Waldo Beach - "God and Morality" (April 13, 1969)

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	(silence)	0:00
	(faint hymnal singing)	1:00
	(organ music)	2:12
	(hymnal singing drowned by instruments)	2:36
	♪ Amen ♪	5:40
-	This is the day which the Lord hath made,	5:50
	we will rejoice and be glad in it.	5:53
	The hour come now is when the true worshipers	5:57
	shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.	6:01
	For the Father seek of such to worship him.	6:06
	Let us humbly confess our sins unto almighty God.	6:10
	Almighty and most merciful Father,	6:16
	we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.	6:19
	We have followed too much the devices and desires	6:24
	of our own hearts.	6:28
	We have offended against thy holy laws.	6:29
	We have left undone those things, which we ought to	6:33
	have done.	6:36
	And we have done those things, which we ought not	6:37
	to have done, but thou Lord have mercy upon us.	6:40
	Spare thou those of God who confess their fault.	6:45
	Restore those who are penitent, according to thy promises	6:49
	declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord.	6:54
	And grant oh most merciful Father for his sake,	7:00
	that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life	7:04
	to the glory of thy holy name.	7:09
	Amen.	7:12
	The almighty and merciful Lord grant	7:14
	you absolution and remission of your sins,	7:17
	true repentance, amendment of life and the grace	7:20
	and consolation of his Holy Spirit.	7:25
	Amen.	7:29
	Here the word of God to all who truly turn to him.	7:30
	Come unto me all ye that travel and are heavy Laden	7:36
	and I will refresh you.	7:40
	So God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son	7:43
	to the end that all that believe	7:48
	in him should not perish but have everlasting life.	7:50
	Hear also what St. Paul said, this is a true saying	7:56
	and worthy of all men to be received	8:01
	that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.	8:04
	Hear also what St. John said,	8:10
	if any man sin we have an advocate	8:13
	with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous	8:16
	and he is a propitiation for our sins.	8:21
	(organ music)	8:33
	(hymnal singing)	9:47
	These words of the morning lesson	13:46
	from the 42nd Psalm echo those of the anthem	13:47
	the Bach Anthem that we have just heard.	13:52
	As a heart longs for flowing streams,	13:57
	so longs my soul for thee oh God.	14:00
	My soul thirst for God, for the living God.	14:04
	When shall I come and behold the face of God	14:08
	my tears have been my food day and night	14:12
	while men say to me continually, where is your God?	14:16
	These things I remember as I pour out my soul.	14:24
	How I went with the throne	14:29
	and let them in procession to the house of God	14:31
	with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,	14:34
	a multitude keeping festival.	14:37
	Why are you cast down oh my soul?	14:41
	And why are you disquieted within me?	14:44
	Hope in God for I shall again	14:50
	praise him my help and my God.	14:53
	My soul is cast down within me.	14:59
	Therefore I remember thee from the land of Jordan	15:03
	and of Herman and from Mount Miza.	15:06
	Deep calls to deep at the thunder of I cataracts	15:09
	all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.	15:14
	By day, the Lord commands his steadfast love.	15:20
	And at night His song is with me a prayer to the God	15:25
	of my life.	15:32
	I say to God, my rock, why has thou forgotten me?	15:35
	Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?	15:40
	As with a deadly wound in my body, My adversaries taught me	15:45
	while they say to me continually, where is your God?	15:51
	Why are you cast down oh my soul?	15:59
	And why are you disquieted within me?	16:05
	Hope in God for I shall again praise him.	16:11
	My help and my God.	16:16
	May God bless unto us this reading	16:24
	and hearing of his holy word.	16:27
	(organ music)	16:30
	(hymnal singing drowned by instruments)	16:37
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	17:01
	The Lord be with you.	17:08
-	And with your spirit.	17:10
-	Let us pray.	17:12
	Oh most merciful God who are to pure eyes	17:19
	and to behold iniquity and has promised forgiveness	17:24
	to all those who confess and forsake their sins.	17:28
	We come before thee in a humble sense	17:33
	of our own unworthiness	17:35
	acknowledging our manifold transgressions	17:39
	of thy righteous laws.	17:42
