Terry Sanford - "Hold Fast What Is Good" (December 10, 1972)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (liturgical music) | 0:05 | |
| - | Grace be to you and peace from God, our Father | 7:00 |
| and the Lord, Jesus Christ. | 7:04 | |
| Christians are people who would be men and women | 7:07 | |
| who see things as they are, | 7:10 | |
| who call things by their right name, | 7:13 | |
| whose work is valid and whose world is whole. | 7:16 | |
| Here, worshiping together as Christians | 7:20 | |
| we hear the word that tells us what we were meant to be. | 7:23 | |
| We stand before the one who has created us | 7:27 | |
| and given us light. | 7:31 | |
| And here, before the presence of His holiness, | 7:33 | |
| we confront our own denied discipleship, | 7:36 | |
| our weak idolatries and our faithlessness. | 7:40 | |
| But it is also here that we hear the word of repentance | 7:44 | |
| and the word of hope, for Jesus' words speak to us, | 7:49 | |
| "I am not come to call the righteous, | 7:53 | |
| but sinners to repentance." | 7:56 | |
| Believing his declared promise to hear, | 8:00 | |
| to forgive and to restore, | 8:02 | |
| let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor. | 8:05 | |
| Let us pray. | 8:09 | |
| Almighty and ever living God, | 8:12 | |
| thou who has so wondrously created us | 8:16 | |
| and who does daily sustain us, we give thanks to thee | 8:19 | |
| for this opportunity of worship. | 8:24 | |
| Thy majesty, oh Lord, is shrouded in mystery | 8:28 | |
| and thy ways are far beyond our knowing. | 8:32 | |
| Yet thou has come to us in the gift of the advent season | 8:36 | |
| and has offered us thy graceful and faithful love | 8:42 | |
| and has called us to live and to come before thee | 8:47 | |
| in adoration and in praise. | 8:50 | |
| With heaven's angels and shepherds all, | 8:54 | |
| we praise and bless thy Holy name, oh Lord. | 8:57 | |
| Almighty God whose mercy brought thee to earth | 9:01 | |
| and the coming of our Lord, | 9:03 | |
| deepen and widen our vision of thy presence among us, | 9:06 | |
| we ask, that thou may us not be turned away | 9:09 | |
| from our crowded, busy hearts, | 9:13 | |
| but welcomed with joy and thankfulness. | 9:16 | |
| Our hearts, oh Lord, as ever rejoice | 9:20 | |
| in the advent message of the glad tidings of Christ | 9:23 | |
| who was born in Bethlehem to be the savior of all the world | 9:27 | |
| yet with all our joy and the long centuries behind us, | 9:32 | |
| our hearts made glad by his coming. | 9:36 | |
| We know there is much in us that deafens our ears | 9:39 | |
| to the sound of angel anthems, | 9:43 | |
| much that blinds us | 9:46 | |
| to the sight of guiding stars amid the darkness, | 9:47 | |
| much that crowds our hearts and minds, | 9:52 | |
| leaving little room for the arrival of thy gift. | 9:55 | |
| Even in the midst of our preparations for Christmas, | 10:01 | |
| we are as lonely as shepherds, as wayfaring as Kings, | 10:04 | |
| as busy as the innkeeper. | 10:09 | |
| Forgive us, oh God, and turn us again | 10:12 | |
| to the quietness of thy peace. | 10:17 | |
| Oh God whose justice demands truth in our inward parts, | 10:21 | |
| we pray thy forgiveness for the sins of our hearts and wills | 10:25 | |
| for the lack of feeling and intercession | 10:30 | |
| for the needs of our families, the oppressed, the hungry, | 10:32 | |
| those in temptation and those without hope. | 10:38 | |
| We ask thy pardon for an uncritical attitude | 10:42 | |
| to our own membership in a society of affluence. | 10:46 | |
| We ask thy pardon for ignoring other people | 10:51 | |
| and for often taking ourselves too seriously. | 10:54 | |
| We ask thy forgiveness for a failure to think and pray | 10:59 | |
| and act deeply for the mission and unity of thy church. | 11:03 | |
| We ask thy forgiveness for trying to imprison thy holiness | 11:08 | |
| in our words and our institutions. | 11:13 | |
| Oh Lord, forgive what we have been, sanctified what we are, | 11:17 | |
