Transcript
MCCOY: -- in March, 1965, sensitive men of goodwill everywhere were shocked by the death of a young pastor who had gone to Selma, Alabama not as one act but as one in a series of acts that had characterized his life
and his ministry. When the event took place, I was in Melbourne, Australia. And I remember the reaction there, Down Under, on the other side of the world. And the [witness?] that was born for human rights, human dignity, human equality, and human possibilities. Princeton
Theological Seminary is proud of James Reeb, an alumnus of the Class of 1953. The alumni council of the seminary, meeting soon after his martyrdom, recommended to the board of trustees that James Reeb be memorialized, first of all in a plaque
that will be dedicated on Alumni Day, June 6, when my distinguished predecessor, Dr. Mackay will return to Princeton to participate in the service of dedication. A plaque to be placed alongside of others, memorializing nine alumni and wives who lost their lives overseas in China, in India,
in the service of Christ and His Kingdom. The other recommendation was that a series of lectures be established in memory of James Reeb, and that the lectures deal with the concerns that were at the center of his own life and dedication. Those concerns can be seen in his career as a student in St. Olaf's
and then in Princeton Seminary, in his interest and ministering to human need, as a chaplain in a hospital in Philadelphia, working in the Philadelphia YMCA, as one of the ministers of the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., and also working with the Friends in
in Boston and in Roxbury, in attempting to deal with the problem that our nation has put off far too long, and which now has been thrust upon us. When a call came from Dr. Martin Luther King for support in Selma, Alabama, it was inevitable that one with the commitment of James Reeb would respond.
We know the result. But do we know the result? We read now that this was an event which galvanized the conscience of the nation. It must continue to galvanize the conscience of every man of goodwill until we have not only met but met successfully all the problems that divide men from each other and that tend
to thwart the purpose of God in binding all His creation into one fellowship. When the board of trustees authorized the lectureship, it was quite easy to make a selection for the churchman who would inaugurate the James Reeb Memorial Lectures, a distinguished alumnus of the
seminary of the Class of 1932, who in his capacity as the chief executive officer of the church has lead this -- one of Christ's churches into taking a more Christ-like stand in the struggle for reconciliation and human rights. He will be presented to you by the president of the alumni council, the Reverend Frank Watson,
a member of the Class of 1957 and minister of the Presbyterian church in White Plains, New York. Before he presents the Reeb Memorial lecturer, however, I should like to extend a most cordial welcome on behalf of the trustees and faculty and students to Mrs. James Reeb and to her son John,
born in Princeton 14 years ago today to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Reeb, also of Casper, Wyoming, the parents of the Reverend James Reeb, and also to relatives, Mr. and Mrs. [Cable?] -- Mrs. Cable is the aunt of James Reeb -- and to tell them that in coming back to the campus of the seminary, we want to share with you our pride
and also our commitment, individually and corporately, to the cause for which James gave his life.
WATSON: Mrs. Reeb, Dr. McCoy, there are very few places left in the world where Dr. Eugene Carson Blake needs an introduction, and those few remaining are fast disappearing. What may one say? He is the very model of a secretary general, [who has?] the latest [words?]
and affairs ecclesiastical, [written all?] the finest rules in matters managerial, and knows just all the folks to know in affairs ecclesiastical. He is the very image of a secretary general. Very rarely -- [but here in?] -- two men whom we acknowledge and remember this evening are combined
by the rare gifts of charismatic and personal organizational leadership. Following Dr. Blake's graduation from Lawrenceville Prep School and then later Princeton University, and then Princeton Seminary here in 1932, he gave distinguished leadership in three different pastorates before the Presbyterian Church called upon him to serve as
stated clerk for our denomination. He added to that later his personal leadership as chairman of the National Council of Churches Commission on Religion and Race. And just within the last few weeks, you have heard of his election to be secretary general of the World Council of Churches, and those responsibilities he will assume in December of this year. Because Eugene Carson Blake is one of those men
who has put his life and his energies where his faith is, men listen to what he has to say. Dr. Blake.