	That oh gracious Father who desires	17:45
	not the death of a sinner, Look upon us	17:47
	we beseech thee in mercy	17:51
	and forgive us all our transgressions.	17:54
	Make us deeply sensible of the great evil of them and work	17:59
	in us and heart in contrition that we may	18:05
	obtained forgiveness at thy hands who aren't	18:08
	ever ready to receive humble	18:12
	and penitent sinners.	18:15
	Unless through our own frailty are the temptations	18:18
	which encompasses we'd be drawn again into sin.	18:22
	Thou save us we beseech thee, the direction and assistance	18:28
	of thy Holy Spirit.	18:33
	Reform whatever is amiss and the temper	18:37
	and disposition of our souls that no one unclean thoughts	18:41
	unlawful designs our inordinate desires may rest there.	18:46
	Purge our hearts from envy, hatred	18:53
	and malice that we may never suffer the sun to go	18:57
	down upon our wrath, but may always go	19:01
	to our rest in peace, charity and good will	19:05
	with a conscience void of offense toward thee,	19:10
	and towards all men.	19:14
	Accept, oh Lord our intercessions for all mankind.	19:17
	Let the light of thy gospel shine upon all nations.	19:23
	Bless all in authority over us.	19:28
	And especially the President of the United States,	19:31
	the governor of this state, the authorities	19:36
	of this university, that in thy holy fear	19:41
	they may govern the peoples in wisdom, justice	19:45
	and peace, send down thy blessings, both temporal	19:50
	and spiritual upon all of our relations, friends	19:55
	and neighbors.	20:01
	Reward all who have done us good	20:04
	and pardon all those who have done our wishes evil	20:07
	and give them repentance and better minds.	20:13
	Be merciful to all persons who are in danger, trouble	20:16
	sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity	20:23
	that they may have comfort and relief according	20:31
	to their necessities for his sake who went about doing good	20:34
	thy son, our savior Jesus Christ.	20:39
	Through our prayers oh Lord, we join our thanks	20:44
	for all thy mercies, for our being, our reason	20:49
	and all other faculties of soul and body.	20:55
	For our health, friends, food and Raymond	21:01
	and all other comforts and conveniences of life.	21:06
	Above all we thank thee for sending thy only Son	21:11
	into the world to redeem us from eternal death and giving us	21:14
	the knowledge and sense of our duty towards thee.	21:19
	We bless thee for thy patience with the us,	21:24
	not withstanding our many and great provocations.	21:28
	For all the directions, assistance ,and comforts	21:32
	of thy Holy Spirit for thy continual care and watchful	21:37
	providence over us through the whole course of our lives.	21:42
	Give us grace to show our thankfulness and in sincere	21:48
	obedience to his laws, to whose merits	21:52
	and intercession, we receive them all thy son,	21:56
	our Savior Jesus Christ.	22:00
	And now as our Savior Christ has taught us.	22:04
	We're bold to say.	22:07
	Our father who art in heaven,	22:10
	hallowed be they name.	22:13
	Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth	22:15
	as it is in heaven.	22:20
	Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us	22:22
	our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.	22:26
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	22:31
	For thine is the kingdom, and the power,	22:36
	and the glory forever.	22:40
	Amen.	22:42
-	The other morning, flipping on the car radio	23:13
	I broke suddenly into an intense exchange	23:19
	between a local Eric Severini	23:23
	and a bevy of Housewives exchanging views	23:27
	on gardens and raising Platos	23:32
	and the weather and the signs of the times.	23:36
	The matter of immediate concern was a recent	23:41
	ruling of the army that the chaplains,	23:45
	army chaplains were directed to omit or reference to God	23:49
	in moral guidance program	23:55
	since this violates the constitutional provision	23:59
	for the separation of church and state.	24:03
	Well, the order has since been rescinded	24:07
	by the Secretary of the Defense.	24:11
	God presumably breathed a heavenly sigh of relief	24:17
	when the news came up, that the Secretary of Defense	24:20
	had permitted his name to be used after all,	24:23
	At one point in his career President has called	24:29
	God our greatest secret weapon.	24:33
	But at the time of this exchange that I overheard	24:38
