Robert T. Osborn - "The Choice of the Church" (February 27, 1966)

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	(uplifting organ music)	0:04
-	In the name of the Father and of the Son	0:34
	and of the Holy Spirit, amen.	0:38
	You need not have read philosophy or theology recently	0:49
	to have been reminded of Nietzsche's dictum that God is dead	0:54
	or of God's alleged rebuttal that Nietzsche also is dead.	0:59
	There is just a slight possibility,	1:06
	however that God is wrong and Nietzsche right.	1:10
	For Nietzsche appears to be resurrected,	1:16
	or should I say recurring again?	1:18
	His person in the triune form of Hamilton, Althusser,	1:22
	and van Buren and his ideas and the religious form	1:27
	of a theology of the death of God.	1:32
	Now, whatever one may make of this phenomenon,	1:37
	I, as a theologian should be the last to complain about it.	1:40
	For I suspect that never before in its American history	1:43
	has theology become virtually a household item.	1:47
	I'd venture to say that the death of God movement	1:52
	has a bit ironically done more for God	1:56
	and even more for theology than the Billy Sunday and Graham.	1:58
	I would be surprised if	2:05
	now the undergraduate faculty council would not recognize	2:06
	and even approve the word theology in a course description,	2:09
	and maybe even in a course title.	2:14
	This new theological movement has occupied headlines	2:18
	and editorial columns from front pages	2:22
	and magazine supplements of leading and lesser journals.	2:25
	It has provided one of the rare instances	2:30
	that the New Yorker Magazine,	2:32
	the North Carolina Methodist Advocate,	2:34
	and the Yale Alumni Review have had a concern in common.	2:37
	And the reader of The Durham Sun did not have to wait	2:45
	for the Sunday New York Times to read	2:48
	about this new theology.	2:50
	Television viewers met a member	2:54
	of the new trinity two nights in a row	2:56
	on a CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.	2:59
	Such publicity appears in effect of touched off a nationwide	3:03
	discussion and head counting.	3:08
	And what is so amazing is that there appears	3:10
	to be little or no contest between those who favor	3:13
	and vote for God on the one hand,	3:18
	and those who write His requiem	3:21
	and vote Him out on the other.	3:22
	Why, only recently, both the convention	3:26
	of Southern Baptists and the bishops of the Methodist Church	3:28
	declared for God.	3:32
	I assume, although I have not checked	3:38
	that all major religious bodies and their leadership	3:40
	have thrown their weight on the side of God.	3:43
	Bishops Pike and Robinson to the contrary, not withstanding.	3:46
	No other, there's no contest.	3:50
	Everybody almost is on God's side.	3:53
	He has overwhelming support.	3:57
	But then the question forced itself upon us.	4:00
	The question that is regularly put to me now	4:05
	that the layman knows what a theologian is,	4:07
	why this theology?	4:10
	With everybody voting against it,	4:12
	with it rejected by a good churchmen	4:14
	and citizens almost out of hand,	4:16
	it is hard to explain the fact that it sells magazines	4:19
	and newspapers and fills lecture halls	4:21
	and theological journals.	4:24
	Why do the multitudes surround so certain the mistake	4:26
	so sure a loser?	4:30
	It's rather like a crowd flocking to a racetrack	4:33
	to witness a Dachsund run against a Greyhound.	4:36
	This would not be a normal response,	4:40
	unless there's something that does not immediately	4:43
	meet the eye.	4:45
	Is this the case with the dead God theology?	4:48
	Or is it simply a curiosity, a side show freak	4:52
	with its typical appeal?	4:56
	I think not.	4:59
	Our responses are too vigorous.	5:02
	We protest too much.	5:04
	Does it cause us no wonder to witness the way we run	5:07
	to the support of God?	5:10
	Are we to believe that the agnostics and atheists	5:13
	are shaken by defenders and protagonists of God	5:17
	who stand off His enemies with threats of economic reprisal	5:20
	and academic censorship?	5:23
	Is God so weak that otherwise His truth can no longer abide?	5:26
	Could He be dead, perhaps?	5:32
	What we fail to recognize expressly, but perceive tacitly	5:37
	is that these dead God theologians,	5:43
	aren't talking not so much about God, as about us.	5:45
	We are troubled by the fact that they have found root in	5:51
	and a rise out of communities like our own,	5:54
	religial, academic.	5:58
	They are shedding light upon a dimension of our existence	6:01
	of which we are aware,	6:04
	but the implications of which we are slow to grasp	6:06
	and perhaps do not want to see.	6:09
