Arthur James Armstrong - "How Wide the Wall" (February 9, 1975)

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	(soulful music)	0:03
-	Let us pray.	3:47
	Oh God, will make us glad with the weak remembrance	3:50
	of the resurrection of thy son our Lord,	3:57
	give us this day such blessing through our worship of thee,	4:01
	that the days to come maybe spent in thy service,	4:07
	through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	4:12
	(choir sings harmoniously)	4:18
	To recognize the holiness and grace of almighty God,	10:18
	makes us also aware of our condition as persons.	10:26
	Let us offer unto God our confession,	10:33
	and let us do so, knowing that God's grace precedes,	10:38
	surrounds, and suckers us, let us pray.	10:45
	God be merciful to us for we are sinners,	10:54
	we are tired of concession with self,	10:58
	show us ways of finding you	11:02
	and of finding our brothers and sisters,	11:05
	and of finding ourselves more truly in worship of you	11:08
	and in service to all people.	11:13
	We are sick of the injustice and cruelty	11:16
	of which the whole world groans.	11:20
	We hear the cries of the oppressed	11:23
	and remember the desperate anxiety	11:26
	of those who face this year without employment,	11:29
	victims of the world's greed,	11:33
	give us wisdom and grace	11:36
	to establish justice between people.	11:39
	God be merciful to us for we are sinners.	11:42
	God has forgiven you,	12:19
	God has accepted you,	12:21
	lift up your hearts in gratitude and hope.	12:25
	(soft piano plays)	12:36
	(choir sings harmoniously)	13:08
-	The first scripture lesson for today	17:00
	is from the 13th book of Romans, the first four verses,	17:03
	listen for the word of God.	17:08
	Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,	17:13
	for there is no authority except from God.	17:17
	And those that exist have been instituted by God.	17:22
	Therefore he who resists the authorities,	17:27
	resists what God has appointed,	17:30
	and those who resist will incur judgment.	17:34
	For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.	17:39
	Would you have no fear of him who he in authority?	17:46
	Then do what is good and you will receive his approval	17:51
	for he is God's servant for your good.	17:56
	But if you do wrong, be afraid,	18:02
	for he does not bear the sword in vain.	18:06
	He is the servant of God	18:10
	to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.	18:13
	The second scripture for today	18:25
	is the 13th chapter of Revelation, the first four verses,	18:28
	listen for the word of God.	18:34
	And I saw a beast rising out of the sea	18:39
	with 10 horns and seven heads,	18:44
	with 10 diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name	18:46
	upon its heads.	18:50
	And the beast that I saw was like a leopard,	18:52
	its feet were like a bears	18:56
	and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.	18:58
	And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne	19:02
	and great authority.	19:06
	One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound	19:09
	but it's mortal wound was healed.	19:12
	And the whole earth followed the beast with wonder.	19:15
	Men worshiped the dragon for he had given his authority	19:20
	to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying,	19:25
	"Who is like the beast?	19:30
	And who can fight against it?"	19:33
	Here ends the readings for today.	19:37
	(soft piano plays)	19:40
	(choir sings harmoniously)	19:49
-	Let us affirm together central elements of our faith.	20:23
	We are not alone,	20:29
	we live in God's world,	20:31
	we believe in God who has created and is creating,	20:33
	who has come in the true man, Jesus	20:39
	to reconcile and make new.	20:43
	Who works in us and others by his spirit.	20:46
	We trust him.	20:50
	He calls us to be his church, to celebrate his presence,	20:52
	to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,	20:57
	to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	21:03
	our judge and our hope,	21:07
	in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.	21:10
	We are not alone, thanks be to God.	21:17
	The Lord be with you.	21:22
-	And with your spirit.	21:25
-	Let us pray.	21:26
	Oh God, father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,	21:41
	hear our cry unto thee and renew our trust	21:49
	that we may live, move and be in the world with confidence.	21:57
	When we face cruelty, pain and suffering,	22:08
	our spirits falter and our hearts grow cold,	22:14
	we are fearful and desperate.	22:20
	Be thou, oh God, very near to us and to others who tremble,	22:26
	who hurt, and who cry.	22:32
	Comfort us and heal us of our afflictions,	22:38