BLAKE: The subject of this lecture is militant Christianity, defense and offense. When I was a small boy in a Presbyterian Sunday school, we used with some gusto to sing "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war with the Cross of Jesus going on before." Next
to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," I think it was the most popular hymn we sang. But for a good many years now, "Onward Christian Soldiers" has not been a fashionable hymn to sing in many church circles. The reason for this is, I suppose, the bad conscience of many Christians as to their churches' failures in wartime to make sufficient distinction between the nation's
war effort and the battle in which the churches themselves should be directly engaged. Actually, there's nothing wrong and a good deal right with the sentiment expressed in "Onward Christian Soldiers" if you think about what the words really say. Note that the war supported in that opening verse is the battle of the church. Christian soldiers are marching as
to war. Moreover, there is a cross of Jesus going on before, which symbolizes, I suggest, both the purpose of this Christian war and even hints at its unique method of victory. Not by the infliction of suffering on an enemy, but rather by the voluntary acceptance of suffering by Christian soldiers.
In this vein, I have chosen to speak to you tonight on this subject, militant Christianity, defense and offense. I would make it clear at the outset that I use this military metaphor not in any connection whatever with the nation's present military effort in Vietnam, but rather to set the tone of what I want to say about the present state of the Christian Church, particularly in our nation, but also in the
world as the churches -- engage in its battle, both to survive and to be relevant to the life of men and women everywhere. Now, the church militant is the traditional way to describe the Christian church theologically in salvation history, between the coming of Jesus Christ almost 2,000 years ago and his Parousia, His Second Coming
in power to establish His Kingdom on Earth. I do not, however, want to use our time together to discuss the theology of dispensationalism, but rather to remind you that to think of Christians and the church as an army of soldiers is on the whole right and useful. By using the military metaphor, we can be reminded of a number of truths that are
always in danger of being forgotten in the church. For example, there is a leader and commander, [even?] Jesus Christ. Again, there are powerful enemies who will be defeated only if in addition to loyalty there is some strategy in our Christian efforts. Furthermore, we need to remember that the church is not essentially an institution, but rather a movement. It has a mission in the military sense of that word, that is to say an objective
to be achieved, and there are adversaries who stand in the way of its being reached. One can go on and be reminded of the discipline and organization required as much in an effective church as in an effective army. Further, there is variety and diversity in every army. Some fight on the front lines, others are engaged in bringing up supplies and the support from the rear. There are skirmishers, cavalry,
artillery, even spies, as well as quartermasters, foot soldiers, cooks, physicians, and generals. One could go on in this way, and remember, too, that unity is as important to the church as it is to an army. Surely, variety and diversity are important, too, but no more than coordination, discipline, unified command.
My topic indicates, however, that I want to speak to you tonight on just two aspects of the Christian effort in our time that are suggested by it. Militant Christianity, defense and offense. I do not know how many of you may be chess players. In this age of television, it's my guess that few play chess very often anymore. Let me make it clear at the outset
that I speak about chess not as an expert, but as a rank amateur. But this much I've learned about this very military game. After the formal opening, one soon finds himself both under attack and attacking. The king and the other pieces, too, must be constantly defended, but no victory will be won in chess unless you attack, as well. And the fun of the game is the combination
of the two purposes. Nothing is quite so much fun as to find the defensive move forced on you by your opponent which is at the same time -- attacks puts pressure on a piece of your opponent in the very process of defending your own. Or perhaps some of you are more familiar with football. A successful football team must be able both to score itself and to keep down the score of the other team.