	I referred to a very striking aspect	6:13
	of our contemporary way of life.	6:15
	Namely, the rather sudden maturation of our spirits	6:18
	as urbanized Western man,	6:21
	whereby we are finding ourselves grown up	6:24
	to our responsibilities and able to cope with the demands	6:26
	of our technical technological advancements.	6:30
	It was not too long ago that we could expect	6:35
	to hear from the pulpit with fair regularity a lament	6:37
	about our failure to keep morally and spiritually abreast	6:41
	of our scientific growth.	6:44
	We were warned that our technology was out of hand,	6:47
	that we were immature, all too human,	6:51
	too irresponsible to handle our new toys.	6:53
	We weren't necessarily dependent,	6:57
	unable to posit ourselves,	7:00
	and were consequently invited to call upon God for help.	7:02
	Now it is no longer so.	7:07
	We have matured.	7:09
	We are aware of and are prepared	7:11
	to acknowledge our responsibilities.	7:13
	Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the many bearers of his legacy	7:16
	have helped us to understand this	7:19
	and to see that as modern men, we have come of age.	7:22
	Harvey Cox, the Harvard professor of Christian Ethics,	7:26
	when he was recently on our campus,	7:30
	helped us to see that the technolopolis	7:32
	is no Egypt with its flesh pots,	7:35
	but the land of promise.	7:38
	That there is nothing within the city,	7:41
	neither challenge nor action of which we are not the equal.	7:43
	We have come to recognize that the intention of Christ	7:48
	in His death upon the cross was to take God with Him	7:51
	so that we might cleave from our father,	7:56
	stand on our own two feet.	7:58
	And as adults assume our share of the action,	8:01
	wherever it may appear.	8:04
	We have, in effect come to appreciate Nietzsches,	8:08
	this bane and abhorrence of traditional self	8:11
	and world-denying weakness,	8:14
	and have accepted his formula for greatness.	8:17
	The love of our fate, the love of that fate,	8:20
	which has given us ourselves and our world,	8:24
	we would, to use his words, not have anything different,	8:28
	not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.	8:34
	Ours, he says is not only to bear the necessary,	8:39
	even less to conceal it, but to love it.	8:44
	We are not to be all too human,	8:50
	but to go beyond in will and power to claim the world.	8:52
	Christ died and with Him, God.	8:59
	He has left us on our feet in this world.	9:02
	I beseech you, my brother,	9:07
	speaks Nietzsche's Zarathustra,	9:09
	remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those	9:11
	who speak to you have other worldly hopes.	9:15
	And Nietzsche promises that as we dare this worldly faith,	9:19
	abiding again and again,	9:23
	in the decision to go beyond ourselves and reach new heights	9:25
	of our will and power,	9:29
	we will find recurring again and again,	9:30
	the justifying awareness that this	9:34
	is indeed the meaning of eternity.	9:36
	We will be able to say of ourselves and our world.	9:40
	In the words of Nietzsche,	9:43
	never did I hear anything more godly.	9:45
	It is to this, Nietzschen-like dimension of modern man.	9:52
	Yes, modern man in the church that the death of God	9:57
	and other radical theologians speak.	10:02
	They feel that the church cannot retreat from	10:05
	or deny the reality of our having come of age,	10:08
	both within and without the church.	10:11
	Bonhoeffer therefore looked	10:16
	for a new religion-less form of Christianity.	10:17
	Althusser, who sees how well Nietzsche	10:21
	prophesied this age of man would articulate	10:23
	in Nietzschen terms, a godless religion.	10:26
	Yet, I suspect that many, like a Camus or a Sartre	10:31
	and some in town or gown who are not in church this morning,	10:35
	who have for some time been aware of the maturity of man	10:39
	would find little relevance	10:42
	in a religious adjustment to this fact.	10:44
	It's not the responsible response	10:47
	and abandonment of religion all together.	10:49
	Althusser, on the other hand feels that it	10:54
	is a special obligation of those who are religious	10:57
	to become honest, for they who have been closest to God	10:59
	should be the first to acknowledge His death.	11:04
	He's demanding of us only an integrity	11:08
	that distressingly contrasts	11:11
	with our equivocation and ambiguity.	11:14
	He wants us to admit that we are mature,	11:18
	that we prefer a preaching to communion,	11:22
	a good intellectual challenge for mature minds,	11:25
	to the simple supernatural signs of bread and wine	11:29
	designed for the traditional childlike faith.	11:33
	He would have us honestly face the fact	11:37
