Dean Lewis interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 1.

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And therefore from the
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first built it around a very special
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kind of clear analysis of GA policy which we got through
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in sixty
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eight
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and moving into
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the institutional location
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where emergency needs funding was supposed to be built. That was the first
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time we ever
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tapped One Great Hour of
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Sharing for anything other than typhoons or orphans
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or stuff like that. They'd always had this
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little gimic in there about
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victims of political or economic or something like that. But, it had never been used for
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anything except to fund some ministries to service personnel
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overseas. And, for a long number of years since the second World War,
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civilian visitors on military
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bases here in this country. I don't know about
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both those programs, but they had been using One Great Hour of Sharing
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money for some time under that rubric. And,
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that's where I decided to look or fight for response
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to
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this quote "emergency," which was confroning the nation and the
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church. And, of course, the way to do it was
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the conscientious objector route,
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the emergency minister route.
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and got the full Institutional legitimation out of that
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source. So it did
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become for all practical purposes the
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only the only plight that the Presbyterian Church had for responding to the issues of
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the Vietnam War period. We never had
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other than the modest capacities that the Church and Society Department had.
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We never had any money for anything. We never had
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in the church anything in response to that, other than the policy
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statement kind of thing. so that it did become a
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rallying point for a lot of
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activity of cinema and
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people A network of people who were concerned about that
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function. [Bauer] Who were the key actors in getting this thing
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put together? I don't mean the policy, but
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as much as. [Lewis] Well, I designed the
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structure of it. In fact, I know where the file is, and I did
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run across the original memo i wrote to more or less about taking
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something to the General Council, designing the
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structure, approaching the first budget, and stuff like that. That would
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be needed. [Bauer]Was that before or after the policy? Well it
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was interesting because what happened was
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that in the sixty-eight policy statement that went to the Assembly.
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There was
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a there was a request for this sort of thing.
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And the assembly asked that it be tabled for a year and a further
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study. And, that further study was done. It was during that
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year appealing to this process that was going on, because Carey Joint
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committee was working at the same time. [Bauer] Who? [Lewis] Carey Joint. the General Assembly had also
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up a special committee to
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study to the church's response to Vietnam, and they produced a book
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so that it actually came
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along with the policy and
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the validation was essentially on the basis
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of the pastoral deed
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which was emerging in the church which was also validated
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by an earlier statement of the Assembly about sixty
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six about ministering to the victims of the. I would have to look that up.
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So that it really came along that they, the General Assembly
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never. The General Assembly did
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not call in specific terms
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for this emergency ministry. That was a programmatic response that was framed on the basis of
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a general policy. And they reported, reported to
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But the big the big battle, of course, was
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in committee
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that dealt with globaal emergency service funding. The General Council's
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committee. work committee.
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the terms of. John Thompson
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Peters [Pastor, Toledo, OH, Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church] was on that.
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Al Roberts [Roberts, Alcwyn Lloyd] was
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staffing it at that time. I can't remember
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this, but John Peters was
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and it was, it was a sizable
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struggle [Bauer] Was the struggle ostensibly about
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the use of the funds but really about something else?
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Or is it the usual pattern that we deal with substance by dealing with?
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[Lewis] It was both. There
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was
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But I think I really think that the main
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concern both stated and implicit
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was the potentially controversial character
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of the program and its potential effect on One Great Hour of Sharing
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giving,
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which was an
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institutional defense against
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doing what seemed to be a useful thing to do. There
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was there was also a
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lot of argument against the folk,
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who really had thought of the One Great Hour of Sharing all the time
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as overseas relief operations.
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That line still runs very strong. [Bauer] Right. [Lewis] Bill Du Val [Du Val, William K.] still
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is very
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very jealous of those funds, in terms of anything that goes on in the U.S.
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By God, you got to have a typhoon that knocks the hell out of
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sixteen states before he begins
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to see the possibility of doing anything. And that, of course, comes out
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of images of
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the U.S. as being a great big place that can take care of its own. So that was part of it
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too and that was part of Du Val's struggle. Cause Du Val was
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In those days, you see, the One Great Hour of
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Sharing business had no
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staff. The committee that ran it
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was simply, that ran the allocations
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process, was simply a committee
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that allocated funds
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to programs in the agencies and there was
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no there was no
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staff cost paid
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anywhere out of One Great Hour of Sharing funds. [Bauer] But Al Roberts
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was the Associate on the General Council [Associate Secretary, General Council] or something?
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[Lewis] But not for that purpose. he had that aberration
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here right and Du Val [Du Val, William K.] was functioning
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for COEMAR [Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations] in terms of
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some kind of assignment, but none of those
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things were paid for out of One Great Hour of Sharing funds.
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COEMAR paid Du Val's salary to do what he
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did. General Council paid Al Roberts salary in
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the last of this
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process so that also part of the
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struggle was
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over the use of One Great Hous of Sharing funds to fund
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staff. And, of course, it was essential to establish to establish the concept that the staff
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is the program. That is what you are talking about.
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So that was the argument that was used
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against it. Now it has now become
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commonplace, of course, And whether this precedent had anything to do with it, I don't know.
