ACC’S DILEMMA

The dilemma of Abilene Christian College just now is that she is a good college that has visions of becoming a great college, and yet she supposes that she must adhere to those policies and practices that tend to make her a parochial institution in order to court support from the Church of Christ. The college desires academic excellence, which is certainly commendable, and yet she is hamstrung by an educational philosophy that hardly makes it possible for the higher circles of the academic world to take her very seriously. To become a great institution she needs to blur her image as “a Church of Christ college,” which hardly has a good connotation, and yet she cannot do this since the Church of Christ is the real reason for her existence and the chief means of her support, in terms of students as well as money.

There is nothing new about this problem, for it is as old as religious schools themselves. Harvard was first an institution to train ministers for New England. To become great it had to have more liberal ambitions. Yale was begun because Harvard had become too liberal. But look at Yale today! Both Northwestern and Vanderbilt are recent instances of “church schools” who have broken out of the shell of ecclesiastical relationship in order to go up higher. Butler University was for almost a century related to our own Restoration Movement, being a Christian Church college. A few years back it broke all such ties in order to bear the image of “a cosmopolitan university” in Indianapolis. The fact that Lilly Endowment, Inc., in that city pours millions into Butler no doubt had some bearing on her decision to become independent.

Substantial changes could well occur at ACC also should she fall heir to a 20 million dollar estate from some source independent of the Church of Christ. Such changes will probably come eventually anyway, but they will be much more gradual and with more fear and trepidation. ACC’s break of the racial barrier is a good example. Long after the Supreme Court decisions and the integration of state schools, ACC, along with TCU, was among the last colleges in Texas to accept Negroes. It was not that the Christian imperative demanded it, for the college had been “Christian” for a half century and had always drawn the color line, but because the Church of Christ constituency would now tolerate it. It is predictable, therefore, that ACC, with her present administration, will not likely venture beyond the pace set by the churches.

Some nations likewise are haunted by the dilemma of having to sacrifice totalitarian control in order to progress in science and technology. Both China and Russia presently face the horns of this dilemma. They wish to direct the thinking of the people into predetermined channels, and yet their desire for world leadership calls for free and expanding minds. They cannot have both. Some of the experts that talked to a group of us professors in Taiwan in 1963 gave convincing evidence that China’s vision of excellence would gradually soften her totalitarian attitude. So with Russia. The hope there is the rising army of young intellectuals who do not care to be like dumb driven cattle. Russia cannot have both excellence and regimentation of ideas.

Even I am not fond of the notion of comparing my alma mater in Abilene with the totalitarian scheme of Russian communism or the dictatorial system of Red China, but the parallels are more pronounced than one might realize. Whether it be the Politburo in Moscow or the Faculty at ACC, one must be a member of the party to belong. Though it is almost unheard of in academic circles, including Roman Catholic institutions, ACC employs no one to its Faculty unless he belongs to the right church. The youth in Russia is subjected to a prescribed tonic in all his courses that are taught only by loyal members of the party, and he hears no one else nor is he exposed to any ideas except those allowed by the hierarchy. The evidence is that it is not much better than this at Abilene where a student is taught by a member of the Church of Christ (oftentimes a preacher) whether it be psychology, government, physics or Bible. Add to this the fact that the vast majority of the students also belong to the right church and you have a parochialism that discourages real dialogue. Instructors and students alike soon learn what to say and what not to say, and how to say what they manage to say.

Such parochialism expresses itself in many ways. There was some demand for the presence on the campus at ACC of a noted TV commentator. The officials rejected the idea on the grounds that he was too controversial. This would, of course, be a desirable trait in the man to a liberal institution interested in exposing its students to a cross-fertilization of ideas.

Even such innocuous things as having a Baptist or a Presbyterian clergyman address the students in chapel are unheard of at ACC. Even with the Faculty studded with men who took their graduate degrees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (admittedly an unpredictable phenomenon!), it would still be risky for one of the honored professors of said seminary to address the student body. It would even be unlikely that a student who belongs to the Pentecostal Church or even the Christian Church would be allowed to share in leading his fellow students in a chapel service. He doesn’t belong to the right church either!