	renew our strength,	22:46
	put the wings of the eagle to our spirits	22:49
	that we may fly to the presence and abide in thy company.	22:53
	And there let our trust be renewed	23:00
	and our hope rekindled.	23:04
	Let us offer prayers for our world,	23:11
	for the hungry, the hurt, and the lost.	23:16
	Oh Lord, be with those in need and help us to meet that need	23:25
	as individuals and as a nation.	23:32
	Let us offer prayers for peace.	23:41
	In a world which continues to pulsate	23:49
	with the ravages of inhuman strife,	23:51
	give to leaders a vision of peace	23:55
	for Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, the near East, Ethiopia,	24:00
	oh God, we pray for mercy and peace	24:15
	and a reconstruction of life.	24:20
	Let us pray for the poor and those out of work.	24:29
	In a world where money is necessary for life,	24:37
	be thou with those who are without,	24:41
	those who are unemployed,	24:45
	those who lack the necessities of life.	24:49
	Help us to find policies and personal concern	24:56
	deep enough to alleviate this situation.	25:00
	And let us pray for ourselves.	25:09
	Dear God, make us sensitive to the needs of our world,	25:14
	make us good disciples of thy spirit,	25:21
	persons whose faith is renewed	25:25
	and whose mission is the extension of thy gracious love.	25:28
	And this we pray in the spirit, and in the name of Jesus,	25:36
	as we also pray the prayer which he taught us,	25:44
	our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,	25:49
	thy kingdom come,	25:55
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	25:58
	Give us this day our daily bread	26:03
	and forgive us our trespasses	26:06
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	26:09
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,	26:14
	for thine is the kingdom, and the power,	26:20
	and the glory forever, amen.	26:24
	We welcome to our pulpit today, Bishop James Armstrong	26:41
	of the Dakotas area of the United Methodist Church.	26:48
	It is with pleasure, with unusual anticipation,	26:56
	and prayerful support that we hear.	27:03
-	First, could I ask a moment's indulgence.	27:17
	Harold Bosley, intimately associated with this university,	27:23
	and this chapel across the years,	27:29
	within recent weeks, has died.	27:33
	He first came to my attention when I was a college student	27:38
	and he was the dean of this divinity school.	27:43
	He has inspired me across the years, I love the man,	27:47
	and would appreciate it because of his special relationship	27:54
	to you and all you represent,	27:58
	if we could have a moment of silent, grateful, remembrance,	28:01
	let us pray.	28:07
	Amen.	28:24
	We are moving through the eve	28:28
	of a bicentennial celebration.	28:33
	Already being exposed to,	28:37
	we face a certain onslaught of patriotic sermonizing,	28:41
	editorializing, opinionizing,	28:50
	in the gathering atmosphere of this celebration	28:56
	it is of tremendous importance I think	28:59
	that we go back to those roots of our beginnings	29:03
	and better understand the doctrine	29:10
	of the separation of church and state,	29:13
	which one famed American jurist of another generation	29:17
	called the greatest contribution	29:21
	the United States has offered the world.	29:24
	The word God does not appear in the constitution.	29:33
	John Adams in an impertinent moment said,	29:38
	"Let us not pretend that those who framed our government	29:42
	had had interviews with the gods	29:45
	or were inspired by heaven."	29:47
	It is altogether possible he overstated his case.	29:52
	From the beginning, most of those responsible	29:56
	for framing the constitution	29:59
	were persons of religious sobriety.	30:01
	An element of God consciousness has continued	30:05
	in public servant hood across the generations.	30:08
	Two presidents as different as Franklin Delano Roosevelt	30:12
	and Dwight D. Eisenhower could pray before the nation	30:15
	as they led it in conversation.	30:19
	Justice William O. Douglas,	30:23
	who has sat on the Supreme Court longer than any other,	30:25
	writing an opinion some 25 years ago said,	30:29
	"The institutions of our nation presuppose a divine being."	30:33
	But all of this being true,	30:40
	the fact remains that those who framed the government	30:43
	were sufficiently suspicious to create a doctrine	30:47
	of the separation of church and state,	30:52
	a phrase that does not appear in the constitution.	30:56
	They insisted that a wall,	31:00
	albeit a porous wall of separation	31:03
	existed between the fundamental institutions of society,	31:09
	church and state,	31:13
	be erected permitting interaction between the two	31:16
