Albert C. Outler - "The Lonely Crowd" (March 15, 1959)

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-	In the name of the Father and of the Son	0:09
	and of the Holy Ghost, amen.	0:12
	In the scripture lesson this morning,	0:18
	there is a passage which obviously was not addressed	0:19
	to a university audience, but might have been	0:24
	for it focuses on the three things a good university	0:29
	is rightly concerned about.	0:33
	The business of the truth, the business of growing up,	0:36
	and the business of authentic community.	0:42
	And you may look this text up	0:46
	in any version that you choose,	0:47
	but I hope you will notice particularly	0:49
	the 14th, 15th, and 16th verses.	0:51
	I offer you a homemade paraphrase of it	0:58
	in which I try to accent the points	1:00
	that speak most directly to those of us	1:03
	who live and work in academic communities.	1:06
	It is important,	1:12
	says this pastor to the Christians at Ephesus,	1:13
	that we get past the level of acting like children,	1:18
	and this noun here is (speaks in foreign language),	1:25
	and it does not have an awful lot to do	1:27
	with chronological age.	1:30
	It has to do with adolescents who are not really grown up	1:33
	and with adults that are still adolescent.	1:38
	We have to get past this level of living like children,	1:42
	and the trouble with such children is that	1:48
	they are easily blown this way and that	1:53
	by each new wind of fashion,	1:58
	not only in costumery, but ideas	2:02
	as these winds of fashion are turned	2:08
	this way and that by the molders of public opinion	2:11
	and our self-chosen peer groups.	2:16
	If then we are not to be slaves	2:20
	to this shifting of fashions,	2:23
	now here, now there, this is new, that is old hat,	2:27
	we must learn to grow up by cultivating the habit	2:33
	of seeking the truth in love, for only so may it be found,	2:38
	and of speaking the truth in love,	2:46
	for only so may the truth be communicated.	2:51
	In this way, growing up by learning	2:56
	to speak the truth in love,	3:00
	we can come to be united in Him who is already	3:03
	the real center of all things,	3:09
	that is, Christ,	3:13
	and if Christ is acknowledged as the head	3:16
	or the unifying center of all creation,	3:19
	then the whole body of God's people will be fitted	3:24
	and knit together in an organic community	3:29
	so that every member will be supplied his own needs	3:34
	by all the others and will be energized	3:38
	by participating in the community,	3:42
	and so that the whole community can grow up	3:45
	and mature together in love.	3:50
	Here in brief some is the design	3:56
	for mature Christian living.	3:59
	Seeking the truth, speaking the truth,	4:03
	living the truth in authentic community.	4:07
	To love the truth and to do it in love	4:12
	is the shortest, valid formula I know	4:17
	of the Christian pattern.	4:20
	It is also the vital principle of the Christian ethic,	4:23
	for it indicates those imperatives that well up	4:25
	in those men for whom the truth is the guide of action	4:29
	and who measure the truth by the love of God	4:35
	revealed in and through Jesus Christ.	4:39
	In the very nature of the case,	4:43
	this kind of life is profoundly social,	4:46
	profoundly interpersonal, deeply and profoundly communal.	4:50
	The Bible knows nothing of a solitary Christian,	4:57
	and Christianity is interested in rescuing men	5:02
	from what David Reesemont has taught us	5:07
	to call the lonely crowd,	5:10
	but not for self-sufficiency,	5:13
	not for self-directed behavior,	5:15
	but for life in an authentic community.	5:19
	Now, all of us know all too well that modern man	5:26
	doesn't lack for company.	5:29
	Actually, the planet is getting downright crowded.	5:31
	This may be one reason why some of us	5:36
	are interested in space travel,	5:37
	but for all the company he keeps,	5:41
	modern man is dying for the lack of real community.	5:44
	There is a deep hunger in his soul for a full membership	5:50
	in a significant society,	5:54
	for authentic existence in genuine community,	5:58
	but he has already discovered that most of what passes	6:03
	for community and interpersonal relations and group dynamics	6:06
	is phony and impoverishing.	6:14
	There is something profounder than the cynicism	6:18
	that strikes one's eye.	6:22