But these are only the more visible sins of parochialism. Below the surface is the fact of indoctrination instead of education. This brings with it the answering of questions that are not being asked, and the giving of canned answers to the questions that are asked. And always there is the feeling that it is just as well for all concerned not to ask some questions. Mediocrity, not excellence, is the result.

It is into this kind of environment that ACC hopes to bring young Ph. D’s from the top graduate schools. The college is fortunate to have an impressive list of such men already, but we all know that the number falls short of what is expected by the accrediting agencies. So perilous is this condition that the administration has been known to apply pressure on Church of Christ professors in state or private institutions to come to ACC and bolster the Ph. D ratio as a matter of Christian duty.

The hope for ACC’s dilemma is, as in the case of China and Russia, within the framework of the college itself. Already there are professors who are saying more than they once did, and they are likely to be saying ever more in the future. The rise of a new and young administration will add more impetus. But the strongest force will be the students themselves. I know, for I read their mail! No power of orthodoxy will contain them much longer. The Spirit of God is at work; and the influence of the Holy Spirit and the regimentation of ideas simply do not mix. The future promises to be exciting in regard to our colleges.

In my logic class at Texas Woman’s University we learn that one way to handle a dilemma is to take it by its horns. While it may be that we are not always read with relish on the ACC campus, we would like to suggest ways whereby ACC can take this dilemma that we have described by the horns and thus destroy it. If no more, the suggestions may serve as a prediction of things to come; but we are hoping that it will be more than that, for in some indirect way, if not direct, this appeal may eventually contribute at least a little toward making ACC a better and freer college.

1. Abandon the practice of limiting the Faculty to Church of Christ people.

Not only is this a terribly inconvenient practice, which makes the task of recruiting a sufficient number of Ph.D.s almost impossible, but it is an academic hazard. While it is true that people of the same church have diversity of opinion and are not like peas in a pod in their similarity of views, it nonetheless follows that “the great conversation,” which is the heart of the educative process, is not as authentic when the Faculty is parochial. A college forfeits some of its integrity when it fails to employ the best qualified scholar available for an opening. It is conceding that its policies are more ecclesiastical than they are academic when it elects a less qualified man because he belongs to the right church. If excellence is what a college wants, then it should recruit an excellent faculty, the very best that its resources can attract. But we cannot conclude that this is the way ACC has recruited its faculty. Surely the best available people did not all happen to be Church of Christ folk. The rule instead has been that they must first be members of the Church of Christ, and from that point on the best available are selected.

It reminds me of the rather amusing ad I noticed in the want-ads of our local Denton paper. One of the churches put this in: “Church needs a janitor; must be a Baptist.”

ACC has such a policy, we suppose, because it serves a Church of Christ constituency. The policy assumes that our brethren are better pleased if it is this way. This point could better be argued if the policy called for a majority of the staff being Church of Christ folk. It is doubtful if any religious group expects its colleges to be staffed exclusively of their own kind. Our people are certainly not this way about other things. Even in such areas as medicine, surgery, and psychiatry we are inclined to go to the finest specialist we can afford. If a brother in the Church of Christ is equally qualified, we might prefer him, but our first consideration is whether he knows his business, not where he goes to church.

It is evident from the way the very best Church of Christ families persist in sending their children to private and state colleges (despite the protests of the ministers who urge them to send their children where they can get “a Christian education”) , that the ACC idea may be invalid.

If ACC had an occasional Methodist teaching English, a Presbyterian teaching psychology, a Roman Catholic in government, a Jew in physics, a Greek Orthodox in foreign languages (let him teach Greek!), and a Southern Baptist and a liberal Disciple in the Bible department, the place would be more interesting! It would also provide a better liberal education, which is what a college should be doing. If the college’s aim is to indoctrinate instead of educate, then this suggestion would only frustrate the program.

A student is challenged when he is exposed to the finest minds of varied backgrounds. He needs to study with men who have views much different from his own. He becomes more sympathetic with conflicting views, and his own beliefs become more responsible and reasonable. He is indeed a better educated man. The ACC Faculty itself is a testimony to the wisdom of my words, for they have all taken their graduate degrees under respected “sectarians,” Then why cannot an undergraduate at ACC have a few courses under the same kind of men? ACC seems to think the parents would not want it this way. This could well be a misconception.