| and order what we shall be, that we may delight in thy will | 11:23 | |
| and walk in thy ways all the days of our life, | 11:29 | |
| in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 11:34 | |
| Hear these good news, Christ died for us | 11:41 | |
| while we were yet sinners, that is God's own proof | 11:44 | |
| of his love toward us, | 11:48 | |
| in the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. | 11:50 | |
| Glory to God, amen. | 11:54 | |
| Let us continue in a spirit of thanksgiving and prayer | 12:08 | |
| as we offer our unison prayer of thanksgiving unto the Lord. | 12:12 | |
| Oh Lord, our God, the author and giver of all good things, | 12:18 | |
| we thank thee for all thy mercies | 12:24 | |
| and for thy loving care over all thy creatures. | 12:26 | |
| We bless thee for the gift of life, | 12:30 | |
| for thy protection round about us, | 12:33 | |
| for thy guiding hand upon us | 12:36 | |
| and for the tokens of thy love within us. | 12:39 | |
| We thank thee for friendship and duty, | 12:42 | |
| for good hopes and precious memories, | 12:45 | |
| for the joys that cheer us | 12:48 | |
| and the trials that teach us to trust in thee. | 12:51 | |
| Most of all, we thank thee | 12:54 | |
| for the saving knowledge of thy son, our savior, | 12:56 | |
| for the living presence of thy spirit, the comforter, | 13:00 | |
| for thy church, the body of Christ, | 13:04 | |
| for the ministry of word and sacrament | 13:07 | |
| and all the means of grace. | 13:10 | |
| In all of these things, oh heavenly Father, | 13:12 | |
| make us wise unto a right use of thy benefits | 13:15 | |
| that we may render an acceptable thanksgiving unto thee | 13:19 | |
| all the days of our life, | 13:23 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 13:25 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 13:30 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 13:35 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 13:37 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 13:41 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those | 13:44 | |
| who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, | 13:47 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 13:52 | |
| For thine is the kingdom | 13:54 | |
| and the power and the glory forever, amen. | 13:56 | |
| (liturgical music) | 14:01 | |
| - | The scripture lesson this morning | 14:51 |
| is taken from selected portions of the word of God, | 14:53 | |
| as it appears in the first 21 verses, | 14:57 | |
| 1 Thessalonians chapter five. | 15:01 | |
| "But as to the times and the seasons, | 15:05 | |
| "you have no need to have anything written to you, | 15:08 | |
| "for you, yourselves know well | 15:11 | |
| "that the day of the Lord will come | 15:13 | |
| "like a thief in the night. | 15:16 | |
| "When people say there is peace and security, | 15:18 | |
| "then sudden destruction will come upon them. | 15:22 | |
| "But since we belong to the day, | 15:26 | |
| "let us put on the breastplate of faith and love | 15:29 | |
| "for God has not destined us for wrath. | 15:34 | |
| "Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up. | 15:38 | |
| "And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the idle, | 15:42 | |
| "encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, | 15:46 | |
| "be patient with them all. | 15:50 | |
| "See that none of you repays evil for evil, | 15:53 | |
| "but always seek to do good to one another and to all. | 15:57 | |
| "Rejoice always, give thanks in all circumstances, | 16:02 | |
| "do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophesying, | 16:08 | |
| "but test everything. | 16:13 | |
| "Hold fast what is good." | 16:16 | |
| (liturgical music) | 16:23 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 22:06 |
| Congregation | (indistinct answer) | 22:08 |
| - | Let us pray. | 22:09 |
| Let us offer unto God our litany of commemoration. | 22:13 | |