	In the motto I saw recently on the wall	6:25
	of a Dallas businessman's office,	6:27
	it said, "To hell with togetherness."	6:29
	And we live in company from the cradle to the grave.	6:35
	Solitude is no more a guarantee of privacy	6:40
	than company is a shield from loneliness,	6:45
	for even when we are most alone,	6:50
	we carry about with us a ghostly crew	6:53
	of opinionated intruders in our superego.	6:57
	There's no hiding place down here from the lonely crowd.	7:03
	That's why so many of us are uneasy and restless	7:08
	when we are by ourselves.	7:12
	We fidget.	7:16
	We wait for intrusions and welcome them.	7:18
	Sometimes we study,	7:24
	or better yet, we turn to one or another	7:27
	in the vast repertory of gadgets which are	7:30
	endlessly produced by a technological culture	7:34
	expressly to distract a man from any serious self-awareness.	7:38
	Pushing buttons, turning levers,	7:47
	and you never really have to ask who you are	7:50
	or what you are doing down here.	7:54
	Yet, we are nearly as uneasy when we are in company	7:58
	unless it is a group that is distracted or distracting,	8:03
	for when we are with other people,	8:10
	we are usually being appraised by them	8:13
	or ignored by them,	8:18
	and neither of these is exactly reassuring.	8:20
	And so for compensation,	8:25
	we turn to various substitute patterns.	8:26
	What we need	8:31
	is true belonging.	8:33
	What we come to ask for is group acceptance	8:36
	like poor old Willie Loman who was not content	8:41
	just to be liked.	8:45
	He had to be well-liked.	8:47
	And so we cannot live without community.	8:51
	Yet, we corrupt the very spirit of community when we demand	8:57
	that it be focused on our own ego images and demands.	9:00
	Consider the typical complaints that we make about	9:07
	the groups to which we already belong.	9:10
	Our families, our clubs, our colleges,	9:13
	fraternities, sororities, departments,	9:17
	business organizations, et cetera, et cetera.	9:20
	Our gripes usually add up to the complaint	9:23
	that they don't really understand me,	9:25
	they don't really care about me,	9:31
	et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.	9:34
	This is usually true for a very simple reason.	9:37
	Most of them are as busy caring for themselves	9:42
	as we offer ourselves,	9:46
	and we are to them resources for their self-caring	9:48
	as they are to us for our self-caring,	9:52
	and so our interpersonal relations are valued	9:55
	for their mutual utility.	9:59
	We prop each other up.	10:03
	We live off of each other,	10:06
	but as so many different modes of self-maintenance.	10:09
	Now, this is not altogether bad.	10:14
	In fact, it has its merits, but in the end,	10:16
	it shrivels the heart and stultifies the love	10:21
	we seek to give and to receive.	10:26
	Up to a point, mind you, the manners of polite society,	10:31
	which some of us have come by the hard way,	10:36
	serve as helpful substitutes for love	10:40
	if love cannot be had.	10:45
	Civilized behavior and good form manage, at least a little,	10:48
	to regulate the concourse of the uncaring,	10:53
	but the final undoing of the egotist,	11:00
	whether he is a sophisticated, Ivy League, flannel fellow	11:03
	or a Dharma bum, is that at bottom,	11:08
	he can neither abide his fellows nor yet live without some.	11:14
	The fact is that you cannot make genuine community	11:21
	out of a company of self-interested people,	11:24
	not even if they are enlightened self-interested people.	11:30
	For a long time now, Western man has paid devout lip service	11:36
	to the doctrine of laissez-faire,	11:40
	but he has become uncreasingly uneasy about it,	11:43
	increasingly unhappy with some of its consequences at least,	11:49
	and so has become ripe for the seductions	11:54
	of conformism and collectivism.	11:57
	Too readily, he'll sell his individuality	12:02
	at the exchange of freedom for the inflated price	12:05
	of social acceptability.	12:11
	This surely is swapping the devil for a witch,	12:13
	and this is a transaction of small profit, if any.	12:17
	Now, a long, long time ago in a situation not as different	12:23
	from our own as we might wish it were,	12:28
	that is to say,	12:32
	in the autumnal shadows of His civilization,	12:32
	the bishop of a small Numidian diocese wrote	12:38
	what has since become a great Christian classic	12:41