2. Take the lead in providing dialogue among the larger brotherhood of Churches of Christ.

Here is ACC’s great opportunity to contribute substantially to the welfare of the Restoration Movement. The college had a similar opportunity to lead the way in integration, but let it pass. More of our people are now concerned about our divisions and our apathy toward ecumenicity than ever before. A few pioneers have begun the task of building bridges of understanding between our several factions. Thousands are confused about such questions as fellowship and unity. They are looking for bold leadership. ACC would prove itself a college with vision instead of an institution with its ear to the ground if it opened its lectureships and forums for dialogue between leaders of all groups within Churches of Christ. As of now the forums at Abilene are so predetermined that it can be predicted what one will say on a given topic. Party men stay on the party line. The exceptions to this are far too few. Let ACC conduct a Lectureship in which all the various groups among us are brought together in a dialogue of love. It need not be controversial; debates are not necessary. A theme could be selected for study, as is now the practice, but let it be discussed by brethren who have long since quit having anything to do with each other.

ACC could do this, though it would take imaginative leadership as well as patience and courage. If the college could create the image of being a forum for all Campbellites, regardless of their peculiar labels, it could be a wonderful blessing to our people. If a Lectureship theme is to be on “The Church Faces the Nuclear Age,” let the panels be made up of conservatives, liberals, cooperatives, Christian Church, Disciples, premills, one-cuppers, non-Sunday School, and all the rest. Any brother who showed up with a bad disposition would be so showered with love that he would leave the place a different man.

If ACC should show this kind of dynamic leadership, I am persuaded that brethren everywhere would respond positively, and a new day would dawn for the Churches of Christ. Unity can come no other way. If we wait until we all agree on all these things before we restore fellowship among us, then we’ll still be waiting when the Lord comes.

BIRTHDAY MEDITATION

Surely there is no better way to celebrate a birthday anniversary than to engage in contemplation on one’s life. I recall while at MacMurray College a few years back a colleague of mine was trying to explain to me how it felt to turn 50, my being at that time not yet 40. About all he could say was that it was a lot different from being 40. Now that I myself am closer to 50 than to 40, I can appreciate his point, though I too feel helpless in explaining the experience of growing older.

Alexander Campbell, who had a lot of humor about him, mentions in his Millennial Harbinger that as he grew older his friends were always commenting on his passing years and his greying hair. When they would always say, “Well, you’re getting old, aren’t you, brother Campbell,” he would reply: “I find it very difficult keeping that from happening as long as I keep on living!” Art Linkletter once quipped on TV: “In view of the alternatives available to me, I prefer to keep on growing old.”

A more sober way to view it is as Psalms 90:12 does: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” But Ecc. 11:8 is almost discouraging: “For if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.”

Among my first birthday thoughts today was my dear Mother, who has been in her grave some four years, for it is always a man’s mother who is the real hero of the drama that brought him into this world. If any birthday gifts are given, the mother should get them! My mother very nearly gave her life for my birth. My father, whose remains likewise rest beneath the sod beside his wife, used to tell me how he would go out into the field to pray that my mother would live, even when the family doctor insisted there was no hope for her.

Today I am thankful to the heavenly Father that he heard the prayer of my father in that dark hour, and that my mother lived on for more than 40 years longer to be a continual blessing to her husband and eight children. Besides life itself, which my mother extended to me while her own hung by a slender thread, I am most indebted to her for showing me how a person can suffer greatly and yet live zestfully. She suffered much more than any woman ought, not only from physical maladies, but also because of ignorance that she could not help and poverty that she could not avoid. Her surgical operations, which were many, were traumatic experiences in our family. For two decades I drew an anxious breath every time a long distance call came for me. I recall sitting with her during the first night after one of those cruel operations that we just knew would kill her. It disturbed me that a good person had to suffer so, and she later told me that that night was the worst one of her life. But she had a way of fighting back, for she had almost 20 more years to live.