	without domination of the one by the other.	31:20
	And all of this was based on a very healthy skepticism.	31:25
	On the one hand, they and sensitive spirits across the ages	31:29
	have understood that the state can be and has been	31:36
	an enemy of the free human spirit.	31:41
	Now there's confusion, contradiction, ambivalence	31:44
	in the Bible at this point,	31:48
	we found it in the reading of scripture	31:51
	just a few moments ago.	31:52
	Paul on the one hand insisted that all authority	31:54
	comes from God	31:57
	and therefore it is the responsibility of the citizen	31:58
	to yield to that authority come what may.	32:01
	On the other hand, John of Patmos	32:05
	writing from his prison isolation	32:07
	insisted that such authority, that such power,	32:10
	is identified with the beast	32:13
	and later he called a government, a particular government,	32:15
	his Roman government, the mother of harlots.	32:19
	Each overstated the case.	32:24
	Paul later appeared to modify his position,	32:27
	when arrested for civil disobedience,	32:30
	he rationalized his activities	32:33
	by appealing to the highest magistrate of his small land	32:35
	saying, "I have not been disobedient	32:40
	to the heavenly vision."	32:43
	Nor was the state as bestial as John suggested.	32:46
	It was an add mixture as each of us	32:51
	is an add mixture of good and evil.	32:53
	Carl Becker, the famed historian,	32:58
	helping us better understand our own traditions,	33:00
	reminded us that American people traditionally	33:04
	have not regarded the state as an enemy, exactly.	33:07
	Perhaps it's kind of a friendly enemy,	33:13
	made up of public servants chosen by us from our ranks	33:16
	to perform our tasks for us.	33:21
	But we built certain safeguards into the system	33:25
	so that we limit those serving us to terms of office,	33:28
	and he said, "We can always turn the Rascals out."	33:31
	We sometimes forget where we came from.	33:36
	This nation of ours was born	33:40
	in the cradle of a bloody revolution,	33:43
	a rebellion against the tyranny of an oppressive governor.	33:47
	George III was the villain.	33:53
	Most of us have read and some remembered the early lines	33:56
	of the declaration of independence.	34:00
	Few of us have pursued that declaration	34:04
	through its bill of particulars.	34:07
	To read the charges leveled against the King of England.	34:10
	This one who we said had plundered our seas,	34:13
	ravaged our coastline, burned our cities,	34:18
	and destroyed the lives of our people.	34:21
	The skepticism that seemed to come bubbling to the surface	34:26
	during the U-2 incident in the Bay of Pigs	34:29
	and the Bay of Tonkin Resolution and Watergate,	34:31
	is as old as the Republic is old.	34:35
	For we have known as others before us that power corrupts,	34:39
	that absolute power corrupts absolutely,	34:45
	and that when power is concentrated in few hands,	34:49
	it presents temptations difficult to withstand.	34:54
	The 20th century has underscored and italicized that fact.	35:01
	One afternoon, just a few months ago,	35:07
	my wife and I walked through Dachau,	35:10
	the heinous concentration camp of Nazi Germany.	35:15
	Went through the museum.	35:20
	Saw all those wall-sized,	35:22
	black and white photographic panels	35:24
	depicting the indescribable inhumanity of that era	35:29
	of our common life.	35:37
	The piles of the dead were there.	35:39
	We saw the places where prisoners had been hung	35:42
	or hang themselves, the places where they had been shot.	35:45
	We saw the shower stalls erected so that poison gas fumes	35:49
	could be poured upon the waiting victims.	35:54
	We saw the crematorium, the ovens,	35:58
	where persons living and dead	36:01
	were placed in a churning inferno,	36:04
	we saw the smoke stacks were wisps of yellow smoke,	36:07
	symbolizing all that remained of human bones and flesh	36:12
	rafted out across a city of 1 million people.	36:16
	It was government, a demonic state that did that.	36:21
	In this century, we have seen the most remarkable	36:28
	geo-political phenomena of human history.	36:32
	In half a century, communism has embraced half a globe.	36:38
	For too long this land burrowed its head in the sand	36:45
	and refused to acknowledge what was happening	36:48
	in the People's Republic of China.	36:50
	There has been massive land reform.	36:55
	Jobs, education have been provided,	36:59
	nearly 1 billion people plagued by seasonal ravages	37:03
	of starvation year after year have been pulled back	37:07
	from the brink of that ultimate physical disaster,	37:12
	and yet who among us would suggest that individual freedom	37:17
