A VISIT TO BETHANY COLLEGE

Due to the gracious invitation of President Perry Epler Gresham I was a recent visitor at historic Bethany College. Mr. Howard Helmick, an attorney of Decatur, Illinois, and I drove through the rain all of the day of October 23 and arrived at Wheeling as night fell, only 12 miles short of our destination. We took “the cow path to culture” and drove into picturesque Bethany amidst a heavy downpour of rain. The small community that was both named and made famous by the Campbells is now a secluded suburb amidst “the Ruhr of America.” Besides nearby Wheeling there is Pittsburg but 40 miles to the east and Steubenville, Ohio only a few miles to the north. While Bethany itself with its hills and valleys and cow paths (and one store!) is very much as it was when Alexander Campbell spoke of it as “the most salubrious place in America,” it is now adjacent to two and a half million people of the industrially rich Ohio valley. This makes it possible for the visitor to live in both the past and the present.

The Campbell Mansion is of course one of the chief places of interest, not only to Disciples but to all lovers of American history. Here stands one of the first mansions erected west of the Allegheny mountains, dating back to 1793. And it was a mansion even from the beginning. John Brown, father-in-law to Alexander, built the house of oak timbers and hand-cut walnut weather boarding. It was put together with wooden pegs and handmade square nails. It was three stories: a large stone-walled basement kitchen, a parlor and two bedrooms on the second floor, additional bedrooms on third floor. The parlor in which Alexander married the farmer’s lovely red-lipped daughter was a room of hand-wrought rafters with walls paneled in black walnut with hand tooled molding. Glass windows were rare in those days, but the Brown home had glass doors to bookcases as well as glass windows. It was through one of the rare glass windows that Margaret Brown first saw Alexander Campbell walking up the pathway to return some books to her father. She was heard to say “That’s my man!”

After the Browns gave the home to their only daughter and their new son-in-law, Alexander went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Virginia. He bought more and more land and his flock of sheep grew every year. It is estimated that he was worth $2,000,000 at one time (the equivalent of the 1959 economy). The 1500 acres that now belong to Bethany College was part of the Campbell estate. Campbell made several additions to the Brown home. One was for Buffalo Seminary which called for a lecture hall and dormitory. Another was for extra dining facilities, servant quarters, and guest house. All this was exquisitely done, the guest house being decorated with hand-painted wallpaper imported from France, identical to that of Andrew Jackson’s new home in Nashville. Each guest room had its own fireplace and opened into a large parlor. By 1840 the Campbell Mansion was a rambling house with 25 rooms. The slaves lived in the basement.

As one visits the home he can see Alexander’s study chair, the bed where he died, the walnut cradle in which all fourteen of his children were rocked, the dining room that could seat 50 guests at one time, the Bogle painting of Campbell which is now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the wine pantry, and pictures of his family. Near the home is the hexagonal brick study where Alexander secluded himself from slamming doors and children’s cries. It was here that the “light from above” (he put his windows in the roof!) guided his search for religious truth. He never sat, but stood to do his reading and writing. The little schoolhouse is also in the yard. Here Campbell’s children and some of the neighbors’ children were tutored by a teacher employed by Alexander. Across the road and up a hill is the family cemetery. Here Alexander’s remains lie beside those of his two wives, who are among the unsung heroes of the Disciple movement. Here also are the little graves of their children. As I stood beside these graves with the autumn leaves falling about me, I could see the frail Margaret Campbell coming up the hill to weep over her children. Then after awhile comes the strong, stalwart form of her husband to whisper in her ear, “They are not here, my dear, they are not here.”

The purpose of my visit was not, however, to view the hills and valleys that nestled the beginnings of the Restoration Movement nor to see the places and things that are so relevant to our heritage, but rather to attend the sesquicentennial celebration of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, which was conducted at Bethany College. I was a guest in the home of President and Mrs. Perry Epler Gresham and never was I so royally entertained. They excel in the fine art of entertaining a fellow as well as an idea. Their home is called “Pendleton Heights,” being built by W. K. Pendleton, who succeeded Campbell to the presidency and who was twice son-in-law to him. The room I occupied has been the temporary abode of some of the great names in Disciple history—J. W. McGarvey, James Garfield, Henry Clay, Robert Richardson, Robert Milligan, and of course many others, including more recently Vice-President Nixon. Pendleton was himself one of our great pioneers, eclipsed only by the shadow of Alexander Campbell. Pendleton did much of the work at the college and in the Millennial Harbinger while Alexander was away on his many journeys. Some of the Harbinger’s best editorials came from his pen.