As her children grew older and she came to realize the need for self-improvement, she tried to compensate for her lack of schooling by subscribing to various home study programs. Bless her heart, I realize now that she must have felt inadequate for her tasks, but her reservoirs of strength were so great that she had every reason for self-confidence. It was that cruel depression that hurt most of all, and it hurt me more than I realized then. It is one of those things in my life that I don’t like to think about, for I cannot answer to my own satisfaction why my parents had to suffer so much. My father once told me that he had never dreamed that the time would come that he would not be able to support his own family, and yet all through my teenage years I watched him waste away among the unemployed.

My mother would pray that our “Room for Rent” sign would cause someone to stop and pay 50 cents for the night. Most of my five grown brothers were out of work. I washed dishes at a nearby cafe after school for a buck a week and my meals, and I knew that I ate better than the family. I recall the times they would come out and turn off the electricity and the gas when we couldn’t pay the bills. One of those nights my only sister had a date, and the family pretended that the candlelight and the fire in the fireplace were only for the purpose of a cozy setting. I wonder now if we really fooled him.

I cannot say that I am thankful for those depressing times, but I am grateful that through God’s providence I learned some things that have helped me through the years to keep my values straight. And so on this birthday anniversary I am thankful that my parents were able to bear up under hardship and to persevere in their faith. I am thankful for as fine a set of brothers, six of them altogether, as a man could expect to have; and of course a dear and loyal sister who will stand by a brother as much when he is wrong as when he is right.

Besides all this sentimental thinking I did a few things today. Being a Saturday I had but one class at the university. In this class we discussed IQ tests for children, and my students were surprised to learn that an IQ score is determined as much by the way a child is motivated as it is by the child’s intellectual ability. They were also interested in learning that between ages 6 and 10 a child’s IQ can vary by as much as 50 points!

I’ve also taught them that intelligence is not something one it born with, but something that can grow as long as one lives, and that we are all morally obligated to become more and more intelligent, each according to his own capacity.

We also pointed out that if a child is not productive in intellectual activity by the time he is 12 or 13, he is not likely ever to be. There is such a thing of course as “the late bloomer.” I can always point to myself as an instance of this. I am probably the only Ph.D. in the entire history of Harvard that was a high school dropout, and I am the only university professor that I know of who cannot produce a high school diploma. It proves that the psychologists are not always right. At age 16 the psychological prediction for me would have been quite different from the way things have gone. Psychology, of course, can hardly be expected to find meaning in such ideas as the providence of God in a man’s life. But I let my girls at the university know of my faith in such things, and they are sometime very much impressed. One of my stu. dents wrote home to her mother about “the faith of her philosophy professor.” She said to her Mother, so she tells me: “Mom, the man would have made a wonderful minister!”

After class one of our girls asked me if I would talk with one of her girl friends who has become wayward morally. The girl in trouble talks of wanting to be a respectable young woman with religious faith, but she gives herself promiscuously to the boys, and doesn’t seem to know why she does, despising sex as she does. I explained to the girl who asked me to see her friend that almost without exception this kind of condition can be traced to severe feelings of rejection in childhood. I predicted. that it would take psychoanalysis to help her, but I agreed to talk to the girl with a view to advising professional help. Sometimes, however, I counsel with such girls whom I know will never go to a psychiatrist. I always try to direct them toward a religious faith, and sometimes I pray with them. One such girl comes by my office occasionally with the pathetic complaint, “If I don’t talk to someone my head is going to explode.” We talk, or rather she talks and I listen, and we pray together. She tells me that our sessions help her more than her psychiatric treatment, which I paid little attention to until she told me that her psychiatrist advised her to try sleeping with the boys in order to get rid of her inhibitions!

All of our girls, of course, do not have these kind of problems! By the time I returned to my office after this morning’s class, the president of the sophomore class, of which I’m the sponsor, was there to check with me about the class play that we’re to present in competition with the other classes. I thought the theme of the play, which is kept a secret until the night of presentation, was both superficial and pointless, and told the class president so. But due to time limitations we may have to go on with it anyway, improving it the best we can.