	as we think of individual freedom	37:21
	exists in the People's Republic?	37:23
	The Soviet Union was able to rest Mother Russia	37:27
	from the tyranny of the czars	37:31
	but there followed blood purges, slave labor camps,	37:33
	the rape of Eastern Europe,	37:37
	the oppression or suppression of dissent,	37:40
	the persecution of Soviet Jews.	37:45
	Nor do we in this nation,	37:49
	with the memory of the incineration of 100,000 persons	37:54
	in Hiroshima and Indochina and Watergate,	37:59
	have any right to cluck in self-righteousness.	38:06
	A few more than 100 years ago it was a south Carolinian	38:12
	who coined the phrase manifest destiny,	38:15
	suggesting that the United States of America	38:19
	was to be a God appointed political Messiah	38:22
	for the remainder of the world.	38:26
	The Monroe doctrine simply claim this hemisphere	38:31
	is our very special province.	38:34
	Following World War II, we were convinced	38:38
	that we had every right to police the world	38:41
	to impose our peculiar values on the remainder of the world,	38:44
	to evaluate every other system of thought	38:49
	and governmental structure on the basis of our commitments,	38:52
	and we were very religious about it all.	38:57
	And there emerged as vividly as at any time past,	39:01
	a form of civil religion that still reigns among us.	39:07
	It was assumed and is by many still assumed	39:15
	that a plethora of congressional prayer breakfasts	39:19
	and governors' prayer breakfasts	39:23
	and pious petitions addressed to the almighty	39:25
	from distant spaceships proved our holiness.	39:28
	It was assumed that worship services in the White House	39:36
	proved our goodness.	39:39
	It was felt that hands placed upon Bibles	39:44
	when oaths of office were taken,	39:46
	and sacred words inscribed on coinage,	39:48
	and pious phrases inserted in state oaths of allegiance,	39:52
	one nation under God proved our holiness.	39:58
	And yet all the while, minorities struggle for their rights,	40:05
	pockets of poverty haunt the land,	40:15
	welfare policies and programs humiliate and pauperize	40:21
	the unfortunate in our midst.	40:29
	Decisions made on Wall Street and in Washington	40:32
	further separate the haves from the have-nots	40:37
	as the unprincipled and unethical receive favors	40:40
	as the victims are more victimized.	40:45
	National priorities are awry, as we are told	40:50
	we must take in our belts and develop new lifestyles	40:56
	but at the same time must provide this year	40:59
	another $300 million for continuing insanity in Indochina.	41:02
	And we the taxpayers without any voice in the matter,	41:09
	are told we must continue to arm virtually every side	41:13
	in every conflict around the world.	41:16
	George Orwell's 1984, with its vision of a big brother	41:20
	looking down over our shoulders,	41:29
	with electronic surveillance and an omnicompetent government	41:34
	is present grim possibility.	41:41
	How grateful we can be that those who came before us	41:48
	said the Congress of the United States	41:54
	shall not establish any religion	41:56
	or prohibit the free exercise thereof,	41:59
	that we shall have freedom of speech and press and assembly,	42:03
	there shall be governmental responsibility and redress.	42:06
	For in this insistence upon checks and balances	42:11
	and the free expression of the human spirit,	42:15
	we at least have certain implicit guarantees	42:18
	against tyranny.	42:23
	But you see the skepticism wasn't reserved	42:26
	to government alone.	42:28
	It was understood by them and sensitive spirits before	42:31
	and since that the church as well can be, has been	42:34
	an enemy of the free human spirit.	42:38
	Medieval popes with their armies and intrigues	42:43
	and criminal alliances,	42:51
	with their holy wars and unholy inquisitions	42:54
	sought to impose their interpretation of the truth	42:59
	upon all surrounding person and territory.	43:03
	The reformers were little, if any better some of them.	43:07
	Martin Luther's statements against the Jews	43:12
	fed the flames of antisemitism in Hitler's third right.	43:15
	He once said, "My conscience is bound to the word of God."	43:20
	But his rebellion against authority was limited	43:24
	almost exclusively to the religious sphere,	43:27
	so that during the Peasants' Revolt,	43:32
	he turned his back up on the peasants and said,	43:34
	"The princes are God, the people are Satan.	43:39
	I would rather side with the princes if wrong	43:45
	than the people if right."	43:48
	John Calvin, iron-fisted dictator of Geneva,	43:53
	burned heretical ideas in the person of Servetus	43:59
	at the stake,	44:03