President Gresham himself is truly within the tradition of Alexander Campbell. He portrays the Campbell heritage of a free mind, and though, like the sage of Bethany, he loves the hills and vales of Buffalo Creek, his philosophy of life is as universal as the gospel itself. Like Campbell he contends for intellectual education instead of the shallow, mediocre offerings that are designed to perpetuate a religious party. And like Bethany’s founder he is a man of wide interests, a social philosopher as well as a preacher, an executive as well as a scholar. Too, he shares with Campbell the rare trait of being as much at home on the speaker’s stand as in his parlor chair. They are both the kind of conversationalists that are born and not made.

President Gresham is especially within the Campbell tradition in his concern for our divided brotherhood and his interest in unity. The sesquicentennial celebration was an indication of this, for this meeting brought together representatives of both the Church of Christ and the Christian Church, one of the few times that such an effort has been made. Gresham invited B. C. Goodpasture of the Gospel Advocate to speak for the Church of Christ, but Goodpasture suggested Earl West in his stead. When Earl West could not make it the nod was given by Goodpasture to young Jay J. Smith of Goodletsville, Tennessee, a graduate student at Vanderbilt.

The reluctance of my brethren to share in such efforts confirms my conviction that ours is a brotherhood of fear. Most of our leaders are not free men. If Goodpasture or West had participated in the Bethany program they might well have been subjected to (he charge of fellowshiping digressives. The more involved one is in brotherhood affairs the better target he is for such a charge. This is why Goodpasture could least afford to go to Bethany and why the relatively unknown Smith could risk it. Smith admitted that many of his brethren would not share in such a program as he was doing. He is to be commended for his courage and for a job well done. Yet I could not help but notice the incongruity of it all. Speaking for the Christian Church was Dr. Elmo Short, editor of Christian Evangelist, the leading Disciple journal, and a man who is unquestionably one of the greatest church statesmen of our day. He has traveled the world, served as professor of philosophy and of foreign languages in Disciple colleges. He is a man of such accomplishments that it would not be easy for the Church of Christ to place a comparable representative on the platform with him if they chose their best. So I say it seemed incongruous for a student yet in his twenties to share in the program with a mature scholar like Elmo Short on such a prodigious occasion.

If Goodpasture, Pullias, Baxter, Young or Lemmons could have appeared on this program, supported by proper advertising, it would have had more meaning. I am convinced, however, that none of these men could afford to participate. If it were to be a debate in which the Church of Christ representative exposed the errors of the Christian Church, such men could enter into it fearlessly and with brotherhood backing. But to enter into a friendly, brotherly, scholarly study of a historic document implies an equality of position that runs counter to Church of Christ presuppositions. With the Gospel Advocate already under fire for its “modernism” (if you can fancy anyone seriously making such a charge!!) it would not do for its editor to be hobnobbing with modernists at Bethany. My, my, what would the Guardian say!! There is simply too much to explain. There is not reason enough to take the chance. It could even jeopardize a person’s economic security in the Church of Christ. When the pastor of the East Dallas Christian Church tried to put a Church of Christ minister in Dallas on a convention program for the purpose of establishing better relations between the two groups, the Church of Christ men graciously declined, explaining that if anyone of them dared to be on such a program he would be eyed with suspicion by the brotherhood and written up in the papers as a modernist.

This is why I charge that we are not a free people. We are afraid of each other—afraid someone will think we’re not loyal to the truth—and afraid that our certainties are no so certain after all. I think many of our people deeply yearn for a broader fellowship and do not believe in this absolutism that implies we are right and everybody else wrong. But like the Communist with his doubts he keeps his misgivings to himself and follows the party line, making the same old superficial arguments and perpetuating the same old prejudices.