| Almighty and eternal God, in whom our fathers trusted, | 22:21 | |
| we, their children on this day of remembrance | 22:27 | |
| offer unto thee our litany of commemoration, | 22:30 | |
| hear us, we beseech thee, Oh Lord. | 22:35 | |
| For the men and women of this state, | 22:39 | |
| Methodists and Quakers, farmers and merchantmen, | 22:41 | |
| teachers and administrators who believed in education | 22:46 | |
| and made their belief prevail, | 22:51 | |
| we give thee thanks and praise. | 22:53 | |
| For the embodiment of their dreams, | 22:57 | |
| private school, academy, college, university, | 23:00 | |
| founded in hope, continued with perseverance, | 23:05 | |
| growing in outreach, established in assurance, | 23:10 | |
| we give thee thanks and praise. | 23:14 | |
| For educators, whose vision was matched by their courage, | 23:17 | |
| whose patience was tempered by their indignation, | 23:22 | |
| whose idealism was moderated by their awareness of sin, | 23:25 | |
| we give thee thanks and praise. | 23:30 | |
| For the Duke family, father, sons, and their wives, | 23:33 | |
| grandchildren, and continuing generations | 23:39 | |
| who with wonder and surprise, | 23:42 | |
| bewilderment and tenacity laid a good foundation, | 23:45 | |
| built a worthy school and provided for exciting growth | 23:49 | |
| beyond their kin in years unseen, | 23:53 | |
| we give thee thanks and praise. | 23:56 | |
| For the continuance of good ideas, | 23:59 | |
| the union of truth and reverence, | 24:03 | |
| the freedom of responsible academic thought | 24:06 | |
| and the right of public concern, | 24:10 | |
| the joined care of the body and the spirit, | 24:13 | |
| the linking of science and humanities, | 24:16 | |
| the realization that the old order changer, | 24:20 | |
| we give thee thanks and praise. | 24:24 | |
| For the future of our university established to thy glory | 24:27 | |
| and for the relief of man's state, | 24:32 | |
| for the consecration of the discontent of the young, | 24:35 | |
| for wisdom in the conservatism of the middle-age, | 24:40 | |
| for resiliency and the obstinacy of the old, | 24:44 | |
| for understanding, cooperation | 24:48 | |
| and a sense of humor within our community, | 24:51 | |
| hear us, we beseech thee, oh Lord. | 24:54 | |
| And to thee we shall ascribe as is most due, | 24:58 | |
| all praise and glory, world without end, amen. | 25:02 | |
| (liturgical music) | 25:12 | |
| - | Oh God, most merciful and gracious, | 33:03 |
| of whose bounty we have all received, | 33:07 | |
| let your blessing rest, oh Lord, upon our living, | 33:11 | |
| our teaching, our learning and this, our giving. | 33:15 | |
| Accept this offering of thy people, | 33:21 | |
| remember in thy love those who have brought it | 33:24 | |
| and those for whom it is given. | 33:28 | |
| And so follow it with thy blessing | 33:31 | |
| that it may promote peace and goodwill among men | 33:33 | |
| and advance the kingdom of our Lord and savior, | 33:37 | |
| Jesus Christ, amen. | 33:40 | |
| - | One of my favorite church stories | 34:05 |
| is about a woman named Barbara Heck. | 34:08 | |
| She left her native England in the 18th century | 34:13 | |
| to come to the new world of America | 34:16 | |
| and she settled in the budding city of New York | 34:21 | |
| in the section, which is now Lower Manhattan. | 34:23 | |
| The England she had left | 34:28 | |
| was a country full of disillusionment, ripe with immorality, | 34:29 | |
| lacking in direction and sense of purpose. | 34:34 | |
| Most citizens of her day had become generally dispirited | 34:38 | |
| and were alienated from most of their institutions. | 34:43 | |
| In one of the institutions, | 34:46 | |
| the church of England had become cold and impersonal | 34:48 | |
| and ritualistic. | 34:52 | |
| And to use the terminology of our day, | 34:55 | |
| the people generally were turned off by the church. | 34:57 | |
| It had become so introverted upon its own affairs | 35:01 | |
| that it had generally forgotten | 35:05 | |