	the directive had evoked a great spasm of consternation	24:40
	among the pious of the land.	24:45
	And one housewife had called in and she was irate.	24:49
	This was about the worst thing that had	24:52
	ever happened to America.	24:54
	Didn't the local pundit think so too?	24:57
	Yes, ma'am said he fervently.	25:02
	Take God out of ours society and we'd be left	25:05
	to ourselves to decide what's right and wrong.	25:08
	That's a fascinating theological judgment here.	25:15
	Is he right?	25:20
	This exchange and the par of concern behind it is signal	25:23
	of a very odd contradiction of temper in the American mind.	25:30
	On the one hand is the increasing secularization	25:38
	of our life, the legal exclusion	25:42
	of traditional religious symbols	25:45
	and concepts and practices from our public life,	25:48
	from schools and courts, constitutional freedom of religion	25:53
	has been extended now to include freedom from religion.	26:01
	The rights of non-belief must be honored equally	26:07
	with the respect for varieties of belief.	26:11
	At Christmas now it's quite proper to sing Jingle Bells	26:16
	in the grade school, but there's only very	26:19
	remote theological implications of that Diddy	26:22
	but it is not proper to sing "Silent Night".	26:26
	And if you wanna pray in public schools, you have to go out	26:31
	behind the barn.	26:34
	On the other hand, there's a resurgence of piety	26:37
	along the Potomac in grasping for spiritual resources	26:42
	to bring us together and as a stay against	26:49
	the mood of despair and failure of nerve.	26:54
	The president has no doubt with serious if baffled	26:59
	intent called for the return to our religious heritage	27:04
	and established a kind of informally required Sunday chapel	27:10
	in the White House.	27:14
	And in recent days in the national celebration	27:18
	of President Eisenhower's passing, the nation turned its TV	27:22
	cameras and its heart almost instinctively	27:28
	in solemn reverence and religious rite to honor him.	27:33
	These are signals of more than a phony rhetoric	27:39
	or a shrewd political gambit.	27:46
	They are expressions of something strongly,	27:51
	if incoherently felt in the American conscience.	27:54
	That there is a religious ground of our life together	28:01
	and of our common morality.	28:06
	And in a time of the shaking of the foundations,	28:10
	we look for this ground of faith.	28:14
	I would like to defend the claim and stand	28:21
	beside the local pundit on the radio.	28:26
	That there is an indispensable link between religious faith	28:32
	and morality.	28:35
	That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.	28:38
	And to depart from evil Is understanding.	28:43
	To put it another way,	28:49
	religious reverence is the ground of our humanity	28:51
	our moral sensitivity, our true civility, and conversely	28:56
	a lack of reverence in the harsh caustic cynic	29:05
	for whom nothing is sacred is the beginning of foolishness	29:13
	and inhumanity.	29:18
	Insofar as reverence for God is our underlying faith	29:23
	we are moved to treat each other in a humane way.	29:30
	In so far as that reverence is absent	29:36
	we become increasingly brutal and heedless	29:40
	in our treatment of neighbors and of things.	29:46
	Any terms we use here are cloudy, imprecise and at admit	29:53
	of a variety of shades of meaning.	30:00
	But an expectation of the biblical phrase,	30:05
	the fear of the Lord may help to make	30:07
	clear the inner connection	30:11
	between religion and moral responsibility.	30:13
	The essence of the religious imagination	30:20
	is reverence for the sacred.	30:25
	This has nothing to do in the first instance	30:30
	with church going, it means simply a sense of awe	30:33
	and wonder and devotion in the presence of the sacred,	30:38
	the divine, the transcendent and a way of seeing	30:43
	and treating everything secular in the light of the sacred.	30:49
	This is faith in God.	30:56
	One may draw the line of connection	31:02
	between theology and morality in either direction	31:04
	from the side of theology	31:10
	in the Hebraic Christian tradition	31:15
	faith in God always involves moral obligation.	31:18
	Authentic worship requires both as its precondition	31:24
	and its fruit actions of care and consideration	31:29
	for the God who is the object of our faith	31:38
	is not an abstract principle,	31:43
	a logical stop to regress of infinite cause	31:46
	or explanations, but a living God,	31:51