The way out of this bondage is for us to declare our independence and show ourselves to be dignified human beings who can sit quietly and reason with our dissenting brethren. Perhaps we need to grow older as a people and thus become more mature. We must learn to say that we might be wrong and mean it! Perhaps we have made too much of the music question, premillennialism, or institutionalism. At least we must learn that when we differ to continue in fellowship with each other. It sometimes takes more courage and manhood to reason with an adversary as a brother than to growl at him as a digressive. We have taught our people to be provincial and exclusive. It is better to teach them the fine art of listening love. We act like people with an inferiority complex. We are a big people trying to act little. Now is the time to show our maturity and admit that the greatest issues of the 20th century are not whether the church should support orphanages or whether a congregation should use instrumental music. While the world hangs suspended between doom and survival, we with our great Restoration heritage, act as if man’s greatest problem is whether the Herald of Truth is scriptural! While the world’s religious leaders seriously grapple with the issues of Christian unity, we meticulously draw our circles and deny fellowship to our own brethren because they disagree with us. To the contrary we will endure the foul deeds of most anyone so long as he follows the party line and properly mouths our sectarian shibboleths.

But back to Bethany. The important thing about this convocation is that it took place. For years I have contended that the dissenting groups among us must establish contact, irrespective of whether anything said or done is of particular importance. To get together is the first big step, be it for prayer, study, discussion, or a Quaker silent meeting. It does not have to be a debate! At Bethany there was unity amidst diversity. Paul Clark of Southeastern Christian College told us of the 100 or more congregations that are usually called premillennial. Jay J. Smith spoke of the “loyal” Church of Christ, the group he describes as “closer to the Declaration and Address than any other Disciple group.” Elmo Short spoke from the perspective of Disciples of Christ while Ronald Osborn told us of the future of Christian unity.

A very fine spirit prevailed. The “organic brethren” courteously silenced the instrument in deference to the “inorganic brethren.” There was a fellowship among people that previously hardly claimed kin to each other.

The point that I appreciated the most was Jay J. Smith’s assertion that we might not believe in Restoration at all, but are only the descendants of those who did. Yet it was Smith who repeated what I consider to be the basic fallacy in our thinking on fellowship, which is that fellowship is contingent upon doctrinal agreement. Smith, like most Church of Christ people, argues that we must see alike in order to be one in Christ. After his speech I asked him if the primitive congregations were in fellowship with each other. He thought so. I asked if those congregations were in doctrinal agreement. He admitted that there was considerable divergence. Then fellowship is not to be equated with agreement on doctrine.

We must learn that fellowship comes first-then agreement on doctrine might follow. We have reversed. the order. Can we not see that we will never be in fellowship if we wait until we see everything alike? I am rather persuaded that it is impossible for us to be images of each other in matters of biblical interpretation. It is as certain that we shall think differently as it is that we differ physically. Fellowship is between fellows and not things. Fellowship is one thing; endorsement is something else. I may not endorse premillennial theories but I can nonetheless fellowship a premillennialist. I may not endorse instruments of music in worship, but I can fellowship the brother who uses them.

Since this editorial concerns a study of Restoration history, it is in order to stress the point that the Campbells and their cohorts had this broad view of fellowship. Thomas Campbell was a Calvinist till his dying day. Barton Stone questioned the pre-existence of Christ (akin to the Arian “heresy” of the ancient Church). Alexander Campbell toyed with phrenology. Lesser lights had still other dissenting views. Yet fellowship was not impaired and no ruptures developed. Even the Civil War did not divide them!

The work of rebuilding unity among Disciples must begin with a lump in the throat. There was a lump in my throat at Bethany. And a lump in the throat is better than a chip on the shoulder!

THE VAN DOREN AFFAIR

I was troubled as I read Charles Van Doren’s statement to the House committee investigating irregularities in TV quiz programs. His case will be the classic illustration of this decade of how a good man can be lured by fame and fortune to act deceptively and contrary to his own moral standards and at the same time convince himself that it is all right. It reveals once more that “To err is human.” It depicts the frailty and weakness of man—all of us, for Van Doren is of the higher type. It is probable that most of us would have acted as he did if we were subjected to the same temptations, though each of us likes to believe that he would not. The Master faced the same type of temptation and withstood them, but He is the Son of God and is sinless. We are sinners. It is easy for sinful man to rationalize and thus justify his actions. Money has a tremendous pull in our way of life; family pride is a strong motivating force.

My concern over this situation is in the realization that it is becoming increasingly difficult to live the good life in our crazy world. Van Doren stated that it was his desire to enter the quiz program honestly. But the sponsor said this was impossible! The public wants to be entertained, not educated. The TV customers want drama and excitement, whether in the form of a boxing match where brawn meets brawn or in the quiz ring where brain meets brain. But it is conflict that is desired, with emphasis upon blood, sweat, and tears. Van Doren was coached on how to struggle for an answer. It is conflict that sells, not information. Is ours a neurotic world?