| about people in their society | 35:06 | |
| and the conditions of English life | 35:09 | |
| and the historic mission of the church of Christ. | 35:12 | |
| Many secular historians have suggested | 35:16 | |
| that the decay of the church of England | 35:19 | |
| was a principle cause for the decay | 35:22 | |
| of that society's morality. | 35:24 | |
| And they have concluded that in time, | 35:27 | |
| the reviving force for the nation was John Wesley | 35:30 | |
| and his Methodist. | 35:34 | |
| That satisfied with the attitude and the purpose | 35:36 | |
| and the lack of influence of the church, | 35:39 | |
| John Wesley, a priest of the church of England | 35:42 | |
| had moved into the fields and the streets and the coal mines | 35:45 | |
| to carry a message of personal salvation. | 35:49 | |
| He also sought to influence the character | 35:54 | |
| and morality of the community | 35:57 | |
| and the manner of Christian history | 35:58 | |
| concerned not only with man's soul and salvation, | 36:01 | |
| but with his conduct toward other men. | 36:05 | |
| Before Barbara Heck had left England for America, | 36:09 | |
| she had come under the influence of John Wesley. | 36:12 | |
| She had come to believe in the saving grace | 36:15 | |
| that John Wesley preached. | 36:18 | |
| She had become convinced that this religion could reinforce | 36:20 | |
| the morality that influenced society. | 36:24 | |
| And then she saw in her new world, | 36:28 | |
| the signs and signals of whole world corruption. | 36:31 | |
| She believed her faith could set the tone | 36:36 | |
| and the standards of community and nation. | 36:39 | |
| And as she looked around at where she was, | 36:42 | |
| she saw readily that this new society of the new world | 36:45 | |
| could go either way. | 36:50 | |
| And if this truly was to be the new world she insisted, | 36:52 | |
| it should be new and more than name only. | 36:57 | |
| She wanted this new nation to represent a new morality, | 37:01 | |
| and she set herself to the task of establishing | 37:06 | |
| the influence of Christianity in her neighborhood | 37:10 | |
| in her new land. | 37:13 | |
| With the help of her cousin, Phillip M. Berry | 37:15 | |
| and a British army captain Thomas Web, | 37:18 | |
| both of whom had served John Wesley as lay-leaders, | 37:22 | |
| she became the principal force | 37:26 | |
| in establishing a meeting house, | 37:28 | |
| in the pattern of the Methodist societies | 37:30 | |
| founded by John Wesley in England. | 37:32 | |
| She hoped this Methodist gathering would be the instrument | 37:35 | |
| for teaching the old but easily forgotten values. | 37:39 | |
| When the Methodist became a church, | 37:44 | |
| her meeting house became a church. | 37:47 | |
| And today in the Financial District of New York, | 37:51 | |
| you can turn off of Wall Street and walk over to John Street | 37:53 | |
| and find there in the shadows of the skyscrapers, | 37:57 | |
| a tiny building that is John Street United Methodist Church. | 38:00 | |
| This church stands today as a reminder of the ageless values | 38:06 | |
| that helped shape the character of a new nation. | 38:11 | |
| But not only in New York, but all over the colonies, | 38:15 | |
| there were new citizens like Barbara Heck, | 38:19 | |
| who would determine that this new world | 38:22 | |
| must have a solid foundation of religion | 38:24 | |
| as the beginning of a new society. | 38:27 | |
| There were Methodist meeting houses springing up | 38:31 | |
| almost everywhere | 38:34 | |
| that land was cleared for a new settlement. | 38:35 | |
| It was not only Methodist, but Scotch Presbyterians, | 38:38 | |
| and Quakers and Moravians | 38:41 | |
| and religions brought by other settlers | 38:44 | |
| that were taking root on a new land | 38:45 | |
| to shape the character and the purpose of a new nation. | 38:48 | |
| And in the early 19th century, about 1830, | 38:54 | |
| a group of Methodists and Quaker farmers had a related idea | 39:00 | |