I also wrote a letter to an old friend whom I always write on my birthday. The practice goes back many years, long before I became a heretic in the Church of Christ. The friend and I have traveled. together and conducted. meetings together. He has long since quit responding to my letters, but still I write to him on my birthday as I have for years, expressing once again my appreciation of his friendship. I suppose he feels that it would be some gesture of fellowship if he should answer my letters, and now that I am a heretic he cannot bid me God’s speed. Yet he occasionally sends me his felicitations through mutual friends, so I know he still cares. He just has to preserve his orthodoxy. I shall keep writing him on my birthday anniversaries as always, and one of these days love will win out and he will answer one! There is another brother with whom I have been as close as one could be to a father, and for many years I have written to him on his birthday. He doesn’t answer me either, not since Harvard ruined me and I became a liberal. But I keep right on writing him on his birthday just as always, telling him how much I love him and appreciate what he has done for me through the years. My wife keeps asking me why I insist on writing to people who no longer want to be my friends. I tell her that my love is stubborn!

Later in the day I went bicycle riding with my wife. We are quite a spectacle to the whole town, for we must be about the only couple around that pulls such a trick. But part of it is a tantalizing experience, for when friends pass in their cars they toot their horn and wave a hand, leaving me puzzled as to just who they might be. Some of my colleagues at the university are always telling me when they see me on my bicycle on campus that they ought to be doing the same since it is such good exercise. Anyone who views their expanding mid-sections would agree that, yes, they ought; but I notice none of them ever does. Furthermore they can’t even walk. They’ll jump in their car to drive across campus! I try to tell them the best that I can that I don’t cycle to the campus for the exercise, but for sheer and simple fun. What is wrong in doing something for fun — yes fun!

One of the women professors, who doesn’t need to cycle for the sake of her figure, has purchased a bicycle with my encouragement, but has not yet demonstrated the courage to appear on it on campus. She fears it would not be dignified of her. One of my better students stopped me on campus one day when I was cycling homeward. “Prof. Garrett, it seems so incongruous for you to ride a bicycle.” I asked her why she thought so. “I’ve always thought of you as being so dignified.” I asked her why she thought a bicycle wasn’t dignified. She thought a bicycle might not be undignified, but that I wasn’t dignified when riding one! Since then I’ve made sure to cycle with dignity.

Well, life can be and should be fun. That is what I mean by saying that my mother taught her family to live life zestfully. No one could enjoy a trip, or a meal, or a conversation, or her family like she could.

My birthday was further endowed with a big chocolate cake, unadorned with candles, and small gifts from each of the three children. Philip, my German son, gave me a stamp moistener, which may not have been with disinterest since I’m always having him help in licking stamps. Benjy, my son from the Hoosier state, gave me a typewriter eraser. Phoebe, our Lana Turner from Missouri, furnished me with a date book for 1966.

And now night has fallen. While the day was yet young my eyes fell upon the prayer that I made my birthday meditation for this year. I read it to my family at breakfast, explaining that this was my prayer for myself and for them, not only today, but everyday. And so it is my prayer for you too, dear reader. It is a devotional that I borrow from the late John Baillie of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

O God, who has proven Thy love for mankind by sending us Jesus Christ our Lord, and has illumined our human life by the radiance of His presence, I give Thee thanks for this Thy greatest gift.

For my Lord’s days upon earth:

For the record of His deeds of love:

For the words He spoke for my guidance and help:

For his obedience unto death:

For his triumph over death:

For the presence of His Spirit with me now: I thank thee, O God.

Grant that the remembrance of the blessed Life that once was lived out on this common earth under these ordinary skies may remain with me in all the tasks and duties of this day. Let me remember:

His eagerness, not to be ministered unto, but to minister:

His sympathy with suffering of every kind:

His bravery in face of His own suffering:

His meekness of bearing, so that, when reviled, He reviled not again:

His steadiness of purpose in keeping to His appointed task:

His simplicity:

His self-discipline:

His serenity of spirit:

His complete reliance upon Thee,

His Father in Heaven.

And in each of these ways give me grace to follow in His footsteps.
 

 

The day of partyism is ending . . . Free communication is being established. Ernest prayer for divine guidance is pervading all Christians of good will. The future is unknowable in all its aspects, but the past should give us hope and courage. We cannot now precisely define the exact terms of ultimate union, but if we turn to the perfect Guide and the guide Book He has given, with pure hearts and willing minds we shall find the way. — James DeForest Murch in Christians Only