Actually Van Doren loves education and he did not intend to do it a disservice. He testifies that he sought to flee from his role as a “quiz-whiz” through his work on Dave Garroway’s program where he read poetry and talked of great men and great ideas. But Van Doren the educator did not sell like Van Doren the showman. The great mass of people do not care to think or to be educated, but they are ready to be enterained. This explains why so many see no harm in what Van Doren did, Our values are so confused that fiction is stranger (and more appealing) to us than truth.

Van Doren’s story further illustrates the truth of what the Bible tells us: Be sure your sin will find you out. Self-deception has its bitter end. “To thine own self be true.”

This whole shameful affair of rigged TV quiz shows is a reflection upon our way of life. Is deception necessary to the entertainment of our people? Do sponsors, officials, and contestants weigh the outcome only in terms of getting caught? Have we no moral herirage to protect? Are there no principles that mean more than fame and fortune? Do our morals consist in being clever?

The harm done by the TV scandal is its destruction of faith. It is not good for us to be deceived by people who appeared so upright and sincere. Many will say to themselves: If I cannot believe in these men, then in whom can I believe? If these things are done when the tree is green, what might we expect when it is dry! If educators, Ph.D.’s, preachers, scientists, artists, actors, and “Bible experts” will lie on TV for the dollar, then what might we expect from the common man when the pressures of a complex world are applied?

We must not lose faith either in others or in ourselves—and certainly not in men like Charles Van Doren. The question each of us must answer is What is Man? If man is at once a sinner and a creature of God, then he is to be viewed as a being with the capacity to do evil and to do good. The balance will tilt toward the good due to man’s moral consciousness. But this is not enough. Moral education is an imperative and this is the will of God. Education cannot be amoral, that is neutral. It will be moral or immoral. America must admit that its education is largely immoral. The TV mess is part of the price. Wrecked lives is more of the price. Our insensitivity toward the things that matter most is still more of the price. Our complacency and indifference toward the rest of the world is still more. America shall be what her education makes her. This is why I insist that moral values must be taught in every classroom in the land and why every home must become aware of the moral order of the universe. Our youth must learn why right is right and why wrong is wrong.

The TV mess reveals how we have prostituted life’s greatest values. Old fashioned hard work—the dignity of labor—has given way to clever get rich-quick schemes. Personal integrity is surrendered to big money. The finer things of our way of life, such as education, are prostituted for the sake of superfluous entertainment.

The signs of decay are at work in our culture. Only a moral sensitivity will save us. A country is in peril when insincerity becomes a national problem.

An honest man is the noblest work of God!

PROPOSITIONS ON MORAL BEHAVIOR

In a recent publication from Harvard there appears an essay by Professor Joseph Fletcher of Episcopal Theological School entitled The New Look in Christian Ethics. He lists six basic principles for moral conduct. They are repeated here with a few words of explanation.

Proposition 1: Only one thing is intrinsically good, namely, love; nothing else.

There is in Christian ethics only one thing that is intrinsically good, always and everywhere, regardless of circumstances. It is not always right to tell the truth or to keep one’s word. Right and wrong conduct depend upon the situation. Only love is always good—good in and of itself regardless of circumstance. On the reverse side malice is the only thing that is intrinsically evil. For one to take the life of another may sometime be right, such as in wartime or in the protection of home and family. Suicide may also be right under some circumstances. Soldiers have been know to kill themselves rather than to betray their comrades and endanger their lives. But malice is always wrong. So here Professor Fletcher gives us the first principle for Christian conduct: Love and only love is intrinsically good while malice and only malice is intrinsically evil. Upon this principle a Christian ethic can be formulated.

Proposition 2: The ultimate norm of Christian decisions is love; nothing else.

Christian ethics is not a system of rules. It is a purposive effort to relate love to the whole of life. Life is made up of relativities rather than absolutes. Love is the only thing that can reach the relativities. Love can find the gray between black and white. Fletcher agrees with Augustine in making love the virtue from which all others are derived rather than a virtue alongside other virtues. Augustine sought to reduce all of Christian ethics to a single maxim: Love and then do what you will!