	a morally serious God who requires us to do justly	31:57
	and love mercy and walk humbly.	32:04
	Without such moral actions	32:11
	our so-called worship of him is vain.	32:14
	Or take it the other way from morality to God.	32:22
	What constitutes the ground rule	32:28
	of community of our humanity, our civility	32:30
	and considerations, our trust of each other,	32:36
	our trusts and considerations that hold us together	32:42
	even within controversy.	32:45
	I think the word, the phrase responsible love	32:52
	is the single phrase that catches it best.	32:57
	But inside a sense of responsibility is a sense	33:02
	of accountability.	33:08
	In the last analysis to whom or to what	33:11
	are we accountable?	33:16
	To our public?	33:20
	To ourselves alone?	33:23
	To the TV image or to the image of God in us?	33:26
	To whom are we accountable when no one is looking?	33:34
	When the crowd out of sight.	33:39
	Why add up the figure column straight	33:43
	in one's income tax return?	33:46
	Why honor the honor system in taking exams?	33:51
	The Puritan divine, Jeremy Taylor had a true word here.	33:58
	He said, nothing rules a man in private, but God	34:03
	and his conscience, but these give laws in a wilderness	34:09
	and they accuse in a cluster.	34:16
	In some, a sense of accountability	34:22
	to a Lord transcended of the crowd is the true ground	34:25
	of our humanity to each other.	34:31
	The way we treat each other in care, in love.	34:35
	The way we trust each other.	34:42
	Perhaps the most serious moral question before us	34:46
	as a nation is this,	34:50
	can we become one people Living together	34:53
	in peace and justice	34:58
	on purely secular terms of community?	35:02
	Is there any adequate surrogate for our traditional belief	35:08
	in God that gave us a common faith?	35:14
	Or is chaos king of the universe and our life really	35:20
	the war of every man against every man	35:27
	where we stand with Matthew Arnold at Dover Beach	35:31
	has on a darkling plane swept with confused	35:39
	alarms of struggle and flight where ignorant armies	35:42
	clash by night.	35:48
	This question is not new, it was anticipated a long time ago	35:53
	by the champions of our rights and liberties	36:02
	a John Locke for instance, argued religious tolerance	36:07
	on a religious ground, which also set its limits.	36:11
	He said, "those are not at all to be tolerated	36:17
	who deny the being of a God, promises, covenants, oaths,	36:23
	which are the bonds of human society can have no hold	36:30
	upon an atheist, the taking away of God though, but even	36:35
	in thought dissolves all"	36:39
	More recently Walter Lippin has warned us.	36:48
	"The liberties," he says,	36:54
	"the liberties we talk about defending today were	36:55
	established by men who took their conception of man	36:58
	from the great central religious tradition	37:03
	of Western civilization.	37:05
	The liberties we inherit can almost certainly	37:07
	not survive the abandonment of that tradition."	37:11
	In making this confessional statement	37:23
	of the indispensability of God to our morality,	37:27
	I hope I'm not being misunderstood here to be siding	37:33
	with the conservatives who stand for law and order	37:39
	the old way with the establishment	37:44
	and standing against the student rebellion	37:49
	and the civil rights agitators.	37:52
	No, back to God or come to Christ as some	37:55
	of the pious in our midst to may interpret it does not mean	38:03
	that we should all become again, docile, clean shaven	38:09
	middle class, respectable white suburbanites,	38:15
	living in the delusion then that gentility	38:19
	is inborn trait or monopoly of Gentiles.	38:23
	For the God of the Christian faith is the God	38:31
	who requires social justice, whose sons may have to break	38:34
	the peace to secure that common justice.	38:40
	To fight against the institutions and customs	38:46
	and power structures that block the realization	38:50
	of our common humanity.	38:54
	But what I do mean is that a religious sense	39:00
	of accountability, the consideration of the neighbor	39:06
	whom one must oppose is what keeps the demand for rights,	39:11
	civil rights, whatever, viable.	39:17
	Because they derive from a sense of obligation	39:22
	to serve the common good.	39:26
	The ruckus on our campus two months	39:34
	was quite different in spirit from the vigil a year ago.	39:37
	What made the difference?	39:47