	that we really do live day-by-day think	11:40
	and work our way through six days of seven,	11:44
	without any effective recourse to God,	11:47
	either in thought or in deed.	11:50
	In no fear of the immaturity of man and democracy,	11:54
	do we resort to the sacralization of our politics,	11:59
	insensitivity to the pluralism and social change of our age.	12:02
	We do not think of invoking God	12:07
	to defend a particular set of traditional values.	12:08
	We are not likely to leave	12:12
	to revelation any new challenge to our reason.	12:13
	Indeed not.	12:18
	We are mature.	12:19
	And Althusser would only call attention to this fact	12:21
	and prophetically demand of us the last measure	12:24
	of that responsibility and freedom	12:27
	in which we openly acknowledge our situation	12:29
	and accept its final implication,	12:32
	the death of God in our age and in our lives.	12:35
	True, we are gathered here in church, in the name of God.	12:41
	But why?	12:46
	We can hear a lecture in the classroom,	12:48
	a choir concert, an organ and recital.	12:51
	Imagine for a minute, if you can, Duke Chapel	12:55
	without a PhD or equivalent preaching rather regularly	12:58
	from the pulpit with a choir chronically flat	13:01
	and the organ broken down.	13:05
	Is it not true that our worship itself	13:09
	is designed for the mature?	13:11
	We have mature preaching, mature music, and mature liturgy.	13:13
	We are an adult congregation of mature people come of age.	13:18
	And it is to us, that Althusser, Hamilton,	13:23
	van Buren, and Bonhoeffer with some justification,	13:26
	addressed their new theology.	13:30
	I am certain that Althusser's theology	13:35
	is in no sense Christian, but I am not certain	13:38
	that it is not our theology.	13:43
	Perhaps this is why it is so fascinating,	13:47
	because it is about us.	13:51
	And yet so repugnant because it removes masks,	13:54
	discloses truth, and calls for decision.	13:58
	The issue is not one for analysis so much	14:03
	as it is for choice.	14:06
	We are called to decide whether or not we are mature	14:08
	and therefore in need of no God.	14:11
	And it is church people who are put before this decision.	14:14
	Religious people who are like Elijah said of Israel,	14:18
	limping like waddling ducks from one foot to the next	14:23
	between two opinions.	14:26
	The opinion on the one hand	14:28
	that we are modern, mature men standing on our own feet,	14:29
	and the opinion on the other hand, that we are Christians	14:32
	who claim to depend upon God alone.	14:36
	Now this double-mindedness is not new	14:40
	and it's no stranger to Jesus.	14:43
	For just as it threatens the church today,	14:45
	so it characterized the synagogue	14:48
	during the days of His ministry.	14:50
	As you know, He addressed Himself	14:53
	almost exclusively to the church.	14:54
	Some of whom heard what He had to say,	14:57
	others of whom would not listen.	15:00
	For some, the parables were instructive,	15:02
	for others, confusing.	15:05
	The Gospel of Matthew, especially points out	15:08
	how the parables served both to instruct	15:11
	those who had ears to hear,	15:15
	and to confirm in their ignorance, those who could not hear.	15:17
	Such a parable was a story of the prodigal son,	15:23
	in what Jesus tells us about two sons.	15:26
	One is the younger son, immature and irresponsible,	15:29
	who thinking otherwise claimed his inheritance	15:33
	and went his own way.	15:36
	One day when he had less than pigs feed to eat,	15:39
	he came to his foolish and childish self.	15:42
	He knew then that had only one recourse, to return home	15:45
	and throw himself upon the mercy of his father.	15:49
	To his wonder and surprise,	15:53
	his father clothed him in the best robe,	15:55
	put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet,	15:58
	and killed the fatted calf in celebration.	16:00
	He found a full acceptance from his father and new life.	16:03
	By this grace and love, he was made a man.	16:09
	The other son was the older,	16:13
	mature son who had proven himself all along	16:14
	up to the task.	16:18
	He was responsible, reliable, and effective.	16:19
	He was in need of no grace nor mercy,	16:23
	and was offended by the weakness of his brother,	16:25
	and indulgence shown him by the father.	16:27
	Traditionally, the Christian has detected irony	16:32
	in this story, for he has understood that in reality,	16:35
	there is no counterpart to the eldest son.	16:38
	Had not Paul said, that we all sin and fall short	16:40
	of the glory of God.	16:44
	That there's none righteous and mature, no one.	16:45
	Even at the end of his life, his mature Christian life,	16:50
	Paul was free to say that whatever gain had,	16:53