	based on this distinction I have been trying to suggest	12:45
	between company and community,	12:48
	between in a crowd and a true commonwealth.	12:53
	He spoke of two different cities	12:58
	or social aggregations or societies:	13:01
	the Kiwitosdei on the one hand,	13:07
	the Kiwitosterena on the other.	13:10
	The City of God is the community of those who love God	13:14
	above all else and love all else in God,	13:18
	whether it is themselves or their fellows,	13:23
	or all the created goods, natural and social, in the world.	13:26
	Everything is loved in its primary relationship to God	13:32
	and to His good purpose in the world.	13:37
	Men know themselves and each other	13:42
	and their right relations with each other	13:45
	only as they know themselves as God's creatures,	13:49
	as sons and daughters of the living God,	13:53
	and only then can they rightly know what kind of community	13:58
	will sustain their respective individualities.	14:05
	By contrast, the city of Earth	14:13
	is not really a community at all.	14:15
	It is instead an unstable, shifting aggregation	14:19
	of men and women and groups who love self above all else	14:24
	and all else in the light of this self-centered love.	14:32
	Loving God and loving their neighbors and loving	14:40
	the created goods of life in relation to	14:45
	the primary center of self-love.	14:50
	It may be that some of you do not believe	14:56
	that there is any actual concrete example	14:58
	of the Kiwitosdei in the world today.	15:01
	Certainly, there are not many of us who could	15:06
	follow Augustine in his tendency to identify	15:08
	the Kiwitosdei with the Christian Church.	15:12
	The church, as we know it, is a mixed company.	15:17
	Many Christians talk a lot more	15:22
	about community than practice it.	15:24
	The average church that we know looks more like	15:27
	the average lodge or service club	15:30
	or neighborhood association than a community of people	15:33
	who love God above all else and all else in God.	15:38
	And yet, our hypercritical judgment	15:46
	of the institutional church,	15:49
	which itself is a standard fashion amongst academic people,	15:52
	may blind our eyes to the reality of the multitude	15:58
	of faithful and courageous Christians who are this very day	16:02
	living and working and serving the kingdom of God	16:08
	in unspectacular but authentic	16:13
	and sometimes heroic discipleship.	16:16
	It's sometimes a bit of a shock for conventional Christians	16:20
	to discover that there are members of the latent church	16:24
	outside the walls,	16:29
	but it is an equal shock to the church's detractors	16:32
	to discover the number of real Christians who are inside	16:37
	the clumsy Ark of organized Christianity.	16:42
	It is, for me, always a humbling and inspiring exercise	16:46
	to remember the number of people I know,	16:52
	country pastors, slum parsons,	16:58
	hospital chaplains, Christian doctors and professors,	17:03
	yet housewives and social workers, point-four technicians,	17:09
	missionaries who have tested themselves	17:17
	of their Western incubus,	17:19
	civil servants,	17:22
	businessmen,	17:25
	at least a few politicians,	17:28
	various sorts of saints and martyrs	17:33
	and heroes of the faith who are making	17:35
	their Christian witness now in sometimes quite unlikely	17:37
	and difficult and sometimes dangerous places	17:45
	like the Deep South and Texas, in East Harlem,	17:51
	in South Africa, in East Germany,	17:57
	in Southeast Asia, and Durham.	18:02
	And the most impressive thing about these people	18:08
	is that are sustained by a sense of fellowship	18:10
	and community which is more vital and sustaining	18:14
	and productive than the group relationships	18:18
	of even the most enlightened narcissists.	18:23
	Here and now in this violent and anguished age	18:28
	that teeters on the brink of catastrophe,	18:34
	there is a vast community of men and women	18:38
	who are not lonely even when they are alone,	18:43
	who are not anxious about the final meaningfulness	18:47
	of their lives, even in the face of frustration	18:51
	and tragedy and personal inadequacy.	18:54
	Now, if there is such a community	18:59
	actually existent in the world,	19:01
	how could we find our place in it?	19:03
	How can men who are literally sick of the company they keep	19:07