	Both were intense militant measures pressing	39:50
	for dry drastic changes in our community power structure.	39:56
	But unless I'm way off, I sensed in the vigil a reverence,	40:05
	a self restraint, a christian sense of accountability.	40:14
	A mutuality of trust and respect	40:21
	among those of sharply opposing points of view.	40:26
	This was tragically absent	40:33
	from the more recent episode marked	40:36
	as it was by distrust, suspicion, disrespect,	40:39
	arrogance, brutality.	40:46
	In short, it was a religious difference in spirit.	40:52
	Ours is a restless, impatient searching generation.	41:04
	It's moral indeed it's religious mood is one of seeking	41:12
	suspicious of all certitudes of elders.	41:19
	Students of today aren't at all interested in the church.	41:26
	They are profoundly interested in theology.	41:31
	Underneath their seemingly childish negativism	41:35
	If I read them a right,	41:41
	they are seeking a way out of the morals of NOE	41:44
	to some sure round of faith.	41:50
	Some yes answer to the idealism that lies right	41:54
	under the surly surface, the idealism that goes	42:03
	with being young of heart.	42:08
	They reach out Looking here and there	42:11
	for moments of joy, for something pure and lovely,	42:15
	for their true identity as Americans.	42:22
	Perhaps Simon and Garfunkel are the best Trudos here	42:29
	of our condition and our mood on a Greyhound bus	42:34
	looking for America.	42:41
	So I looked at the scenery,	42:45
	she read her magazine and the moon rose over an open field.	42:48
	Cathy, I'm lost, I said,	42:55
	Though, I knew she was sleeping.	43:00
	I'm empty and aching and I don't know why counting the cars	43:02
	on the New Jersey turnpike.	43:11
	They've all come to look for a America.	43:14
	The hint of the answer put here might well be listened to	43:22
	and heated in the America of Catherine Lee Bates	43:29
	who could not have been moved	43:37
	at the scene of the burial of Senator Kennedy at Arlington	43:38
	when the brass choir from Harvard played America.	43:44
	And who could dare not heed the life	43:53
	and death import of the words of that hymn,	43:58
	America, America, God shed his grace on thee	44:03
	and crown thy good with brotherhood	44:12
	from sea to shining sea America, America, God mend	44:15
	thine every flaw, confine thy soul in self control.	44:25
	Thy liberty in law.	44:34
	Amen.	44:41
	Let us pray.	44:44
	Almighty God, the Lord of our life,	44:53
	the unseen source of our strength	44:58
	who does question our last answer	45:03
	and answer our last question.	45:06
	Do thou by that grace illumine our minds	45:11
	and inspire our hearts that we may be cleared	45:17
	of sight to see and nerved in will to do	45:24
	thy will for our good and thy glory	45:32
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.	45:39
	(hymnal singing drowned by instruments)	45:46
	(instrumental music)	48:44
	(hymnal singing)	51:26
-	All things come of thee oh Lord	54:44
	and are thine only have we given thee.	54:47
	For thine oh Lord is the greatness	54:49
	and the power and the glory and the victory.	54:51
	And the majesty.	54:55
	For all that is in the earth is thine.	54:57
	Thine is the kingdom oh Lord	55:00
	and thou art exalted his head above all.	55:02
	And the peace of God, which passes all understanding	55:06
	keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge	55:10
	and love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.	55:12
	And the blessing of God almighty the Father, the Son	55:18
	and the Holy Ghost be amongst you this day and always.	55:22
	♪ Amen. ♪	55:34
	♪ Amen, amen, amen ♪	55:41
	♪ Amen, amen, amen ♪	56:07
	(silence)	56:43
	(church bell ringing)	56:52
	(instrumental music)	57:09

Item Info

Title:

Waldo Beach - "God and Morality" (April 13, 1969)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4445nd57

Date:

April 13, 1969

Speaker:

Beach, Waldo

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0478
ref6161_5o2
uachapelsermaud
duke:628302
dcrau002469
ark:/87924/r4445nd57
1035b562-aa0c-4877-b30f-01a618ed10a8

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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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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CC BY-NC 4.0

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Waldo Beach - "God and Morality" (April 13, 1969)

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