Fletcher believes that it makes a big difference in one’s life when love is the only norm. The “natural law” moralists will not permit a surgeon to tie up the tubes of a cardiac mother in delivery, and they will even forbid a doctor to warn a girl innocently marrying one of his syphilitic patients. This for the sake of alleged “natural laws”—of procreation in the first case and secrecy in the second. He quotes a Roman Catholic philosopher who asserts that while love is a noble motive it is not the exclusive motive for moral action. Fletcher contends that love is the only ultimate norm for Christian behavior. Love eclipses other laws, even to the point of “desecrating” the holy of holies. Jesus approved of David eating the bread of the Presence in the tabernacle and thus left not doubt that love is the ultimate norm.

Proposition 3: Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed.

Love is compelled to be calculating. As Augustine urged, we must “Be carefully concerned about love.” Love and justice are not in conflict. It is difficult to determine how to distribute love’s benefits between several claimants. So love must “figure the angles.” Fletcher gives this illustration:

“A resident physician on emergency service, deciding whether to give the hospital’s last unit of plasma to a young mother of three or to an old skid row drunk, may suppose that he is being forced to make a tragic choice between love or justice—he may think that choosing the good of the mother and her children means ignoring love’s impartial and “non preferential” concern for every neighbor. But love must make estimates; it is preferential. To prefer the mother in that situation is the most loving decision, and therefore just. If love does not calculate the immediate and remote consequences it turns irresponsible and subverts its own high office.”

Proposition 4: Love wills the neighbor’s good whether we like him or not.

Christian love is discerning and critical rather than sentimental. It is volitional and conative rather than emotional. Stephen Neill says agape is “the steady directing of the human will towards the eternal well-being of another. C. H. Dodd identifies Christian love as “primarily an active determination of the will” That is why love can be commanded while feeling cannot be. Precisely love means benevolence or goodwill. It does not reserve itself to the congenial or the responsive. It is a matter of loving the unlovable and the unlikeable. It is so radical in its non-reciprocity that it extends benevolence to its enemies.

While we cannot like everybody (which is feeling) we can love everybody. Both romantic love (eros) and friendship love (philia) are affection and cannot be commanded. Genuine affection cannot be turned off and on by an act of will. But kindness, generosity, mercy, patience, concern, and goodwill are attitudes and dispositions of the will. This is the love of the Christian which is shown toward all men, even toward those whom he may not like or who may be his enemies.

Proposition 5: Only the end justifies the means; nothing else.

If the end does not justify the means, then nothing does. Most of us would steal a neighbor’s gun in order to keep him from murdering his family. Paul argues that it is not lawfulness that makes a thing right but its expediency (Rom. 6:2, 10:23). It is a question of love. Does the thing in question edify and enrich another? Is it for the ultimate good of another? Circumstances alter cases. Actions which are right in some cases can be wrong in others; actions that are wrong in some cases can be right in others. This would mean that circumstances could be such that it would be wrong to tell the truth or right to tell a lie. We may do what would otherwise be evil in some instances if love gains the balance. If a divorce will serve best the emotional and spiritual welfare of both parents and children in a particular family, then love requires a divorce, as wrong and cheap as divorces commonly are. Love’s method is particularity. Getting a divorce (or stealing your neighbor’s gun) is like David eating the altar bread in another particular case.

Proposition 6: Decisions ought to be made situationally, not prescriptively.

Legalism stresses order and conformity; “situation ethics” emphasizes freedom and responsibility. Most people wish to avoid paradoxes and ambiguities. They want the problems all worked out in neat packages tied with blue ribbons. But they must learn love’s tactics and put away their childish rules. Actions are right because they are loving, and they are only right when they are loving. Right action does not reside in the action itself, but in all the factors of the situation—end, means, motive, forseeable consequences. The right is in the action as a whole and not in any single phase or dimension of it.

Love plots the course according to the circumstances. Fletcher questions the statement: “Do what is right and let the chips fall where they may.” He thinks it better to say: “Whether what you do is right or not depends precisely upon where the chips fall” John Kasper, the racist agitator who was recently convicted for inciting a riot, was told by the judge that he had the right to make public speeches, but that he must answer for the consequences. Fletcher would say to Kasper: “You may claim a natural right to speak, but whether you have a right to exercise your right—or whether you actually have any right at all—depends on the situation.”

