihan didn't get into any of this kind of thing.	26:52
	All he did was punch the holes and punch the cards	26:56
	and slide them into the machine and come up with an answer,	27:00
	and then people began to accept the answer.	27:03
	Then they gave it a fancy name and decided to come up	27:05
	with the program called benign neglect,	27:09
	because the problem is too grave.	27:14
	This is what frightens me about entering the Computer Age.	27:17
	You know and I know that an awful lot	27:22
	about life is not quantifiable.	27:25
	The most profound aspects are not quantifiable.	27:29
	When I have become spiritually exhausted	27:34
	and drop to my knees in prayer	27:37
	and ask God to restore my soul,	27:39
	there is nothing quantifiable about that.	27:42
	What hole do you punch in a card	27:46
	when that happens to me?	27:49
	When I discover a surge of necessity	27:51
	to do much better than I've been doing,	27:54
	when I have become ashamed of low levels	27:57
	of mediocre performance,	28:01
	what hole do I punch then?	28:04
	When I am overwhelmed with my love of my family,	28:09
	and when I want to be near them,	28:13
	when my heart aches and yearns to be closer	28:14
	to my brothers whom I have not seen for a long time,	28:18
	and when I have emotions that come rarely indeed,	28:21
	what hole do I punch then?	28:25
	What number do I assign to this?	28:28
	I remember going to a class reunion,	28:33
	the Class of 1937 of the Booker T. Washington	28:35
	High School of Norfolk, Virginia,	28:38
	then which there is no hitcher.	28:40
	And I remember asking questions about my classmates.	28:44
	We all knew what had happened to the big shots.	28:49
	All the lawyers kids and the government workers' kids,	28:53
	we knew where they were.	28:57
	Many of them were right there,	28:59
	driving their fancy cars and wearing the latest styles,	29:00
	and we applauded their success.	29:04
	But we had one fellow in our class	29:08
	who didn't quite make it so big.	29:11
	In fact, we didn't know what had happened to him.	29:15
	He had what was called the rickets.	29:19
	His legs were severely bowed and he could hardly walk.	29:23
	No matter what time he left home to get to school,	29:29
	he got there after everybody else.	29:31
	He never was in class when the teacher gave	29:35
	the first explanations about the conjugation	29:38
	of a French verb, about a simple equation in algebra.	29:41
	He always missed the first 10 to 12 minutes	29:46
	and had to ask somebody, "What is she talking about now?"	29:50
	He had a lot of pride; he used to wear collars	29:55
	that were well starched and pressed,	29:58
	and he didn't want these collars to shrink,	30:00
	so he put a handkerchief around his neck	30:02
	to guard his collar against the perspiration	30:05
	that seemed always to flow from his scalp.	30:08
	His head was wet all the time.	30:11
	It took such an effort to get from first floor	30:16
	to third floor, second floor to first floor.	30:19
	And I went around those people sitting	30:22
	around a swimming pool outside near Virginia Beach,	30:24
	and I said to them, "Whatever happened to him?"	30:27
	And nobody knew, nobody knew.	30:31
	We didn't know whether or not he had lost his mind	30:35
	and died in a mental institution.	30:39
	We didn't know whether or not he had committed	30:43
	a murder and gone to prison for life.	30:44
	We didn't know whether or not he'd gone good,	30:46
	tuberculosis or a sanitarium,	30:48
	we didn't know what happened to him.	30:50
	But we knew what had happened to all	30:53
	of the people who had a fortunate beginning in life.	30:55
	Any kind of scale that you would want to use,	31:02
	this fellow paid a higher price for his high school	31:07
	diploma than any of the rest of us.	31:10
	He was much more of a person, much more of a man.	31:13
	He had overcome much more than any of us.	31:16
	But we didn't even know what had happened to him.	31:22
	And how could anybody dare quantify	31:26
	the kind of sacrifice that he had made?	31:29
	My grandmother was a widow before she was 40 years old,	31:33
	with seven small children.	31:37
	She was born in slavery and was emancipated	31:41
	in Chesterfield County, Virginia.	31:44
	After her emancipation, and after a few more years,	31:47
	they opened up Hampton Institute and her family	31:51
	sent her to Hampton Institute to be trained as a teacher.	31:55
	Her husband died and left her	32:00
	with these seven children, by herself.	32:02
	She was a very religious woman.	32:06
	She reared these seven children.	32:09
	She gave all of them a chance to go to college	32:12
	in her own way, and how she did it, only God knows.	32:14
	She never was on welfare, I never heard her begging anybody.	32:20
	I always heard her talking about pride	32:26
	and hard work and keeping your chin up,	32:28
	keeping your shoulders back.	32:30
	Such strength I have rarely seen in a person.	32:34
	And from that one woman there are now more	32:40
	than 65 people who have finished college,	32:42
	and her strength has been felt in every one of them.	32:48
	I used to hear her humming sometimes	32:53
	as she sat on a chair in a prayerful mood	32:54