And one of the best ways to defend is what coaches call ball control, which is to keep on the attack for as many minutes of each quarter as possible. The best defense is often a good offense. So much for illustrations. I want to talk to you tonight about what the church must defend, and also what it must attack. To do this, first of all, I must remind you
of the obvious fact that our world is a changing world, rapidly changing. This has been said so often and in so many ways it's hard to talk about it without boring you by repeating what you've heard too often already. So, I shall merely use the common words to remind you of the extent and depth of the changes that we are facing in our world whether we like it or not, and most people don't like it much. For it is, I believe, the number of changes that we are facing, plus their interplay on each other, that causes most of the
fear and frustration that characterize our times. I just mention the things to remind you of them. Population explosion all over the world. What do we do to feed, house, and organize the life of men whose numbers are growing by geometric progression? Urbanization. How do we keep human life human and humane when men are more and more packed into high-rise apartments in bigger and bigger cities?
Technological unemployment. How do we find jobs for everybody when programmed machines do so many things better? And how do we use the leisure that these machines make possible? Depersonalization. How do we avoid becoming merely numbers in some machine? Cybernetics. Who is to program the machines, and on what basis of what values? Nuclear war. How do we prevent it, and how do we find ways to promote a peaceful change?
The shrinking world. What does it mean that on radio we can hear -- and on television soon, we will see anything of importance immediately, wherever it happens in the whole globe? Interdependence. What does it mean to be dependent for life itself on electricity or rapid transit or good labor relations? Pluralism. How can you reconcile necessary tolerance with vital convictions? I've said enough, I hope, to make it clear to all of us that our world
is becoming rapidly a very different place from that into which most of us were born. Change is rapid. It is even revolutionary. And as I have said, most of us don't like it. Our securities are threatened. We fear the future. We want to withdraw, but we find ourselves increasingly involved whether we will or no. What do Christians do in such a changing world? Is the Christian faith relevant, really,
to any of this? Or is that, as some people say, not a religious subject at all? My topics suggests that militant Christianity is relevant, that a battle's going on, a battle in this world of change that the church must join in the battle. And this battle is both defensive and offensive, as is every battle. I ask you to consider with me, then, these two questions. What must we defend,
and what do we attack? What does militant Christian faith defend? First of all, in the church, I suggest we defend the faith itself. One of the reasons that conservative minded Christians are so much upset with the world and with their churches today is that they fear that the churches are listening so much to the secular world that they are giving up the essential reason and
basis for their existence, namely God and the Gospel, the Gospel being the good news of Jesus Christ. And I suppose this fear has some grounds. In every age, there is the possibility that the essential values and goods of the past will be lost, or partly lost, as men struggle to adjust to the present and plan for the future. What are the conservatives
among us properly worried about in the church and in the world? Well, they're afraid, it's quite clear from reading the secular press, that their ministers and leaders don't believe in God anymore, or at least that He is alive. They're afraid they don't believe in morality anymore, that there is a right or a wrong. They're afraid we don't believe the Bible anymore, and that there no longer is any authority to depend on. They're afraid that denominational leaders don't believe
in their denominations, that they've given up on the congregations which make up the church, and that the laypeople are not heeded in their concerns. Now, remember my point is that militant faith will defend the truth and the values of our past. And my sincere answer to the conservatives of the church and of the nation is that it is important that we lose none of these things which are their concern. It's how -- it is, however,
interesting to me that despite all these fears, which I have already said I think are legitimate, that all of these had more ground when I was a boy 50 years ago, in my judgment, than they have today. Fifty years ago, the Christian understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and the Bible was more under attack than it is today, either in the world or in the church itself. I remind you that Darwin and evolution, technology -- primitive though it was by our present
standards -- and materialism, the historical criticism of the Bible, the whole idea of Revelation were shaking the very foundations of Christian faith in 1916, 40 years ago -- or is it 50 -- 50 years ago. Time goes by. They were being shaken then in a way that none of these, quote, new ideas, unquote, or their successors are doing today. The climax
of the battle of defense came about 1926 in the Presbyterian Church in the USA., 40 years ago. And ever since, the church has been stronger in a defensible faith than it had been since the Industrial Revolution and Darwin. In another connection, I've recently outlined what appears to me to have been the ecumenical consensus theology that has made the church stronger in these past 30 or 40 years than it had been before.