	and so that you will know of my complete objectivity,	44:06
	John Wesley was a Tory through and through	44:08
	who took the dimmest possible view	44:15
	of the American revolution.	44:20
	Our forefathers came to these shores	44:24
	seeking religious liberty	44:27
	and then soon forgot why they come.	44:28
	So Boston had its laws against the Quakers	44:31
	and Salem had its witch hunts,	44:34
	Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, William Penn,	44:36
	were unusual because they were exceptions.	44:40
	They believe that the tolerance, the freedom,	44:42
	the individual liberty they claimed for themselves	44:45
	should be extended to each and all alike.	44:48
	It would be grand if we could say that	44:58
	following the expression of the declaration of independence	45:01
	and the guarantee of the bill of rights,	45:04
	the church had not been an oppressive presence	45:08
	in this country, that cannot be said.	45:12
	For 175 years or so, people like me and most of you	45:18
	rode very high in the saddle.	45:26
	Ours was a nation	45:30
	dominated by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants,	45:31
	the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, the Ku Klux Klan,	45:38
	and many other movements and moods reflecting that	45:41
	which they represented believed that blacks and Catholics	45:44
	and foreigners should be kept in their respective places.	45:50
	From the beginning, there was a close tie	45:58
	between evangelical Protestantism and public education,	46:00
	so that the celebrations and the festivals	46:06
	of the religious community we know best	46:09
	became the common festivals and celebrations	46:12
	of public education.	46:15
	We saw no inconsistencies and that certainly no wrong	46:18
	because we were not Jewish, we were not Hindu,	46:22
	we were not Muslim, we were not non-believers.	46:24
	And then the Supreme Court,	46:29
	offered its judgements with reference	46:32
	to particular kinds of prayers in the public schools	46:34
	and there arose and immediate den and hue and cry,	46:38
	because many of us did not fully understand	46:44
	that freedom of religion means exactly that,	46:47
	and that one group does not have a right to impose	46:52
	its judgements upon all others.	46:56
	The faith statements and the festivals	47:01
	of every religious community in this country	47:03
	are not only tolerated but are encouraged by law.	47:08
	But, that same law insists that the faith statements	47:14
	and festivals of any particular religious group	47:19
	dare not be considered the normative standard	47:24
	for all others, and that's what the separation is all about.	47:28
	Some of you here can remember the poisonous venom	47:38
	that was spewed into the national psyche	47:45
	during the presidential election of 1928.	47:49
	It was not until 1960 that a Roman Catholic	47:54
	could be elected president of the United States.	47:58
	During the early years of this century,	48:04
	a band of militant Protestants	48:07
	in the name of an enlightened approach to personal behavior	48:10
	and public responsibility,	48:16
	made possible the passage of the 18th Amendment	48:19
	and Prohibition.	48:22
	Prohibition failed because one group cannot impose	48:25
	its moral standards upon the whole.	48:29
	Now the abortion debate rages.	48:33
	Will the metaphysical, philosophical view	48:39
	of the personal life of the unborn fetus	48:45
	held by a particular religious community	48:50
	be imposed upon the rest of the nation as a whole?	48:55
	An executive director of the US Catholic has said,	49:01
	"No religious group, no matter how powerful,	49:05
	no matter how numerous, has a right to apply	49:10
	its political muscle to all other persons in the land."	49:12
	It is only right and natural	49:21
	that persons have high ethical commitment and ideal	49:24
	seek to persuade their surroundings	49:29
	to adopt their commitments and ideals,	49:32
	we would be less than committed	49:35
	if we did not seek to do that.	49:37
	But this kind of advocacy must	49:41
	within the framework of responsibility	49:44
	ever be faithful to the limitations	49:46
	imposed by a bill of rights on the one hand	49:48
	and the spirit of the faith we proclaim on the other.	49:52
	What then should our stance be	49:57
	in a nation honored for the separation of church and state?	50:02
	Well, what is the biblical standard?	50:10
	Must there be an absolute divorce?	50:14
	There has not been, there cannot be,	50:17
	the wall is a porous wall	50:19
	permitting interaction between the two.	50:22
	Joseph was the prime minister of Egypt.	50:26
	Moses stood before the mightiest monarch of his day	50:31