	he counted as loss compared to the maturity	16:57
	and gain which he had in Christ.	17:00
	Evidently, Paul felt that Jesus' parable was ironic.	17:06
	And so also Jesus saying to the Pharisee that he came,	17:09
	not to those who are well, but to the sick.	17:12
	Not to those who are righteous, but to the unrighteous.	17:15
	Not to the mature adult, but to those who will	17:18
	become like a little child.	17:21
	For Paul, as for the church, traditionally,	17:25
	the irony in the parable eliminated the choice.	17:29
	There was only one way.	17:31
	Only one son of the father, the way and the sonship	17:34
	of the prodigal who stands, not on his own feet,	17:38
	but on the mercy of God.	17:41
	So understood, the parable serves to instruct the Christian	17:45
	in the way, which he already walks, the Christian way.	17:48
	But originally, when Jesus first spoke the parable,	17:53
	and as now, the parable calls His heirs to a decision.	17:58
	The eldest son was not ironically rejected,	18:04
	but presented as a very live option.	18:06
	There were indeed two sons and his heirs were invited	18:10
	to decide, which was authentic.	18:13
	And with this decision, they would also decide	18:16
	whether God was a dead God of the living	18:18
	or the living God of the dead.	18:20
	Whether He was the passive and withdrawn Father	18:23
	of the mature eldest son or the seeking	18:25
	and saving father of the prodigal.	18:28
	In many similar parables,	18:33
	Jesus presented the same alternatives to his hearers.	18:34
	They were to decide whether they were the one lost sheep	18:38
	or the 99 in fold.	18:41
	Whether God was the absurd shepherd	18:44
	who was willing to risk His life and the life of the 99	18:45
	to find the lost or the wise	18:48
	and stay-at-home God of the obedient sheep.	18:50
	Similarly, they were to decide whether they	18:55
	were the lost coin or the coin already in pocket.	18:57
	And so, also whether God is like the foolish woman	19:01
	who was willing to lose all her other coins	19:03
	to find the one lost or the wise woman who will stand pat	19:06
	with what she has.	19:09
	We too, like those original witnesses to Jesus and His word	19:12
	are met with this decision between the prodigal	19:19
	and the eldest sons.	19:22
	Between the dead passive God and the living seeking God.	19:24
	The reaction, according to the death of God,	19:30
	theologians roots in the pain of discovery	19:33
	that we must choose, that the church itself must choose.	19:35
	Indeed, insofar as Christ is present here	19:42
	and now this moment, the decision is before us.	19:45
	Jesus himself announced His position clearly.	19:51
	He came not to those who are well, but to the sick.	19:54
	He would bring the Father to the prodigal.	19:58
	To choose for the death of God,	20:02
	and the eldest son is quite simply to reject Jesus	20:04
	and our identity as the prodigal.	20:08
	Perhaps one can devise a dialectic	20:12
	that makes sense out of a religion-less religion,	20:14
	a godless theology and a secular church.	20:17
	But no sense whatever can be made	20:22
	of a religion-less Christianity.	20:23
	A godless Christian theology	20:27
	and a holy secular Christian Church.	20:29
	We are not called upon to debate, but to decide.	20:33
	And let us understand, this is a true decision.	20:37
	It is not at all self-evident that the prodigal	20:43
	is the true son and that the true God, the living God.	20:46
	It is not apparent that preaching the sacraments,	20:51
	the ministry of this church add any reality to our lives.	20:55
	It is not so obvious that God is not dead.	21:02
	Althusser on the one hand and the church on the other,	21:07
	confront us not with conclusive evidence,	21:10
	but with a decision and a choice.	21:13
	And we can have it no other way.	21:17
	Equivocation itself is decision.	21:19
	Jesus put the question when he asked His disciples,	21:23
	who do you say that I am?	21:25
	Jesus declared and the church witnesses	21:28
	that He is the Son of God who came not to be served,	21:31
	but to serve and give His life a ransom for many.	21:34
	He came to bring the Father's love to prodigals.	21:39
	Is He right?	21:43
	Or is He wrong?	21:46
	Is God living, the living Father?	21:47
	And we, the dying sons?	21:49
	Or is He the dead God, and we, the living sons?	21:50
	Only a decision, only faith will answer the question.	21:53
	Is there any evidence that can help us make the decision?	22:00
	I've already suggested evidence,	22:04
	which points to the maturity of man and the death of God.	22:05
	What about the other side, the side taken by Jesus?	22:09
	Is there any respect in which His assessment speaks to us,	22:13