May I repeat those four points here? The theology that undergirds the major churches in our land, Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic, may be summed up in four major convictions. There is a transcendent God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Knowledge of this God is found in reading the Scriptures and understanding what the Bible says in historical context and with
critical analysis. Third, the heart of Christian faith remains what it has always been. God who created the universe is redeemer through Jesus Christ, and He is fulfilling His purpose in history. And fourth, time makes ancient good uncouth, which fact requires us radically to revise our understanding of what
should be expected of followers of Jesus Christ today in their life in the world as contrasted with what anyone thought was required 50 years ago. I suggest to you this ecumenical faith is not an easy faith or a minimum one. This is the traditional faith, restated for our times. Now, it's under attack from many quarters just now. It needs to be defended, not merely
as a theoretical theology, but rather as the convictions by which we must live if we are to be in this fight as Christian soldiers. And so, I would therefore remind those who are conservatives in the church, who are even fearful that the faith is being betrayed by the church itself, that they usually are attacking the wrong enemy when they are fundamentally critical of this
ecumenical consensus that has been guiding most of the churches in our land these years. As in a confused battle in a fog, it's not always easy to determine who is friend and who is foe. So, today, many fearful conservatives do not realize that the restatement of the ancient faith and its defense is, in fact, the number one
duty of the church in our time, and the church has been doing fairly well at that. The second place militant Christian faith in our times and in this country is called upon, I believe, to defend the best of the heritage of our nation. I mentioned just four aspects of our American heritage that I believe all Christians in this land ought to be joining
in defending. First is equality, especially equality of opportunity. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States were written on the conviction that all men had, by their creation, had rights. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the classic formula. Totalitarian governments of both the left and the right ignore and trample these basic and unalienable
rights of men. It's true that we have not, as a nation, lived up to this initial faith or conviction. Took almost 100 years for the nation to understand that the slavery of Africans was a basic contradiction to our basic national position. And as we approach the end of another 100 years, we confess that these rights are still unsecured for all our people. We must, as Christians, defend
the basic equality of all men, as the Pledge of Allegiance expresses it, with liberty and justice for all. We must defend, in the second place, responsible individual freedom. I've traveled a good deal in the past 10 years in communist countries. One thing that we have that these totalitarian states do not have is individual freedom. If and when the power
of any state is used to coerce men, either to think alike or to regiment their acts, the freedom which we must as Christians defend is lost. But our nation is lost if, generally speaking, this freedom is irresponsibly used by us. We must, as Christians, uphold responsible freedom. We must again defend individual enterprise.
The strength of our nation, a great deal of it, is in the -- its voluntarism. In business, in social concern, in government. This is one part of the importance of the church and of the trade union movement and of the chamber of commerce and of the women's clubs and a whole galaxy of voluntary enterprises of our nation. The
encouragement of free enterprise in this sense is one part of our heritage we must be in the business of defending. Finally, we must, as Christians, I believe, in this country, defend government of and by and for the people. We are a proud people, and all our pride is not evil. We should be proud of our great experiment in government,
its stability, its resiliency, its measure of justice. By no means have we been perfect. During most of our history, municipal government has been excessively corrupt and still remains so. But we have institutions of freedom which must be defended. If we successfully defend our faith and our heritage in the terms I've stated them, we will have made a relevant contribution of faith to life that our
demand of us. I am pleading with all of you to be conservatives in this sense. But to conserve the good of the past and to defend it requires us equally to attack, to lead in the office that militant Christian faith requires of us. What then must we attack? I mention three enemies that must be defeated. The first
is that too prevalent conservative idea and attitude that the new, that innovation, is wrong per se. Some of you will remember when I said earlier that I -- when I merely listed the new facts that we face in a changing and revolutionary world. To try to be conservative by ignoring these new conditions in which all men find themselves today and to resist for this reason
the efforts to change anything is the new way to lose the old battle. It's because we are conservative in the right sense that there must be these innovations, with all their risks undertaken. The most exciting and rewarding things that have been happening in the life of the church and its connected movements are precisely the surprising new stances and activities that have been so controversial
in these past years. Nuns demonstrating in the streets for civil rights. Ministers of comfortable churches with their young people, once in a while an officer, actually risking their lives out of a militant Christian faith. Ecclesiastical officials willing to risk the institution's unity and strength for the purpose of saving its soul. These are the reasons it's good to be alive in the Christian movement today,
and I feel very sorry for all of those who through fear or misunderstanding haven't been a part of it. It is the new patterns of life -- the new patterns of life conserving the values of the past that are the hope of the future. Again, we must attack hypocrisy, which is today as it was 2,000 years ago the chief sin of all religious people.