| about their community. | 39:04 | |
| A community in the undeveloped rural area | 39:07 | |
| of Central North Carolina in Randolph County. | 39:09 | |
| These families already had churches in their region, | 39:14 | |
| but they wanted to extend the church's influence | 39:17 | |
| beyond Sunday services. | 39:20 | |
| They wanted common schools for their children. | 39:22 | |
| So they joined their outlets and organized classes, | 39:25 | |
| which would educate their children | 39:29 | |
| and which would develop religious understanding | 39:31 | |
| for society at large. | 39:33 | |
| The one room log house where the classes were held, | 39:37 | |
| had no formal name, but it was called Brown's Schoolhouse | 39:40 | |
| because it was located nearest to John Brown's farmhouse. | 39:45 | |
| And in the next year, | 39:49 | |
| the farmers built a larger schoolhouse, | 39:50 | |
| which was formally named Union Institute, | 39:52 | |
| to signify the union between the Quakers and the Methodists. | 39:56 | |
| I think we should pause on this day of remembrance | 40:00 | |
| to be thankful for the vision and for the energy | 40:03 | |
| that this work in that time represented. | 40:06 | |
| The sponsors of that new academy | 40:10 | |
| adopted a statement of purpose, | 40:12 | |
| declaring that ignorance and arrow | 40:14 | |
| are not only the theme of religious society, | 40:17 | |
| but also of civil society. | 40:20 | |
| Within a dozen years, the school had grown | 40:23 | |
| to the extent that principal Braxton Craven | 40:26 | |
| had added college level courses for teacher training. | 40:30 | |
| And then when the North Carolina legislature | 40:34 | |
| chartered the school as Normal College, | 40:36 | |
| another statement of principles reasserted | 40:39 | |
| they found this belief and moral training | 40:42 | |
| and the development of moral attitudes | 40:45 | |
| as an essential part of education. | 40:47 | |
| The college they said shall be theoretically | 40:51 | |
| and practically religious. | 40:55 | |
| Religious in creed and in heart, | 40:57 | |
| it must be denominational without being sectarian. | 40:59 | |
| The intellect must material in the light | 41:04 | |
| and warmth of a pure heart. | 41:06 | |
| More than any other place on earth, | 41:10 | |
| a college needs the whole force of practical bourbon party. | 41:12 | |
| And still later, that institution strengthened its ties | 41:18 | |
| with organized religion by affiliating directly | 41:22 | |
| with the Methodist church. | 41:25 | |
| The affiliation brought with it a new name for the school, | 41:28 | |
| Trinity College. | 41:31 | |
| And it also led to Trinity's association | 41:33 | |
| with one of the most influential families | 41:36 | |
| in North Carolina Methodism, Washington Duke, and his sons, | 41:38 | |
| Benjamin Newton and James Buchanan Duke. | 41:43 | |
| And that association in turn, | 41:46 | |
| led ultimately to a pair of developments | 41:49 | |
| which defined the school's destiny. | 41:51 | |
| The first was its move from Randolph County | 41:54 | |
| to the Duke family's hometown of Durham, | 41:57 | |
| and the second was its endowment | 42:00 | |
| as a major American university. | 42:02 | |
| When James B. Duke announced his historic endowment in 1924, | 42:05 | |
| he took the opportunity again to publicly declare | 42:10 | |
| the school's ties to religion. | 42:13 | |
| Listing the professions | 42:16 | |
| which should be served by the new university, | 42:18 | |
| Mr. Duke named preachers ahead of all the rest, | 42:21 | |
| including teachers and lawyers and physicians, | 42:24 | |
| chemistry and economics and history. | 42:27 | |
| Moreover, he used the occasion to declare his belief | 42:30 | |
| that education is next to religion, | 42:34 | |
| the greatest civilizing influence. | 42:37 | |
| Throughout its history, | 42:41 | |
| this institution has essentially represented an outlet | 42:43 | |