	come to share in the common life of the Kiwitosdei	19:13
	and so learn to grow up by speaking the truth in love	19:17
	and finding their place in a significant	19:22
	and valid and productive communal life?	19:27
	Now, the Christian answer to this sounds a bit trite	19:33
	and flat to the ears that have been conditioned	19:36
	by the slogans of the Kiwitosterena,	19:39
	for it says quite simply that the only human community	19:43
	that can really sustain its members in life and death,	19:46
	in triumph and defeat, from here to eternity,	19:51
	begins and ends with the basic commitment of our lives	19:56
	to God in response to His offer of grace and providence	20:01
	in and for our existences and destiny.	20:09
	Genuine community is covenant community.	20:15
	It is the life together of men who are bound to each other	20:19
	as a consequence of their being covenanted with God	20:24
	and with God for the service of His kingdom	20:29
	of righteousness in the world.	20:34
	The essence of covenant community is that God lays claim	20:37
	upon our lives, and we respond to that claim in loyal love,	20:41
	not only to God, but also as a strict implicate	20:49
	of this covenant with God to our neighbor, to our brother,	20:52
	to the whole family and people of God,	20:59
	the whole of his human creation.	21:04
	God makes covenant with men to be their God	21:08
	and to be for them and with them.	21:11
	Men respond by making covenant with God to live for God	21:15
	and with God as if God were really real and really God.	21:20
	Those who have made such a covenant with God	21:26
	are thereby bound to each other in covenant community,	21:29
	and they are quite literally members, one of another.	21:34
	All men, save the psychopath,	21:40
	are covenant-makers or one sort or another.	21:42
	All of us abrogate our self-sovereignty behalf of	21:46
	some other value, at least now and then, for this or that,	21:49
	but everything depends upon the substance of our covenants	21:55
	and our faithfulness to them.	21:59
	As Augustine said, "A community is a people drawn	22:02
	"and held together by a common love."	22:06
	Many a man, as we have seen, tries to make a covenant	22:10
	of enlightened self-interest with other men,	22:12
	and this gives meaning and value to their lives.	22:16
	That is as much meaning and value as their lives ever know,	22:19
	but the end of this is despair,	22:23
	and this is by now a tiresome refrain	22:25
	in contemporary literature.	22:28
	Some men make covenant with a political ideology,	22:32
	and to the extent that they are	22:35
	really involved and committed,	22:36
	this sort of covenant gives their lives	22:38
	some sort of force and foundation,	22:41
	a force and foundation that self-interest does not match.	22:45
	Communism is a lousy ideology, false and barbaric,	22:49
	but the relatively small number of men who have really made	22:55
	actual covenant with it generate enough power	22:58
	to frighten and upset a far larger number of people	23:01
	who pay lip service to the far better ideology of democracy,	23:05
	which they live off of instead of for.	23:11
	Some men make covenant with truth	23:16
	and seek it with stubborn patience.	23:18
	I know a whole host of men, scientists, scholars, artists,	23:22
	whose unconscious love and service of truth comes close	23:27
	to being a really religious motivation.	23:31
	Their basic covenant is to seek the truth	23:35
	and to speak the truth, but not always in love	23:37
	and often not in wholeness,	23:45
	but in fragmented and partial truth.	23:50
	Still other men and women make covenant with human need	23:54
	and so devote their lives to the service	23:58
	of their fellow men.	24:00
	In this kind of covenant, they find a real good in life	24:03
	in doing jobs which bless and enrich the unnumbered company	24:09
	of the living and the yet unborn.	24:14
	They often literally wear themselves out in this business	24:18
	and yet are strangely satisfied and ennobled by it.	24:21
	Here is where you get a high sense of comradeship	24:27
	in the sharing of the best one has with others who count	24:30
	for more than we value ourselves,	24:36
	but all these covenants,	24:40
	which draw men out of themselves	24:41
	and weave them into a pattern of higher fellowship	24:43
	and un-self-conscious love,	24:48
	are so many preparations or derivations from the covenant	24:51