	and she would be humming a tune	32:57
	that I later learned to be this song.	33:00
	She would be singing there's something within	33:04
	me that holdeth the reigns.	33:06
	Something within me that banishes pain.	33:10
	Something within me I cannot explain.	33:13
	All that I know is there is something within.	33:16
	This is that non-quantifiable aspect of life,	33:21
	out of which personhood is made.	33:26
	And when we try to reduce all of this	33:29
	to simple mathematical analysis,	33:32
	and then try to make major decisions about it,	33:35
	we make some awful mistakes.	33:38
	But come next and suppose that we were all	33:41
	going to be programmed, and all of us were going	33:43
	to be categorized and put on these little cards.	33:47
	Suppose everything could be programmed about us.	33:51
	Who's going to program the programmer?	33:54
	Who's going to fix him?	34:00
	I remember in the Peace Corps how we used	34:04
	to select volunteers: we'd get a letter	34:06
	from a country overseas, and they would say,	34:08
	"We want 300 teachers.	34:11
	We want them to be between ages 24 and 36.	34:13
	We want x number married.	34:17
	We want some in mathematics, some in science."	34:19
	And then they would say what kinds of people could survive.	34:22
	They could not take people with asthma,	34:25
	nobody with diabetes, and so we would get a tape	34:27
	and put it into the computer with all of this on there,	34:30
	the laundry list.	34:33
	"What does Ghana want?", and we would put it on the tape.	34:34
	Then we would put some 45,000 applications	34:38
	that had come in and put them in the machine,	34:41
	and by the time two or three seconds had passed,	34:44
	this machine would have selected for us	34:48
	300 people to go to Ghana.	34:50
	Now when we got them overseas and some of them turned out	34:53
	to be kooks, or alcoholics, or mental defectives,	34:56
	as what have you, then we would come back and say,	35:00
	"Who chose these people?"	35:02
	"Well you know, the computer chose them."	35:05
	"Well who programmed the computer?"	35:07
	Then we would go looking for that guy	35:10
	who programmed the computer to see	35:11
	why he couldn't pick up on some of these	35:13
	aberrations as they went through.	35:16
	This is the basic question.	35:18
	You know, Mr. Skinner wrote a book called Beyond Freedom.	35:19
	And in that book he alleges that we	35:23
	really don't have much freedom, anyway.	35:25
	We think we do, but almost everything that we do	35:27
	is conditioned by birth, by glands,	35:30
	by historical process.	35:34
	We really aren't as free as we think we are.	35:37
	Therefore, since we aren't free,	35:40
	why don't we just go on and computerize everybody	35:42
	and get a computerized society?	35:45
	Make us a neat incubator right here	35:48
	in Durham, North Carolina, or some other place like that,	35:50
	and then make everybody conform to what we design	35:53
	as the most, as the optimum condition	35:57
	for human growth and development.	36:00
	That's a pretty neat scheme,	36:02
	but who's going to do the designing?	36:04
	And who told him that he was free to do anything like that?	36:08
	Why is it that the rest of us aren't free, but he's free?	36:12
	Where did he get his freedom from to program the rest of us?	36:17
	I know where he got it from.	36:23
	He got it from the feeling of freedom	36:26
	that every one of us has.	36:29
	This is all that we can ask of people.	36:31
	You don't know how free you are.	36:33
	But we ask you to use as much of that freedom	36:35
	as indeed you feel that you have.	36:38
	This is what Paul was saying to the people of Galatia.	36:41
	Use the freedom that you've got.	36:44
	I don't know what God's will is for my life,	36:46
	but all I know is that the noblest exercise	36:50
	upon which I could embark would be the search	36:52
	for His will for my life.	36:56
	I don't know how much freedom I've got.	36:58
	I'll never know how much freedom I've got	37:00
	until I use all of it that I see right now	37:04
	and then watch it grow as I use it.	37:07
	I'll never forget meeting two strange fellas	37:11
	in Kenya in Africa.	37:14
	I was traveling in Africa with Vice President Humphrey.	37:19
	He was sent on a mission and they wanted someone	37:22
	to go with him who had been in Africa for a time	37:25
	so he wouldn't make blunders,	37:28
	going around saying things that he ought not to say.	37:30
	So I was to go along with him to chat with him	37:33
	and help to explain things.	37:36
	So we came to the airport in Nairobi in Kenya.	37:37
	And as we came down the ramp, I saw a great big fella	37:41
	at the bottom waving to me so enthusiastically,	37:47
	I came down, I recognize him,	37:50
	he was a fullback at another college	37:52
	that A&T College used to play all the time,	37:55
	and I hated him really because he used	37:57
	to run through our line like it wasn't standing there.	37:59
	But nevertheless, in Africa I gave him	38:03
	a big bear hug and he squeezed the wind out of me	38:05
	and I returned it.	38:08
	And I said to him, "The beauty is that you came	38:10
	out here to meet me; how did you know I was on this plane?"	38:12