| to bring the church's influence into our society | 42:47 | |
| in the most profound and enduring way. | 42:50 | |
| Since the days of the 19th century, | 42:54 | |
| our motto has been Eruditio et Religio, | 42:56 | |
| the combination of knowledge and religion. | 42:59 | |
| And each year on this anniversary of our founding, | 43:04 | |
| as we do again, this weekend, | 43:08 | |
| we gather to express our respect | 43:11 | |
| to the memory of the many people | 43:14 | |
| who have contributed to the building of Duke University. | 43:15 | |
| We should take the opportunity also to remind our generation | 43:19 | |
| that Duke University is here | 43:24 | |
| because of earlier generosity and faith, | 43:26 | |
| and that our gifts are necessary for the building | 43:30 | |
| and continuation of the institution gifts | 43:32 | |
| that today will have continuing and significant meaning | 43:35 | |
| down through all the tomorrows of Duke University. | 43:39 | |
| But more to the spirit of this Sunday morning, | 43:43 | |
| we gather to acknowledge to ourselves | 43:46 | |
| the principle of learning related to faith, | 43:49 | |
| a principle that exists like bedrock | 43:52 | |
| under the river of our history. | 43:55 | |
| Today, the Christian Church often seems ineffective. | 43:59 | |
| Religious principles are being acutely questioned. | 44:04 | |
| Young people are not quite sure about the church, | 44:07 | |
| or worse, they are sure. | 44:11 | |
| The church has been slow to respond, | 44:14 | |
| but the church is making an effort to reach out | 44:17 | |
| in new directions, | 44:19 | |
| hoping to re-engage the interest of our young people, | 44:21 | |
| hoping is it work to bring them into the fold. | 44:24 | |
| So we see services conducted to the scores of rock music, | 44:29 | |
| we see the modernized rituals, | 44:32 | |
| and if these new techniques are effective | 44:36 | |
| in conveying the Christian message, | 44:39 | |
| then certainly we should be willing | 44:41 | |
| to share the older rituals with the newer ones. | 44:43 | |
| But these innovations in any event are superficial | 44:47 | |
| to the deeper meaning of the Christian message, | 44:50 | |
| but so were the older styles and rituals. | 44:54 | |
| The present travail the church have | 44:58 | |
| runs much deeper than form. | 45:00 | |
| Many people feel that the church is in John Wesley's day, | 45:03 | |
| has lost direction and its vital relationship | 45:07 | |
| to individual needs. | 45:10 | |
| The church today is making many admirable attempts | 45:12 | |
| to make its message as meaningful as it was in the past, | 45:16 | |
| to get itself involved again, as an integral part of life, | 45:20 | |
| churches are reaching out into the community. | 45:25 | |
| They are beginning to accept responsibility | 45:27 | |
| for the complex problems of race relations. | 45:30 | |
| They are sponsoring such social services as public housing. | 45:33 | |
| They are establishing new programs for young people | 45:37 | |
| ranging to such urgent new areas as drug abuse. | 45:40 | |
| They are moving into our inner city ghettos | 45:45 | |
| with satellite projects, in short, | 45:47 | |
| they are trying to re-discover and hold what is good | 45:49 | |
| to create new application of old values. | 45:54 | |
| And similarly, higher education has been accused | 45:59 | |
| in recent years of irrelevance. | 46:02 | |
| In many cases, learning has become so specialized | 46:06 | |
| that our most competent graduates | 46:08 | |
| are focused on an exclusive area of knowledge, | 46:10 | |
| to the extreme that they spend their intellectual lives | 46:14 | |
| locked in a small cubicle of mental activity. | 46:17 | |
| The proficiencies of science and technology | 46:21 | |
| seem to have taken us into an age so mechanical | 46:23 | |
| that it grinds on toward its destiny | 46:26 | |
| with little regard for human influence. | 46:29 | |
