Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Identity Crisis of the Church" (May 4, 1969)

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-	A prince of peace,	0:03
	who frankly claimed to bring conflict.	0:04
	A Christ, who taught that all men are God's creatures.	0:07
	A son of God who called Himself the son of men.	0:11
	This Christian community provides the context	0:15
	for continual struggle with the tension	0:18
	between theological and ideological analysis	0:21
	and the human problems which arise	0:24
	in an attempt to bring about rapid societal transformation.	0:25
	Let me come at this question of identifying the church	0:32
	from a different perspective.	0:35
	I understand the Christian community	0:38
	to be the fullest expression	0:40
	of the individual human personality.	0:42
	That is, the individual man understands himself	0:46
	as a created being, capable of loving and of hating,	0:51
	of interacting and rejecting, his fellow human beings.	0:56
	He is free to choose his lifestyle.	1:01
	To be alone with whatever his intelligence	1:04
	and mental ingenuity can allow him to perceive	1:07
	about his existence, or he can move out of himself,	1:10
	retaining every power of self-expression,	1:15
	but moving beyond himself, to communicate with	1:19
	and to acknowledge in others love and others hate.	1:23
	When he moves beyond himself, he participates in community.	1:29
	He acknowledges that only in being in relationship	1:35
	with others, can he find himself.	1:39
	And in that process of true self-identity	1:44
	he allows the church to become,	1:47
	he makes possible the church,	1:50
	that community which gives up his life for the risk	1:53
	and the possibility of finding new life.	1:56
	Only when the Christian community	2:00
	is in this process of self-awareness,	2:02
	can it respond authentically to any call	2:05
	for social involvement	2:08
	in the ways that you have outlined, Reed.	2:10
-	Reed and Tom,	2:15
	I hear what both of you are saying about your understanding	2:15
	of the church and how you would like	2:19
	to be involved in it yourselves personally,	2:21
	I think I tend to describe the true identity of the church	2:24
	in New Testament terms.	2:28
	Humanly speaking,	2:30
	it is its own worst enemy and always has been.	2:33
	Many passages in the New Testament	2:39
	point out that the members of the church	2:41
	are what is wrong with it.	2:44
	Divinely speaking,	2:47
	there is hope that the church will by the grace of God,	2:49
	really overcome its faults and will lead the world	2:52
	in the right path.	2:55
	In the words of Paul, the church is a colony	2:58
	of heaven against which Jesus said,	3:01
	the gates of hell shall not prevail.	3:05
	Now to describe it briefly,	3:09
	I see the church as a community of imperfect people	3:11
	who find in Jesus of Nazareth,	3:15
	the meaning of life and the meaning of history.	3:19
	We find in Jesus when we call the Christ	3:23
	the nature of reality and the way human relations	3:27
	should be ordered.	3:31
	We seek to act out in this community,	3:33
	the contemporary meaning of the life, teachings, death,	3:36
	and resurrection of Christ for the benefit	3:40
	of the whole world.	3:43
	Now, as I see it, that is the church.	3:45
-	I wonder if perhaps what Reed is talking about	3:51
	in terms of the style of the Christian community	3:54
	or the style of being the church.	3:57
	I wonder if that form is so much different	4:00
	from the ideal of our Christian heritage	4:03
	that is expressed in the New Testament.	4:05
	Is it not possible to understand and interpret	4:08
	the New Testament in terms of revolutionary,	4:11
	Christian action in the world?	4:14
-	Yes, you're right, Tom,	4:17
	indeed, as I gave my brief statement a moment ago,	4:18
	I was well aware that many people	4:22
	in more than a few congregations probably	4:24
	would interpret this same terminology,	4:27
	radically different from the way I do.	4:30
	Now, this is because many people tend	4:34
	to read into the New Testament,	4:36
	the meanings they hope to find, there in the New Testament.	4:39
	Consequently, after familiarity with the words	4:45
	makes them slick with use.	4:50
	And after they have tried long and hard	4:53
	to make the New Testament mean what is comfortable for them,	4:56
	they eventually come to believe that the words mean	5:03
	the exact opposite of what the original writers intended.	5:06
	Let me give an illustration of how this happens	5:11
	in an area entirely removed from the church.	5:14
	During the years when my four children were passing through	5:19
	the stages of babyhood,	5:21
	I occasionally needed to rock them to sleep at night	5:24
	when they were fretful.	5:27
	Taking them in my arms I would rock them back and forth	5:29
	and sing to them a song,	5:33
	familiar to millions of parents, "Hush-a-bye Baby".	5:36
	The singing of this song almost always worked.	5:42
	It soothed them and put them to sleep,	5:47