	He said, "Well, doc I'm sorry, but I didn't	38:15
	know you were on it and I didn't come out here to meet you.	38:17
	I was glad to see you."	38:20
	"Well, did you come to meet someone else?	38:23
	Vice President Humphrey?"	38:26
	He said, "No I came to meet the sergeant, here he comes."	38:28
	And here came a great big strapping sergeant;	38:31
	oh 250, 260.	38:35
	And nearly seven feet tall, and the whole plane just shook	38:38
	when he came down the steps.	38:41
	I said, "Sergeant have you been on the flight	38:43
	all the time?"	38:45
	He said, "Yes, I've been up front."	38:47
	"What were you doing up front?" I said.	38:49
	He said, "I live with a little box up there	38:52
	that has all the hotline to Moscow,	38:54
	the names and telephone numbers of all the cabinet offices.	38:56
	And I've got a Bible and I've got a Constitution."	38:59
	He says, "If President Johnson should expire	39:02
	while we are in the air, 30,000 feet above the desert,	39:05
	I have to come out with the box and show	39:09
	Vice President Humphrey how to be	39:12
	President of the United States instantly.	39:14
	That's what the box has and I'm in charge of it."	39:16
	"In other words, you're sleeping with the box	39:20
	that changes presidents, is that right?"	39:21
	"That's right."	39:24
	"Well, how do you know this fella?"	39:25
	He said, "Well, it was strange story," he says,	39:27
	"but we were brought up in a reform school."	39:31
	"Well, were you juvenile offenders yourselves?"	39:34
	"No; In the state where we were reared,	39:38
	they didn't have a special orphan home,	39:41
	and if your parents were burned alive in a building,	39:45
	or if they shot each other, or if they ran off	39:48
	and left you in a garbage can,	39:51
	then you, too, were put in this reform school	39:53
	with the rapists and the murderers and the car thieves."	39:56
	And he says, "We were little fellas when we were put there."	40:00
	He said he had a fire in his house	40:03
	and his parents were burned,	40:05
	"and one of my parents went to jail	40:06
	and the other one couldn't make it	40:09
	so they put me there, the court sent me there.	40:10
	So we spent our youth around rapists	40:13
	and car thieves and homicides, youthful offenders."	40:17
	"And what do you do now?" I said to the fullback.	40:22
	He says, "I'm coaching over here	40:25
	at University College, Nairobi."	40:28
	"And what do you do, again?"	40:30
	He said, "I guard the box that makes	40:32
	Vice President Humphrey the president	40:36
	in case President Johnson dies."	40:38
	How on earth could you come out of	40:40
	a junk heap like that	40:44
	and do what you're doing now?	40:48
	How selective were you about your environment?	40:52
	How did you screen out the negatives	40:55
	and allow the positives to flow through?	40:58
	Well, they used all the freedom they had.	41:03
	They stood fast in the freedom wherewith Christ	41:09
	will make us all free,	41:11
	if we are not yoked again in bondage.	41:15
	Let us pray.	41:21
	Our Father, we pray that Thou wouldst lift up our heads	41:29
	and allow us to see how free we really are.	41:33
	Save us from the mischief of wallowing and tribalism.	41:39
	Save us from cheap slogans that cause us	41:46
	to be so inhuman to our fellow man.	41:50
	Save us from that laziness that causes us	41:56
	to follow sheep-mindedly those who lead us astray.	42:00
	Save us from that marrow fatigue,	42:06
	which causes us to give up so easily.	42:10
	And help us to find that marvel energy	42:16
	by which we rise up with wings as eagles,	42:18
	running without growing weary,	42:22
	and walking without fainting.	42:24
	In the very strong name of Jesus Christ,	42:28
	our Lord and Savior, we pray.	42:31
	Amen.	42:35
	("Be Thou My Vision")	42:40
	♪ Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart ♪	43:17
	♪ Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art ♪	43:26
	♪ Thou my best Thought, by day or by night ♪	43:35
	♪ Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light ♪	43:44
	♪ Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word ♪	43:55
	♪ I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord ♪	44:04
	♪ Thou my great Father, I Thy true son ♪	44:13
	♪ Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one ♪	44:22
	♪ Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise ♪	44:33
	♪ Thou mine Inheritance, now and always ♪	44:42
	♪ Thou and Thou only, first in my heart ♪	44:51
	♪ High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art ♪	45:00
	♪ High King of Heaven, my victory won ♪	45:11
	♪ May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heav'n's Sun ♪	45:20
	♪ Heart of my own heart, whate'er befall ♪	45:29
	♪ Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all ♪	45:39
	♪ Amen ♪	45:50
	(soft organ music)	46:03
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:23
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	47:25
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:28
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:31
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:33
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:36
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:39