Fletcher concludes by pointing out that Pope Pius XII denounced this principle of behavior on the grounds that such a non-prescriptive ethic might be used to justify a Catholic leaving the Roman church if it seemed to bring him closer to God or to defend the practice of birth control just because personality could be enhanced thereby! Recently the Sacred Congregation in Rome banned it from all seminaries in order to counteract its influence among Catholic moralists. Fletcher observes that the principles he sets forth, commonly called “situational ethics,” is having more and more influence among non-fundamentalist Protestant groups.

Restoration Review feels that these principles are essentially Christian and that they might well deliver many of our people from a religious absolutism. Many of us have not yet learned that dancing, card playing, movie-going, necking, drinking, smoking, and all such are not wrong in themselves. Many are yet convinced that the kingdom of heaven is meat and drink instead of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). To such ones Christianity is an “intrinsic ethic” that provides a list of do’s and don’t’s for all of life’s perplexities. Our chief sin is oversimplification. We commit the fallacy of black or white in that we cannot see the gray. We are unaware that life is made up of relativities rather than absolutes. “Is it wrong to kiss the boys?” our girls ask of us. The easy answer is yes! The Christian answer is it all depends. There are different kinds of kisses and for different purposes. “Is it wrong to go to a movie?” Once more it depends on many factors. Each action must be weighed in the light of the whole circumstance.

THREE VITAL POINTS

In my own constant search for truth I look for those ideas that lend meaning to human existence and that enhance personal relationships. I am on the lookout for principles that people can use every day as teachers, students, housewives, businessmen, or day laborers. Such ideas become nails that we can hang things on. They add warmth and understanding to an otherwise hopeless predicament. They become points of reference in solving life’s delicate problems.

A college professor lives in a world of great ideas and in the presence of the best. Even as I write these lines my duties as an instructor involve discussions on the Lives of Plutarch, the meaning of mysticism, the problem of fear, and the art of thinking. In a few weeks the subjects will be different but the tasks will be equally exciting. In all my teaching I urge the student to watch for the great ideas, those concepts that have power to transform lives and change character. Here are three that my students and I have given special attention to recently. I believe they point up the things that matter most.

1. Speaking from within rather than from without. This idea was expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson as a means of recognizing greatness among the men of history. To speak from without is to speak superficially as a mere spectator; to speak from within is to speak from experience. To speak from without is to speak from the evidence of third persons; to speak from within is to speak as a possessor of the facts.

This led Emerson to say: “It is of no use to preach to me from without. I can do that too easily myself. Jesus speaks always from within and in a degree that transcends all others. In that is the miracle.” He goes on to argue that “much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom” and to contend that “the multitude of scholars have knack and skill rather than inspiration.” Those who speak from without are those who have a light but know not from whence it came. In such cases intellectual gifts become a disease and stand in the way of advancement of truth.

Emerson says that genius is religious and this is what it means to speak from within. It is inspiration. It is a wisdom of humanity which shines in men like Homer, Shakespeare and Milton. Such men are content with truth. He who speaks from within makes us feel our own wealth. It inspires awe and astonishment. It fires the heart.

In a day when mediocrity resents excellence Emerson’s idea is needed. Our generation is satisfied with superficial arguments and immature conclusions. We parrot others and thus say things that we really do not mean. We are afraid to question the status quo and thus to be different from those around us. By speaking from without no violence is done to our popular cult of comfort or our habit of conformity. When one speaks from within he is searching for meaning and he sees things within a larger context. He lives in a big world which makes it easier for him to be a big person.

2. Listening Love. This idea from Paul Tillich is most helpful because so few of us know how to listen or even try to listen. Most people want to talk! And when we do listen it is seldom with love. By observing the average conversation one will notice that the participants are impatient to get in a word and that they will often interrupt each other in order to do so. In the days of our grandfathers it was considered impertinent to break in upon another’s remark. This is now done as a matter of course. Listening is a lost art. Listening love is a lost grace.

To Paul Tillich listening love involves the self to the point of empathy. This means that one enters into the inner emotional experiences of another. Empathy involves the imaginative projection of one’s consciousness into the personality of another. Some psychologists say that we have an “inner perceptive organ” or a kind of sixth sense by means of which we can feel the deep disturbances within the unconscious of others. Mothers often have this feel with their children. Jesus must have had this “inner perceptive organ” in a remarkable degree, for when the sick woman touched his garment he felt virtue go out from him. He created such an atmosphere of love that one could feel it when in his presence. Jesus was “moved with compassion” and he could feel the loneliness and pain suffered by others.