	but consider the words of that lullaby, if you will.	5:52
	Here is what I told my young fretful children.	5:59
	Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top	6:05
	when the wind blows the cradle will rock.	6:10
	And when the bow breaks,	6:15
	the cradle will fall,	6:17
	and down will come baby cradle and all.	6:19
	What a horrifying thought?	6:25
	What an absolutely startling word picture	6:29
	to paint in the mind of a little child	6:32
	whom you were trying to allow it to sleep?	6:34
	But it works.	6:38
	The reason it works, is that the parent communicates	6:40
	these astonishing words to the child	6:44
	in such fashion and in such a context	6:47
	as to suggest the precise opposite	6:52
	of the meaning of the words.	6:56
	Now, that is what happens.	7:00
	In many cases, when in our churches	7:04
	we read what the New Testament has to say about the church.	7:06
	It has a disturbing word for us	7:12
	and sometimes even a shocking word,	7:16
	but by the time we get through humming a tune	7:18
	and swaying to and fro	7:21
	and attending our church dinners and our suppers	7:24
	and our brotherhood meetings,	7:27
	we imagine that the New Testament is trying to placate us	7:29
	with soothing and comfortable thoughts,	7:34
-	Your image of the soothing sound of the lullaby,	7:39
	hiding the real meaning of the words,	7:42
	certainly calls into question the validity of the church	7:44
	as simply a spiritual clinic	7:48
	or as a theological study group.	7:50
	I think however that the church has a helpful responsibility	7:53
	as an agent of reconciliation,	7:57
	as well as a frontline revolutionary community.	8:00
	By this, I mean that those persons	8:03
	who have moved beyond themselves,	8:05
	toward a larger love of their fellow man,	8:08
	can be radically involved in the world	8:11
	by facilitating the opportunity for frontline engagement,	8:13
	by supplying the troops with information and bread,	8:18
	or by falling across the barbed wire fences, if you will,	8:22
	put up by capital interest in exploitation,	8:26
	and group's intent on the humiliation of minority peoples.	8:29
	Their action behind the lines as agents of reconciliation	8:34
	makes them violent peace breakers	8:39
	of traditional social morality,	8:42
	and their faith in the encompassing love	8:44
	found in relationship among God and man, and fellow man,	8:47
	calls them together at various places on the battlefield,	8:52
	to plan and to strategize together.	8:56
	Confessing their mistakes and renewing their faith	8:59
	in God's gift of powerful justice and mercy,	9:03
	which is theirs to share.	9:06
	To be an agent of reconciliation	9:09
	is to be actively supporting by word and by deed	9:13
	those rebels against human injustice.	9:19
	It is to work out a risk and uncertainty	9:22
	about the final goals of political revolutions.	9:25
	And it is to share the responsibility	9:29
	for the action of those revolutionaries	9:32
	who carry out their task.	9:35
-	But Tom, what does reconciliation mean?	9:38
	Can it not be one of those (indistinct) words?	9:40
	Reconciliation in this time of turmoil	9:44
	is probably as attractive to most of us	9:46
	is a cool drink for a thirsty man.	9:48
	Yet we must guard against the mirages	9:51
	of mistaking the absence of disorder for peace.	9:54
	Such quiet may result from the elimination	9:58
	of the causes of discontent,	10:01
	but it may also come from repression of the discontented.	10:03
	In our country we're presently frustrated	10:07
	by our seeming inability to overcome	10:09
	such evils as poverty and war.	10:12
	We are seeing our frustrated countrymen	10:15
	become more and more willing to blame discontent	10:17
	on hardcore troublemakers	10:20
	and to dissipate energy and condemning and repressing them.	10:22
	Even the most well-meaning segments of the church	10:26
	are being tempted to join in this attitude	10:30
	and thereby reconcile by quieting the dissidents	10:32
	and making fairly insecure consequential reforms	10:37
	to quail their guilt.	10:39
	It is because reconciliation has often been understood	10:41
	in this way by the church, that I made the distinction	10:45
	and offered the fourth form,	10:48
	that is the Christian community which dares to risk disorder	10:51
	for the human values of true justice and equality.	10:55
	I don't think this failure of the church	11:00
	is merely a misdirection of good intentions.	11:01
	The institutional church can not for long	11:05
	support meaningful challenges	11:08
	to the interests of its members.	11:10
	In American churches the most influential members today	11:12
	are also the wealthy and powerful secular leaders,	11:15
	whose economic and social interests are challenged	11:20
	by this turmoil.	11:22
	Such theological protectionism,	11:24
	even when seasoned with palliative humane action	11:27
	is wholly inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.	11:30
	When we come before our heavenly Father,	11:34
	and he says, "Did you feed them?	11:36