	and cried, "You let my people go."	50:35
	And when the cry fell on deaf ear,	50:39
	he went back to those people in bondage	50:41
	and he organized them and he led them in their slave revolt.	50:44
	Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah,	50:49
	cried out against war crimes and atrocities	50:55
	against carrying vanquished enemies off into slavery,	50:58
	against selling the poor for a pair of shoes,	51:03
	against the corruption and the opulent	51:07
	lifestyle of the nouveau riche,	51:09
	against courts that were unrighteous	51:13
	and princes that were pampered.	51:16
	They on some occasions,	51:19
	some of them shared in decisions of state craft,	51:21
	but they always stood in the name of God	51:24
	where they stood to pronounce their judgments upon policies	51:27
	and patterns of behavior that seemed to violate	51:31
	his absolute holiness.	51:35
	From the beginning,	51:39
	clergy and those of from religious conscience in this land	51:40
	have participated in the evolution of the Republic.	51:44
	They were present in the framing of the Mayflower Compact,	51:48
	preachers joined pamphleteers and patriots	51:52
	in preparing the soil of the colonies for revolution.	51:55
	John Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister,	52:00
	mentor of James Madison	52:02
	signed the declaration of independence.	52:04
	Bishop Matthew Simpson was friend, confidant,	52:08
	advisor of and to president Abraham Lincoln.	52:12
	They have been there from the beginning as reformers,	52:17
	abolitionists, voices for temperance, prophets of a new day,	52:21
	seeking to reflect the will of God	52:27
	as they understood that will in the midst of distress	52:30
	and the crisis of a real world.	52:35
	It was in 1970 that 16 members of the clergy	52:44
	ran for national office of one sort or another,	52:49
	that was a new wrinkle.	52:55
	Andrew Young, uniquely gifted United Church of Christ	52:58
	clergyman from Atlanta was defeated that year,	53:04
	was elected two years later.	53:09
	Father Robert J. Drinan, Jesuit priest,	53:12
	former Dean of the Boston College Law School	53:17
	was elected that year.	53:20
	You saw him serving on the judiciary committee	53:22
	as youthful followers carried big banners	53:25
	on the night of his victory that read,	53:27
	"Our father who art in Congress."	53:30
	In 1972, Bill Hudnut, Presbyterian friend	53:36
	was elected Republican Congressman	53:40
	from the 11th district of Indiana,	53:43
	he was defeated in 1974.	53:47
	But much more important	53:51
	than this kind of personal involvement	53:52
	in the body politic itself, is the commitment of all of us,	53:55
	as Christian citizens to improve the quality of life	54:02
	of our time in our land.	54:08
	I've been involved in this sort of thing for a long time.	54:15
	Remember when I was a very, very young preacher in Florida,	54:19
	George Smathers and Claude Pepper	54:25
	were contesting one another	54:27
	for the senatorial nomination of their party,	54:28
	and Congressman Smathers was saying one thing about race	54:33
	in the cosmopolitan county of Dade on the Gold Coast	54:37
	and quite another thing in Lake County and Orange County	54:41
	in Central and Northern Florida.	54:44
	I wrote him a stinging letter and got a response saying,	54:47
	"I am surprised that you would write such a letter	54:51
	on the letterhead of your church."	54:54
	In 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down	54:58
	its desegregation decision,	55:02
	the combined civic clubs of Jacksonville, Florida	55:06
	wanted three points of view presented,	55:08
	the extreme point of view, segregation,	55:11
	the moderate point of view,	55:14
	and the pro-Supreme Court point of view.	55:16
	They found a former gubernatorial candidate	55:19
	who was more than willing to present	55:22
	the extreme point of view,	55:23
	and the state attorney general was available	55:26
	to present the moderate point of view,	55:28
	but they couldn't find anyone until they got	55:31
	to the very bottom of the barrel	55:33
	and found an associate pastor	55:35
	on the staff of a downtown church	55:37
	to present a pro-Supreme Court point of view,	55:39
	and oh, the mail that followed.	55:43
	"You ain't fit to be no Methodist preacher,	55:47
	run this niger lover out, out quick."	55:49
	One of the gentle missive suggested.	55:53
	In Indiana, where I was privileged to serve	55:57
	for more than 10 years, I was on the mayor's committee	56:01
	on human rights, on housing,	56:04
	on the community relations service council,	56:07
	on the platform committee for the state of Indiana	56:10
	of my party,	56:13
	was involved in reform politics at the municipal level	56:15