| And in too many institutions of higher learning, | 46:32 | |
| knowledge has become a pure commodity to be transmitted | 46:35 | |
| and valued for its own sake | 46:40 | |
| without regard to its social or moral consequences. | 46:43 | |
| American education must express | 46:48 | |
| a new humanistic attitude towards society | 46:50 | |
| and toward its various problems | 46:54 | |
| and toward its even more various people. | 46:57 | |
| Consequently, many colleges and universities | 47:00 | |
| are seeking new ways to re-humanize higher education. | 47:02 | |
| I have no argument with new explorations | 47:08 | |
| by either our churches or our universities, | 47:10 | |
| and we do need to exert creative outlets | 47:14 | |
| in finding valid new directions. | 47:16 | |
| But I suggest that we might do well | 47:20 | |
| to build upon a strong proven foundation, | 47:22 | |
| a valid old direction. | 47:26 | |
| The principle expressed in Duke University's motto, | 47:30 | |
| which it inherited from Trinity College, | 47:33 | |
| intellectual learning template | 47:36 | |
| by the moral influence of religion. | 47:38 | |
| In our script lesson this morning, | 47:43 | |
| we heard the apostle Paul challenge us, | 47:44 | |
| hold fast what is good. | 47:48 | |
| In our energetic efforts to adapt our institutions | 47:51 | |
| to the demands of a rapidly changing world, | 47:54 | |
| there is no cause to abandon the strengths of our past. | 47:58 | |
| We need to hold fast to what is good in these institutions | 48:02 | |
| and to depend on the values that have sustained our history. | 48:07 | |
| Saint Paul spoke in another letter about a potter. | 48:12 | |
| A potter being able to mold two kinds of vessels | 48:16 | |
| out of a single lump of clay, | 48:19 | |
| one honorable and the other dishonorable. | 48:22 | |
| In other words, we can take our talent or our learning | 48:25 | |
| and turn it into achievement with skill and proficiency, | 48:29 | |
| but what will make our achievement honorable or dishonorable | 48:33 | |
| will be the purposes it will serve. | 48:38 | |
| Duke University has never been satisfied with learning | 48:42 | |
| in its isolated form. | 48:45 | |
| And we continue to insist on enriching our learning | 48:47 | |
| with the morality that directs our service. | 48:50 | |
| In his epistle to the Corinthians, | 48:54 | |
| Saint Paul virtually discounted the value of anything | 48:57 | |
| unless it was combined with charity, | 49:01 | |
| and in that sense as you know, he meant love. | 49:03 | |
| So learning moves toward love. | 49:07 | |
| Education should enhance service. | 49:10 | |
| The life of the mind must be guided by moral responsibility. | 49:13 | |
| It is all the more important to reassert these attitudes | 49:19 | |
| in an age when so many of our institutions | 49:23 | |
| are infected with cynicism. | 49:26 | |
| We must not let the cynics tempt us away from our respect | 49:28 | |
| for combining moral consciousness with education. | 49:32 | |
| We must never let them turn us into doubting the timeliness | 49:37 | |
| or the relevance of infusing educational institutions | 49:41 | |
| with the influence of religion. | 49:46 | |
| Indeed, I believe it is likely that the cynic himself | 49:49 | |
| is a classic example of the product of education | 49:51 | |
| insulated from moral or religious influence. | 49:54 | |
| In the words of Oscar Wilde, | 49:57 | |
| "Such people seem to know the price of everything | 49:59 | |
| "and the value of nothing." | 50:02 | |
| Even the cynic must admit | 50:05 | |
| that the most vital problems now facing us | 50:07 | |
| are those which are rooted in moral considerations, | 50:11 | |
| world strive, racism, inhumanity, imperialism, | 50:15 | |
| disregard for human life, war, environmental waste, | 50:21 | |
| all the most important problems | 50:26 | |
| which confront us will require of us | 50:28 | |
| an expression of moral conscience | 50:31 | |
| as well as intellectual creativity, | 50:33 | |