	Did you give them drink?	11:39
	Did you clothe them?	11:41
	Did you shelter them?"	11:43
	And as Barbara Ward says, we reply, "Sorry, Lord,	11:45
	but we did give them three tenths of 1%	11:49
	of our gross national product."	11:51
	I don't think it'll be enough.	11:53
-	You know, it occurs to me that at some point,	11:57
	and perhaps right now it'd be as good as any.	12:00
	We have to draw a line for the sake of clarity	12:04
	and decide what is going to be regarded	12:07
	as being in the church	12:09
	and what is going to be regarded	12:12
	as being outside the church.	12:14
	There are some things which may be very fine	12:17
	but they are not really a part of the Christian Church.	12:20
	For our language to be meaningful	12:24
	I think we need to define what the institution	12:26
	or movement really is,	12:29
	whose identity we are saying today is in crisis.	12:32
	Now I agree that the church is more	12:37
	than just a particular denomination,	12:39
	more than the sum of all the denominations.	12:42
	It goes beyond being a collection of the organizations	12:45
	whose buildings have spires and steeples on top of them.	12:48
	The church includes a number of movements and organizations,	12:53
	which are seeking to realize in the world	12:57
	the demands of the gospel of Christ,	13:00
	such as the YM and YWCA, the Fellowship of Reconciliation,	13:03
	the Southern Conference on Christian Leadership	13:09
	and here on the Duke Campus, the UCM, InterVarsity,	13:12
	FCA and such organizations as that.	13:16
	Now let me say where I think we should draw the line,	13:20
	by referring to a specific comparison.	13:24
	On Wednesday of this week,	13:29
	the Duke Chronicle printed a story about Mahatma Gandhi,	13:31
	the great Indian civil rights leader and emancipator.	13:35
	Now the life and influence of this man	13:39
	was very similar to the life and influence	13:42
	of a great American, Dr. Martin Luther king Jr.	13:45
	Many points of parallel and similarity	13:51
	could be drawn between these men and the movements they led.	13:55
	There was one principle difference between Gandhi and King.	14:02
	Dr. King said from the beginning	14:07
	to the day of his assassination,	14:09
	that the whole meaning and purpose of his life	14:12
	and of his movement,	14:14
	was derived from the gospel of Jesus Christ.	14:16
	Gandhi on the other hand,	14:20
	repeatedly denied that he was a Christian,	14:22
	whatever it may have been the reason for that denial.	14:25
	I would classify King and his movement	14:29
	as being a part of the Christian Church,	14:31
	whereas I would not classify Gandhi	14:35
	and his movement as such.	14:37
	It should be clear from the fact that the two movements	14:40
	were so very, very similar	14:42
	that I am not implying by what I say	14:44
	that Gandhi's movement was unworthy.	14:47
	Indeed, I would go further	14:50
	and say that I regard the Gandhi movement	14:51
	as a judgment on the church,	14:53
	although it was not a part of the church itself.	14:56
	However, I think that if words are to have meaning,	14:59
	and if thoughts are to be precise,	15:04
	we must make that semantic	15:07
	and rhetorical distinction between what is in the church	15:09
	and what is not in the church.	15:13
-	You have raised the issue	15:17
	of how one is to distinguish between a Christian community	15:19
	in the active encountering and rectifying social injustice	15:23
	and the political movement, involved in the same task.	15:27
	I'm not sure that the distinction is even necessary	15:32
	or ever obvious.	15:35
	Whereas Jesus cautioned in the Parable of the Sower	15:38
	that we are not to judge prematurely	15:41
	the motives of those who aid the cause of God's kingdom,	15:43
	and in another passage where He reminds His disciples,	15:47
	that those who are not against us are for us.	15:51
	However, perhaps there is a peculiar characteristic	15:55
	of the Christian community,	15:59
	which we might refer to as the presence or the absence	16:01
	of a form of community self-realization, of self awareness.	16:05
	This form might be a holy sacrament,	16:11
	and informal celebration,	16:14
	or some other acknowledgement of where the community is	16:17
	and where the community hopes to go.	16:20
	It is a kind of superhuman strategy session	16:24
	that recalls its historical continuity as a community,	16:28
	and responds to the reconciling love of God with praise,	16:34
	confession, forgiveness, thanksgiving, and renewal.	16:39
	It is only when the community renews its awareness	16:45
	of its obedience to God,	16:48
	through a real understanding of the Jesus man	16:51
	and his sacrament of communion,	16:54
	that the persons within the community can have faith	16:57
	in the certainty of a purpose	17:00
	and a hope beyond the momentary frustrations	17:02
	of human strategy and disappointment.	17:07
-	Tom, this continual reaffirmation of faith you mentioned,	17:12
	that is, reexamination,	17:16
	continual reexamination of the life and teachings of Jesus	17:18