	which God seeks with men,	24:59
	the covenant He calls us to make with Him.	25:01
	This primary covenant community is the one	25:05
	inclusive relationship which we can have to the ground	25:08
	of our existence and to all other human beings who,	25:13
	like ourselves, are also creatures of God's love,	25:16
	our brethren for whom Christ died.	25:21
	This is the covenant community of those who love God	25:26
	above all else and all else in God,	25:30
	and this community is as universal as God's grace,	25:36
	as eternal as God's providence,	25:40
	as intimate and personal as God's spirit.	25:43
	Men who live in this community	25:48
	are neither lonely nor bereft,	25:50
	whether they are in a crowd or in a desert.	25:54
	They are encompassed about with witnesses and fellowship,	25:57
	and they are devoted to their fellows and they are willing	26:05
	and able to take on their share both of the world's weeping	26:08
	and of the world's work,	26:13
	but they do not depend upon the vicissitudes	26:16
	of the day's news to prompt them either to laughter	26:19
	or to tears or to a political convulsion.	26:22
	Their lives gain their deepest meaning and value	26:26
	from this covenant with God and with each other in God	26:29
	which is for now and always.	26:35
	Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God is at hand.	26:40
	The covenant community is a real, live, present option,	26:45
	and so Jesus went on to say,	26:52
	"Repent and believe this good news."	26:54
	Now, just change your basic orientation toward God	26:59
	and your fellows.	27:02
	Make covenant with God and let all your other covenants	27:03
	be brought into right relationship to this one central	27:07
	and final covenant, this primitive,	27:12
	basic, and eternal covenant.	27:16
	To seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness	27:20
	is the beginning of the Gospel,	27:24
	and its end is also quite the same.	27:27
	To live for the truth by the power of grace and love	27:31
	in the community of which Jesus Christ	27:36
	is the unifying center.	27:40
	If then we are not to be slaves to shifting fashion,	27:44
	we must grow up by cultivating the habit	27:49
	of speaking the truth in love, for in this way,	27:52
	we will come to be united in Him who is truly	27:55
	the unifying center of all things,	27:57
	that is to say, Jesus Christ,	28:00
	and if Christ is the unifying center of our lives,	28:04
	then we with the whole community of God's people	28:07
	will be fitted and knit together in an organic unity	28:11
	wherein every member will be supplied his proper needs	28:17
	and will be energized by all the rest so that together,	28:21
	we may go on growing up and maturing in the love of God,	28:27
	which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.	28:35
	Let us pray.	28:40
	Lord, thou who does't make covenant with men	28:49
	and does't call us into the community of faith and grace,	28:52
	draw us near to thee by thy love and nearer to each other	28:57
	in true community so that, whether we live or die,	29:02
	in our work and worship and in all the changes	29:07
	and chances of this mortal life,	29:11
	we may be bound to thee and each other	29:13
	by the bonds of unselfish love and find our support	29:17
	and sustenance in the community of thy redemption,	29:21
	and so come to share in thy redemptive work in the world.	29:25
	So shape our faith and so move our hearts that we may be	29:31
	truly grateful for being called to share	29:35
	in thy kingdom and commonwealth and be able to offer thee	29:38
	acceptable worship not only with our lips,	29:42
	but in our lives and deeds with reverence and joy	29:45
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	29:50
	And now, may grace.	29:53

Item Info

Title:

Albert C. Outler - "The Lonely Crowd" (March 15, 1959)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r42r3sz4d

Date:

March 15, 1959

Speaker:

Outler, Albert C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0068
ref5335_lf4
uachapelsermaud
duke:628250
dcrau002101
ark:/87924/r42r3sz4d
e3b02c9f-0622-4e60-9494-0d5f5d1ae243

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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.

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In Copyright

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