	or we, to use the old language, sinners	22:17
	or in current jargon, immature?	22:20
	I will suggest that evidence favoring Jesus viewpoint	22:24
	appears as we turn inward and become a bit subjective.	22:27
	When we view ourselves outwardly and objectively,	22:32
	in terms of our relationships to the world as a society,	22:34
	we can find some documentation	22:37
	of apparent growth and maturity.	22:39
	In the realms of science, natural and social,	22:42
	we are making great strides	22:45
	and offering convincing evidence of our freedom from God.	22:47
	Harvey Cox sees the emerging secular city	22:51
	as providing an ideal stage	22:53
	for the expression of this maturity.	22:56
	Claiming for instance, that the anonymity	22:59
	of the city affords is most conducive to the new freedom	23:00
	and responsibility of man.	23:04
	But striking the absent of Mr. Cox' analysis	23:07
	is any inwardness, any analysis of the depth	23:11
	of the human spirit as might be provided us,	23:13
	for example, by depth psychology.	23:18
	I suggest that when we do turn inward,	23:21
	the case for the maturity and freedom of man	23:23
	is not so convincing.	23:26
	That the end of anonymity of the city delivers us	23:28
	from the laws and conventions of others,	23:31
	does it not threaten us at the same time	23:33
	with the laws of the subconscious drives and compulsions,	23:36
	which would destroy us from within?	23:40
	It's not accidental that the secular city	23:44
	is also the center of the psychiatric trade.	23:47
	Thus it regards to the case for man's maturity,	23:51
	I would put vis-a-vis the witness of the social	23:53
	and natural sciences,	23:56
	the evidence of our own spiritual deaths.	23:57
	What about the death of God?	24:01
	We have seen rather impressive indications of His death.	24:05
	Above all, the fact that those who talk	24:08
	about Him and seem to have known Him best,	24:10
	act as if He no longer existed.	24:14
	But on the other hand, I cite you three facts.	24:17
	First, the Jew, the son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob	24:21
	who has little to distinguish him.	24:26
	Neither race nor land, except a calling	24:28
	and a promise from God.	24:32
	How do we otherwise understand him?	24:34
	Is his blood so peculiar, his wit so exceptional	24:37
	that he has survived in his identity	24:39
	and self-consciousness for 3000 years?	24:41
	Long after the fall of great	24:44
	and magnificent empires and civilizations.	24:45
	The Bible declares that God has chosen him	24:50
	and that He continues to uphold him.	24:53
	To biblical faith, the living Jew means a living Father God.	24:55
	This meaning was not lost on Adolph Hitler.	25:02
	Second, there is Jesus of Nazareth who had a brief ministry,	25:06
	was rejected and died on a cross.	25:12
	Yet believing Himself in some sense,	25:15
	God's son and the fulfillment of the promise	25:17
	given to the Jews.	25:21
	Jesus is a fact as surely as is your presence here today.	25:23
	A fact so certain and yet, so in apparently insignificant	25:28
	in passing that His role in subsequent history	25:33
	is difficult to explain,	25:36
	except as the event of the incarnation of God's son.	25:39
	And finally, there is the fact of the church,	25:46
	so frail, so halting, so contradictory, so foolish	25:49
	with no possibility except in the power of God's Spirit.	25:55
	No matter what the death of God theologians may say,	25:59
	these facts stand before us Jew, Jesus, and church.	26:02
	As evidence of God, they are not conclusive or compelling	26:09
	and certainly can be used as they have been	26:14
	to make just the opposite case.	26:17
	But for the church, they both hide and reveal the mystery	26:20
	of God, God as Father, Son, and Spirit.	26:23
	And for us, they provide us with a situation of true choice,	26:29
	a choice between the view of the self, as mature.	26:34
	As a self that witnesses by its independence of God	26:37
	to God's death.	26:41
	And the inward view of the self	26:44
	that sees its weakness and immaturity.	26:45
	And by the simple facts of Jew, Jesus, and church,	26:49
	the possibility of a living God	26:52
	who could speak to its needs.	26:55
	It is in essence, a choice for or against Jesus.	26:57
	If we choose Jesus, there are two unavoidable implications.	27:03
	The first is the confession that our alleged maturity	27:09
	is a mere child's play, that our wisdom is foolishness.	27:14
	That whatever gain we had is nothing	27:19
	compared to what lies ahead.	27:21
	But to choose Jesus is not to choose to remain as children,	27:25
	but rather as children to grow up	27:29
	to the full stature of our image in God.	27:32