When one practices the art of listening love he permits the rivers of God’s power to flow through him into the lives of others. By listening love we reveal our sincere interest in others, and we also imply that we respect the intelligence and viewpoint of others. Sometimes we make it possible for the talker to attain what the psychologists call catharsis, which is a cleansing of the mind. A troubled person needs someone to listen to him—to listen with love. This is a function of mutual ministry. So often we measure our service to God by the amount of talking we do, while the most needed service might well be to listen to others talk.

Surely this is true among religious factions, for if the dissenting groups could come together and listen to each other patiently and lovingly a greater fellowship would be realized. The gracious art of listening love is nearly always absent in religious debates. The atmosphere created is usually one of hate and party spirit. One gets the impression that the party men in either religion or politics are afraid to listen to each other lovingly. They are afraid of themselves that they might make some concession that would be frowned upon by the party, and even afraid of the implication of equality since the party spirit insists that it cannot be wrong and thus the other person’s position is necessarily an inferior one. We serve the cause of truth honorably when we allow the other person to express his views in a congenial atmosphere, for once a viewpoint is fully expressed it tends to become more objective to the one who holds it. So long as he is frustrated in his efforts to be understood his doctrine will be all the more precious to him. But once he has opportunity to say all he wishes to say and to realize that his position is fully understood by others, the position tends to lose some of is preciousness, especially if it is untenable. Here we have the pragmatic value of listening love.

Emerson once said that to be understood is a luxury. Most of us feel that we are not understood. Here lies the root of some of our most serious problems. Through listening love contacts can be reestablished between divided people. Bridges of understanding can be erected.

3. The I and Thou Principle. Martin Buber emphasizes this idea as the person-to-person relationship. It is to recognize a person in his own right and to invite response. It is an encounter in which two persons disclose the very depth of their being to each other. Buber contends that all real life is meeting. The good life is essentially reciprocal. This is lost when a person views another as an it. The I-It relationship is the prostitution of human personality in that individuals become mere things. Persons can be treated as things to be conditioned, manipulated, and brainwashed. He who lives the I-it way of life is not a man. He does not really become an I. “It” alone is not real life, for real existence is between man and man. The I-Thou relationship is characterized by mutuality, directness, and intensity. Only in such a relationship is genuine communion or dialogue possible.

In our society there is this “thingification” of a person, the depersonalization of the individual. To many men the woman is a thing to be used to their own selfish ends. Businessmen often view the customer in terms of so much money. In our secularistic culture we are losing sight of the dignity of human personality. We prostitute life’s greatest values through a philosophy that demands that individuals lose their personal identity for the sake of collectivism. We conform people (0 some political or religious sect. Personal conviction is sacrificed for the sake of conformity. If slavery and prostitution are wrong because they make things of people, then religious absolutism and political collectivism are wrong for the same reason. Through T-V, newspapers, and sermons we exercise thought control. The hidden persuaders manipulate and conform the minds of men to particular patterns of behavior. To belong to a certain church often means that one surrenders his heritage of a free mind and conforms to the thinking of the group. Russians are not the only people who practice brainwashing. Even ministers of religion brainwash their people to think a certain way under the threat of being branded as disloyal or a modernist. Every community of people should be based on co-operation and the recognition of persons as persons rather than as members of a party.

THE NEXT ISSUE

Restoration Review, Winter 1960, will be one issue you will not want to miss. The following articles are now with the printer:

The Unique Contribution of the Campbells to Christian Unity by Louis Cochran, author of The Fool of God, a novel based on the life of Alexander Campbell.

Heralds and Herdsmen by W. Carl Ketcherside, a provocative research paper on the work of the evangelist.

What It Means to Be Free by Leroy Garrett, a study of the attitude and behavior of the man who is free in Christ.

Volume 2 begins with the next issue. It will be necessary for you to renew your subscription if you continue to receive the journal. A notice is inserted in your copy when your subscription has expired. Please renew promptly. The rate is $2.00 per year or three years for $5.00. Notice the special rate of $1.00 per year in clubs of 10 or more. You will observe that Restoration Review covers 256 pages per volume, which is equal to a book a year. Your help in circulating this new journal may prove to be a substantial contribution to the cause of Restoration.