| or else our outputs will profit us nothing. | 50:37 | |
| Yet many have insufficient faith | 50:40 | |
| even to approach these complex problems | 50:43 | |
| with any realistic hope. | 50:45 | |
| Doomsday prophets warn us | 50:48 | |
| that our planet will soon be uninhabitable, | 50:50 | |
| paranoid world leaders boast of their formidable weapons | 50:53 | |
| as they glare across the globe at one another, | 50:56 | |
| racist demagogues contrived new code words and terms | 51:00 | |
| to disguise and legitimize and rationalize our basis | 51:04 | |
| to feelings toward our fellow man. | 51:09 | |
| In the face of such a situation, knowledge is not enough, | 51:12 | |
| intellectual competence is not enough, | 51:19 | |
| mental brilliance is not enough. | 51:22 | |
| Indeed, suggesting to students | 51:26 | |
| that they might face these problems | 51:28 | |
| with intellectual training alone | 51:30 | |
| is like sending them out to run a race blindfolded. | 51:33 | |
| We need moral vision to guide the intellect. | 51:38 | |
| Let us then on this occasion, affirm our faith | 51:43 | |
| in the combination of knowledge and religion. | 51:47 | |
| As a place of intellectual inquiry of course, | 51:53 | |
| it is not for us to force any kind of religion on anyone, | 51:56 | |
| but in the spirit of the trustees of normal college, | 52:02 | |
| 121 years ago, we can impart training, | 52:05 | |
| which is denominational without being sectarian | 52:09 | |
| our better moral without even being denominational. | 52:13 | |
| We're not going to teach Christian English | 52:18 | |
| or Judaeo Christian physics or Mormon geology | 52:20 | |
| or Presbyterian biology or Hindu chemistry. | 52:23 | |
| We are going to nurture a campus environment | 52:28 | |
| that sees purpose in life, | 52:32 | |
| that acknowledges soul as well as body, | 52:34 | |
| that believes faith is fundamental | 52:38 | |
| and that knows education is more than learning. | 52:41 | |
| Of course we expect to continue | 52:46 | |
| and accelerate our institutional pursuit of excellence. | 52:48 | |
| Duke University is academic excellence, | 52:53 | |
| but we are not to be satisfied with sterile intellectuality. | 52:58 | |
| We seek a campus that will allow our graduates, | 53:03 | |
| if they will, to go out into their world | 53:07 | |
| with both the sureness of knowledge | 53:11 | |
| and the strength of morality. | 53:13 | |
| In a world as confused and confusing as ours has become, | 53:16 | |
| it will be knowledge that provides power | 53:21 | |
| to propel us through the difficult seas, | 53:23 | |
| but faith will be the beacon that guides us to our destiny. | 53:26 | |
| As centuries ago Saint Paul advised, | 53:33 | |
| today we need to hold fast what is good. | 53:37 | |
| Seek peace among nations, | 53:42 | |
| be gentle with one another in Christian Love. | 53:46 | |
| Let the strong lift up the weak, keep the faith. | 53:50 | |
| This was the religion Barbara Heck sought for her new world. | 53:55 | |
| The faith of the Randolph farmers | 54:00 | |
| hope to impart to their younger generation. | 54:04 | |
| The faith that sustained Washington Duke | 54:08 | |
| and Warren devastation. | 54:10 | |
| The tradition engraved in Duke University's charter | 54:13 | |
| and the good that is hidden in all of us. | 54:19 | |
| Let us pray. | 54:23 | |
| Our most gracious heavenly Father, | 54:28 | |
| along with learning we pray, grant us thy wisdom, amen. | 54:32 | |
| (liturgical music) | 54:53 | |
| - | Go forth now to be God's people in his will | 59:17 |
| and may you have peace with the deep restlessness of God, | 59:22 | |
| grace, that paradox of freedom and discipline | 59:27 | |
| and joy to fill the cup of all your celebrations, | 59:31 | |
| may the blessing of God almighty the Father, the Son, | 59:36 | |
| and the Holy Spirit be always with you. | 59:40 | |
| (liturgical music) | 59:49 |
Item Info
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