	in light of our present situation.	17:21
	I would say this is indeed	17:24
	the fundamental meaning of the church	17:26
	and I think that's what all of us have been saying.	17:27
	But I think all church goers are aware	17:31
	that sacramental worship is so often merely repetition	17:33
	of familiar acts and rhetoric,	17:37
	having little connection to the renewal process	17:39
	that you articulated Tom.	17:42
	So often the church develops	17:45
	a watered down interpretations of the gospel,	17:46
	which are seldom subjected to reexamination	17:49
	and even more seldom studied	17:52
	in the light of their social implications.	17:54
	Take for example,	17:57
	the conversation which Jesus held with a young rich man.	17:59
	In having kept all the commandments,	18:03
	this fellow wanted to know what else he must do.	18:05
	"Go sell all your possessions,	18:09
	distribute them to the poor	18:11
	and come follow me." was Jesus' answer.	18:13
	This has often been used as a Sunday school lesson	18:17
	justifying tithing.	18:20
	But its implications go far beyond that.	18:22
	Jesus teaches that,	18:25
	"Wealth and riches,	18:27
	measures which place one man above another	18:29
	in power and prestige must be shared among all men	18:31
	for God recognizes no such distinctions." says Jesus.	18:35
	"And the rich will find it next to impossible	18:40
	to enter the kingdom,	18:42
	for the last will be first,	18:44
	and the first, last." He goes on to say.	18:46
	In another passage, Jesus makes his unhesitating commitment	18:49
	to affect change in the world.	18:54
	And I quote him,	18:56
	"You must not think that I've come to bring peace	18:58
	to the earth.	19:00
	I have not come to bring peace, but the sword.	19:02
	No man is worthy of me who will not take up his cross	19:05
	and walk in my steps."	19:09
	What would tomorrow's editorials say	19:11
	about a man that made such a statement today?	19:13
	Complacency in light of this statement is hardly defensible,	19:17
	yet many communions and reaffirmations of faith,	19:23
	not withstanding, the church today remains complacent.	19:27
-	With the burden of this commitment, let us pray together.	19:34
	Father, we are committed to change,	19:42
	we are committed to your ever renewing word and mission	19:46
	among your people.	19:50
	We trust our identity as the Christian Church	19:53
	in this process of becoming more fully human.	19:55
	Undergird, our risk of the future	20:01
	by the prophecy and the fulfillment of our past,	20:04
	where we make our prayer	20:09
	in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is with us still	20:10
	and who holds the hope of reconciliation	20:15
	in the midst of revolution.	20:19
	Amen.	20:22
	(orchestral music)	20:31
	(indistinct singing)	21:11
	(calm music)	25:04
	(piano music)	27:04
	(upbeat music)	27:18
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	27:35
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	27:39
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	27:43
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	27:49
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	28:04
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	28:12
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	28:13
	♪ Praises to the father ♪	28:27
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:11
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:14
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:15
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:21
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:22
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:24
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:26
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:28
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:30
	♪ Sing through the lord ♪	29:33
	(calm music)	29:50
	(indistinct singing)	30:46
-	Oh God, father of all mercies,	31:16
	receive this offering which we present to thee,	31:19
	as part of our worship.	31:22
	May these gifts be the symbol of our consecration unto thee	31:25
	unto thy son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.	31:30
	And may the blessing of God come upon you abundantly	31:38
	may it keep you strong and tranquil	31:45
	in the truth of His promises through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	31:49
	(orchestral praise music)	32:03
	(indistinct chattering)	34:29

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Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Identity Crisis of the Church" (May 4, 1969)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cj8cm71

Date:

May 4, 1969

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0481
ref6167_kih
uachapelsermaud
duke:628122
dcrau002472
ark:/87924/r4cj8cm71
5eedf13a-f59c-4824-9b0a-fdc6cd1471ae

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Identity Crisis of the Church" (May 4, 1969)

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