I do not believe we ought to be easily charging hypocrisy, particularly against those who may disagree with us about this or that policy. But I do suggest that we must attack, root and branch, those who profess Americanism and Christianity and wrap themselves up in the American flag to cover up their major concern, which is to hold onto the privileges, the special privileges, which they enjoy.
We'll never successfully resist atheistic communism in this world unless we stop using God to defend pocketbooks and privilege. The Marxist charge is, you see, that all our institutions, including the church, are but thinly disguised attempts to keep the masses of the people down in order that the privileged people may stay in control and protect those privileges. They charge that our
laws do not even aim at justice, but rather at order and control. They say that our whole way of life is a gigantic hoax on the common people in the name of God. I shall not take time this evening to demolish this Marxist argument. It can be demolished. But it cannot ever be successfully countered in the world today unless we who do believe in freedom repent of our greed and turn from
our personal fears and give up our hypocrisies and begin to look at what we must do in this kind of world. Most of you know that in the past few years, I've been giving a good deal of my time to the concerns of race and poverty. I mention these two areas of present concern because they are the best illustrations of the hypocrisy of the church and nation, which must be attacked in order to save both the church and the nation.
Despite the clear teachings of the Christian Gospel, despite the basic framework of the Constitution of the United States that racial prejudice and racial discrimination are utterly wrong, there are still millions of Christian Americans who have not been brave enough yet to take their stand, unequivocally, for racial and economic justice in this land. I'm not charging any individual with conscious hypocrisy. That's not the
issue. I do charge that groups of Americans who have not yet joined in this critical battle, the battle to establish equal justice, to establish freedom, to establish opportunity for all in our land and in the world -- I charge them with the ultimate betrayal of the church and of the nation out of fear and out of selfishness. The slum housing in
in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, Baltimore, St. Louis, you name it -- this slum housing is a disgrace to any nation, and especially to one of our affluence. And this will be the cause of the collapse of our nation unless we tear those tenements down and build decent housing for the poor. The educational system which gives poor education to the poor and continues the poverty in a
cycle that cannot be broken must be supported by more dollars than any legislation has yet dreamed of, and by the people. The health of the poor in this rich land is a disgrace to any nation. The racial discrimination in jobs, the level of wages in the worst jobs -- I refer to migrants, tenant farmers, service employees, domestics, hospital orderlies, all the kinds of mean jobs, these give ground
for the Marxist charge against our whole way of life. Now, you'll note that I have not used the words capitalism or socialism so far in this address. I suggest that they are mostly used to confuse the issues, social and economic, that the nation and the world is facing, and to prevent any real answers being found. What I am saying, and I hope very clearly indeed, is that we must attack this
hypocrisy, which uses any kind of words to cover up hate and fear and greed. Finally, I suggest that we must attack that blighting cynicism which takes the heart out of the troops. This is where the church has its very specific contribution to make in the course of any battle. To believe in God is to have courage in the face even of defeat.