	This means to confess to the immaturity of our programs,	27:36
	practices, and principles, as we see them in the Moon Race.	27:40
	In the cycle of poverty, in continuing racial injustice,	27:45
	an equivocation, even here at Duke	27:50
	about the integrity and rights of labor.	27:53
	And in the religious aestheticism,	27:56
	which we so frequently substitute for worship,	27:58
	to choose Jesus is to heed the word of our consciousness	28:02
	as they are brought under the word of God.	28:06
	And so not to confuse external achievement	28:09
	with the integrity of heart and mind demanded by Christ.	28:11
	Christianity is not for the mature,	28:16
	but for those who would be really mature.	28:19
	Second to choose Jesus means to decide, to wait upon Him,	28:24
	to reveal to us the mercy and the power of God.	28:28
	It is to decide as prodigals to return to the Father.	28:33
	Of course, we can do so only as we go	28:39
	where He is to be found, to the church, which is His body.	28:41
	To choose Jesus is to decide to be in the church,	28:47
	not as spectators at a lecture or concert,	28:51
	but as lost sheep, looking for a shepherd,	28:54
	or as the sick awaiting a physician.	28:57
	And there, we listen to preaching,	29:02
	not in order to improve our theology,	29:03
	but in order to hear from God.	29:06
	And there we come to His table,	29:09
	not to perform a childish ritual of eating and drinking,	29:12
	but to enter into His gracious and redeeming presence.	29:16
	But having chosen Jesus, having decided	29:20
	that we are prodigals and that we would	29:25
	return to the Father, nothing finally is really decided.	29:27
	In this, we have decided only to seek God	29:32
	and call upon Him, to find Him	29:35
	and complete the call is not ours.	29:38
	That the ultimate of our religious quest is only penultimate	29:43
	has been seen neither by the death of God theologians	29:47
	nor by their antagonists.	29:52
	Nobody, Nietzsche and Althusser,	29:54
	or the Baptist Convention and the Methodist bishops	29:57
	can speak for God,	30:00
	either to announce His death or to proclaim His birth.	30:02
	God alone can speak for God.	30:06
	He is not an object subject to our call.	30:10
	Rather, He is the eternal subject who calls us.	30:13
	The last word is not ours, but His.	30:17
	Our last word is a petition.	30:22
	A prayer to Him alone belongs the answer.	30:25
	It is a final presumption of human pride and sin	30:30
	to hold out for this last word, also.	30:33
	Jesus said, that the wages of such sin is death.	30:38
	And Althusser and company have shown us	30:41
	that it is God who dies to such sin.	30:43
	To men who would play God and make themselves a measure,	30:47
	either to announce God's death	30:51
	or to declare His presence, God is dead.	30:52
	From such arrogance, He withdraws into the holy silence	30:58
	of His divine majesty.	31:01
	But for those who know they are not God	31:04
	and do not presume to speak for Him,	31:06
	who in weakness and waiting prayerfully	31:10
	and wistfully invoke His presence,	31:13
	His absence becomes the stillness in which they are	31:16
	given to know that He is God.	31:19
	It becomes the promise that	31:23
	in the sovereign grace of His divine love, He shall appear.	31:25
	Not because they are so humbled as to appeal,	31:30
	nor because they are so worthy as to qualify.	31:34
	But because He is so free and loving as to care.	31:38
	Let us pray.	31:45
	Our Father who art in heaven, have mercy upon us.	31:56
	That thy face shine upon us and speak thy word to our ears,	32:03
	teach us to know that thou art God,	32:08
	lest in thy silence we begin to believe our lies	32:11
	and in thy absence to indulge our childishness, amen.	32:15
	Now unto Him, who is able to keep you from falling	32:24
	and to present you faultless before the presence	32:27
	of His glory with exceeding joy,	32:29
	to the only wise God, our Savior	32:32
	be glory and majesty, dominion, and power.	32:34
	Both now and evermore, amen.	32:38
	(Choir singing)	32:49

Item Info

Title:

Robert T. Osborn - "The Choice of the Church" (February 27, 1966)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r42f7ps5t

Date:

February 27, 1966

Speaker:

Osborn, Robert T.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0328
ref5861_jcb
uachapelsermaud
duke:628102
dcrau002325
ark:/87924/r42f7ps5t
15e8df05-8208-4a93-b98a-bab4bcdd1067

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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

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Robert T. Osborn - "The Choice of the Church" (February 27, 1966)

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