	that led eventually to the election of Richard Lugar	56:18
	as mayor, who was one of the keynoters	56:21
	of the 1972 Republican National Convention.	56:24
	And since going to the Dakotas I've continued an involvement	56:28
	in public life that led just a few months ago	56:32
	to partisan efforts on behalf of our senior senator	56:36
	in his reelection campaign.	56:40
	And I addressed the state convention,	56:43
	and was seen on certain TV slots	56:47
	in the company of the senator and his wife here and there,	56:50
	the largest church in the area	56:53
	had a group of indignant members	56:55
	who felt that I was completely out of line	56:58
	and they met one evening while I was in Europe	57:00
	attending a peace conference,	57:03
	and 125 of them signed a petition	57:05
	suggesting that I returned to what they called	57:08
	the normal behavior of a churchman	57:10
	and stop my activities in what they called	57:14
	political and other secular affairs.	57:16
	And I came back and attempted to address the situation	57:22
	by going to the church and meeting with them	57:26
	and talking with them.	57:28
	By issuing a statement suggesting that a clergyman	57:30
	does not surrender his citizenship	57:33
	at the moment of his ordination,	57:35
	by reminding them and others	57:38
	that the United Methodist Church is a free church,	57:40
	the United States of America is a free land,	57:43
	and that I would continue as I prayed they would continue	57:46
	to exercise that freedom as prayerfully and responsibly	57:50
	as I knew how.	57:55
	There must be interaction between our communities	57:58
	and disciplines if the land as a whole is to prosper.	58:02
	But how grateful we can be that a wall has been thrust down	58:08
	between the two institutions, so that one cannot dominate,	58:14
	cannot silence the other.	58:19
	We're on the eve of a bicentennial celebration.	58:24
	We must understand that both church and state	58:28
	can be tyrannical.	58:31
	We must forswear any approach to political utopianism	58:34
	on the one hand or ecclesiastical triumphalism on the other,	58:38
	but rather rejoice in the fact that we are God's colony	58:44
	in man's world,	58:47
	that as free spirits with consciences	58:49
	bound to the word of God	58:52
	we can try to address both church and state	58:53
	in the name of humanity.	58:56
	That righteousness and justice might prevail,	58:59
	and that this land and all of the lands of the earth	59:04
	might be fairer, brighter places,	59:08
	as God's will is done in our midst,	59:11
	even as it is in realms beyond.	59:15
-	Let us pray.	59:23
	God help us to be Christian citizens,	59:31
	patriotic without apology,	59:41
	but loyal to thy living word above all other allegiances	59:46
	of life.	59:50
	These things we pray in the name of Christ,	59:54
	who died for the least among us, amen.	1:00:00
	(soft piano plays)	1:00:08
	(choir sings harmoniously)	1:00:50
-	Oh God, most merciful and gracious,	1:08:57
	of whose bounty we have all received,	1:09:01
	accept this offering of thy people.	1:09:04
	Remember in thy love those we've brought it	1:09:08
	and those for whom it is given.	1:09:12
	And so follow it with high blessing	1:09:16
	that it may promote peace and goodwill among men,	1:09:20
	and advance the kingdom of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ,	1:09:24
	amen.	1:09:30
	(soft piano plays)	1:09:32
	(choir sings harmoniously)	1:09:57
	Dismiss us now oh Lord, with thy blessing	1:13:11
	and accompany us ever with thy grace,	1:13:16
	that we may henceforth live in peace,	1:13:20
	love and holiness through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	1:13:24
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:33
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:38
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:43
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:57
	♪ Amen ♪	1:14:06
	♪ Amen ♪	1:14:18
	(bell chimes)	1:14:32
	(soft piano plays)	1:14:46

Item Info

Title:

Arthur James Armstrong - "How Wide the Wall" (February 9, 1975)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4m32sb5v

Date:

February 9, 1975

Speaker:

Armstrong, James, 1924-

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0748
ref6697_4i5
uachapelsermaud
duke:628125
dcrau002719
ark:/87924/r4m32sb5v
064af879-9857-469f-b235-a4dc611e1268

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Unknown Rights-Holder

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Arthur James Armstrong - "How Wide the Wall" (February 9, 1975)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

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