To follow Jesus Christ is not to be a romantic idealist but to believe, despite the sin of man, realistically observed, that men can be converted by the very power of God. To be a Christian is to believe that with God, the battle may be won in this world now as in eternity. The blight of cynicism, which leads to distrust of one another
and distrust of ourselves and so saps courage is an enemy that must be defeated in our land. So, I've tried tonight on this lecture to encourage you to a more militant Christian faith, to defend what is good, and to cherish it. To attack what is evil, and destroy it. Such faith gives meaning to human life
and gives hope to a revolutionary and a changing world. I remind you, as I close, that in this war, as in any war, there are casualties, and there are heroes, too. The old-fashioned word for Christian heroes who lose their lives in Christian warfare is martyr. A martyr is one who is killed as he or because he is witnessing
to his faith. As the history of the church in the '60s is later written, I hope those who describe our days will note clearly that the church militant in our land begins to have her martyrs again in the authentic sense of that old word. No normal man chooses to be a martyr. But men and women who did not even
know that they were being brave have found themselves answering a call from God that put their very lives in jeopardy. The martyrs of our time, as of any time, do not always agree theologically. Some don't even know they're Christian martyrs. All they know is that somehow, some way, they heard a call. Freely they answered it by putting themselves, their souls and bodies,
in the front line of conflict. James Reeb was a martyr of the Church of Jesus Christ. He studied theology in this institution. He became a Presbyterian minister. He left the Presbyterian ministry, doubtless partly because our church seemed to him too slow to move where the action was. He entered the ministry of a church that at a crucial point of theology is at sharp variance from
what he was taught here. And yet, this seminary, James Reeb's seminary, honors one of her sons by establishing this lectureship in his memory. Some would say, I suppose, that this is an embarrassment, both to the Presbyterian Church and to the seminary, and so it is. But the embarrassment I feel tonight is not that of a trustee of a seminary or of an officer of a church that cannot
boast of James Reeb's belonging to us theologically. My embarrassment is rather that we're a church and we are an institution which for too long has been content that its ministers and graduates should be safe and professional in their Christian calling. And I do not believe that it's the weight of orthodox or conservative theology that makes
heroes and martyrs move from us to the front line of battle in some other order. It is rather that we have not moved forward as our faith demands. We've been careful, and we've been self-protective. We have forgotten the cross practically of which we have made so much theologically. We have been, God
forgive us, more concerned with intellectual dogma than with courageous faith. May the martyr death of James Reeb keep on reminding us that right teaching is fruitless without courage and devotion. Let us all listen for the call that summons us from the safe and static camp into
the marching column. For the church begins to be again on the march, and as always, when the church is in the right battle, there is ever the cross of Jesus going on before.
MCCOY: The congregation will please rise while we are lead in a prayer of dedication and a benediction by Dean Arthur M. Adams.
ADAMS: Almighty Father, God of Jeremiah and John the Baptist, of Stephen and James, of Peter and Paul, God of witnesses and martyrs, whose lives are written in points of flame across the night sky of history, gathered here in the very chapel once familiar [to?] students [named Borden at?] Yale, [Dwight?]
[Hikekadawa?], and James Reeb, we pray for Thy church. Set today amid the perplexities of a changing order and face to face with great new tasks, when we compare her with other human institutions, we rejoice, for there is none like her. But when we judge her by the mind of her master, we bow
in pity and contrition. Bestow [upon?] Thy church a more imperious responsiveness to [duty?], a swifter compassion with suffering, and utter loyalty to Thy will. Put upon her lips the ancient Gospel of her Lord. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of God and the doom of all
that resists it. Fill her with the prophet's scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy laden and downtrodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and in their hands that grope after freedom and [life?], to recognize the bleeding hands of Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own [light?],
lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give her light to humanity, that like her crucified Lord, she may mount up by the path of the cross to a higher glow, through Jesus Christ. And now, may grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be (inaudible) with you ever more. Amen.