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:41
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:44
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:48
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:54
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	47:56
	♪ Alleluia ♪	47:59
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:02
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:05
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:07
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:10
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:13
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:17
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:28
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	48:31
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:34
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:36
	♪ Allelu ♪	48:39
	♪ Allelu ♪	48:42
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:44
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:47
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:53
	♪ Alleluia ♪	48:57
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:03
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:15
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	49:17
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:21
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	49:24
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:27
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	49:29
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:33
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:36
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:39
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:42
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:45
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:48
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:50
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:53
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:56
	♪ Alleluia ♪	49:59
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:02
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:04
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:07
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:10
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:15
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:16
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:21
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:27
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:33
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:47
	♪ Alleluia ♪	50:58
	♪ Alleluia ♪	51:09
	♪ Amen ♪	51:35
	(organ music)	52:00
	♪ Praise God from Whom all blessings flow ♪	52:31
	♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪	52:37
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	52:42
	♪ Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ♪	52:50
	♪ Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost ♪	52:56
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	53:02
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	53:07
	♪ Alleluia ♪	53:14
	♪ Amen ♪	53:22
-	Oh Lord and most merciful Father,	53:33
	accept these, our gifts,	53:37
	these, our tokens of appreciation,	53:40
	these, our tokens affirming our faith.	53:43
	Use them, bless them, consecrate them, Holy Blessed Trinity.	53:48
	And now, may the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ,	53:57
	the sweet communion of the Holy Ghost	54:02
	rest, rule, abide with you all henceforth	54:04
	now, and forevermore.	54:07
	♪ Amen ♪	54:10
	♪ Amen ♪	54:18
	♪ Amen ♪	54:27
	♪ Amen ♪	54:34
	♪ Amen ♪	54:42
	♪ Amen ♪	54:53
	♪ Amen ♪	55:08
	(bell ringing)	55:34
	(festive organ music)	55:52

Item Info

Title:

Samuel Proctor - "Personhood in the Computer Age" (March 4, 1973)

Description:

We are often afraid to fully live into the great freedom we have been given in Christ. Because of this fear, we have a tendency to want to revert back to our old habits and chains, a desire that someone is always ready to exploit. In this age of technological advancement, computers are the greatest threat to that, because they seek to make quantifiable the aspects of human life that are not quantifiable. We must, instead, exercise whatever freedom we feel we have and watch as that freedom grows. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 16:02. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 41:20.
Key quotation: “I’ll never know how much freedom I’ve got until I use all of it that I see right now and then watch it grow as I use it.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4125qr2g

Date:

March 4, 1973

Speaker:

Proctor, Samuel

Biblical Book:

Galatians

Chapter and Verse:

Galatians 5:1-14

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0649
ref6500_cs3
uachapelsermaud
duke:320290
dcrau001801
ark:/87924/r4125qr2g
052b01e9-9d2c-4971-84c3-8d20305e6ea8

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Samuel Proctor - "Personhood in the Computer Age" (March 4, 1973)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options