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I think so. Of course, it has now become a commonplace for the agencies to
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charge off staff
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costs against the programs
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sharing some of
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development. Resettlement. All those are now charged against the offering itself.
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Part of that came in one of the first of the first cutbacks before the
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reorganization. One of the people
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targeted for, to be fired in COEMAR was
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Du Val. And Du Val would have, would have been
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let go if Huff, Gene Huff [Huff, E. Eugene]
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had not gone in to the General
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Council. And Du Val was not willing to do it. General
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Council and pushed the line that Du Val
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knowledge and
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work around questions of development, relief, and so forth was so critical to
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the operation of this church that his
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salary needed to be picked up by the Fund itself
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or a major part of it. [Bauer] This is around nineteen
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seventy, perhaps? [Lewis] Sixty-nine, seventy.there somewhere. Because it was before
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the reorganization. In a pre-reorganization cutback.
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[Bauer] It's interesting as you talked about
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this, you initially talked about
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about it in terms of, in contrast to the National Mission style.
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This was rather clean, open, above-board, straight shooter institution.
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[Lewis] There's papers al the way. Right, with a lid on. And, you just went after a pile of
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money that was
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there and already had in it. that the majority vote finally. [Bauer] Right. But the
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the rationale in the funding agencies mandate
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to some of the good. It just had to be the end they had to be convinced that they meant.
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this. [Bauer] All that seems to walk right past the question of
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the controversy over the Vietnam War and over conscientious, conscientious objection
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the
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That was not a big factor or do you think the church
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was convinced of
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that? [Lewis] Oh! No! The church was particularly
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but the fact that by that
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time even, there were already a sufficient
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number of ruling elders' sons were [Bauer] In Canada or some place else.
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what other did hurt I mean it
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was possible to say this in
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the Presbyterian young people and we of course pitched
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it very strongly of the church's traditional
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support for the right of conscience and the need. in the end
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we had they were very
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strict very very
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strict rules that they tried to put on this. and in
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fact some of the
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statements were very sharp, you know. We must
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not use this program of counsel in any way
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that would try to persuade people about what choice they
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should make. It was only to to guide their
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conscience the way it's. When their
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conscience which is somehow autonomously formed, you know. that's not
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Then it is the responsibility of the church, you know, to support them in
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this and so
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forth with that. And, that's when I first became interested
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because it was so damn
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curious doctrine that it was not any part of the responsibility of the church
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to form conscience. Who the hell did people think
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conscience came from?
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And, the Christian Education. that's the first time I became aware
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really of why I was resisting so
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vehemently the approach that the damn Christian education professionals were
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trying to write in the church's curriculum, the new church curriculum. What was it called? N.C.E.S. or
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Yes [Bauer] C.F.A. Christian Faith in Action. [Lewis] C.F.A. Yeah.
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Perseids
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because that basis
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basis of not trying to persuade people
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to anything but simply giving them the tools with which they could make their own judgments
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about things and teaching
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them critical reasoning and giving them the resources that
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were available, and that kind of shit. I did there's something
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wrong. And, that's where it became clear to me
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people are at se without
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some
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institutions in society that are at least trying to shape values
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and quite openly and quite deliberately say, "Here's the way we think you want to be thinking
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about these things. We can't force you to, or stake you if
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you don't or anything,
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but you know this institution
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whose function in society is supposed to be as a
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definer and
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verifier of values, says this and you should know
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that. [Bauer] But yet you kept some distance between this
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and the anti-war movement in terms of
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public. [Lewis] We had to. There was no
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way that these
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funding agencies and folk like that were going to sit there and fund an
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operation that said up front we're going to out and try to convince
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Presbyterian young people that they should not
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fight in the Vietnam War. And, there was just no way they were going to do that.
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So we had to go at it peripherally, which we did. Then in the Council on Church
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and Society in the later statement
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on the church consicence and war. ["War, Peace, and Conscience: Statement of the 181st General Assembly, 1969"] Which lays
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out the basis
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of the church's opposition to war and selective conscientious objection. But
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the program all the way
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through was defined as a
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ministry to conscientious objectors, US, Canada, Sweden, everywhere.
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although, obviously, it spilled over into other kinds of
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It did, as I say,
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function
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It was a kind of rallying point. Because. It was
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interesting. Another one of my problems during that era was trying to get the
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Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.
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interested in being non-war
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in any kind of useful way for the
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church, cause they didn't function
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and still don't too much. It is very interesting. [Bauer] They are for peace, but?
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[Lewis] Well, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship was an outgrowth of the FOR.
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Of course, it was organized in the thirties as a pacifist
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organization. And the. Their
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whole business was
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really to promote pacifism. A total
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opposition to the war. At its root, it is really a
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haven for pacifists. and the issues of the Vietnam
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War, that kind selective
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pacifism that was involved or just simply war
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resistance
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was not the thing with them.
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The organization was
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dominated by a group of older pacifists. John
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[Bauer] The old liberal establishment of pacifists. [Lewis]
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Right. The pacifist part
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of
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it and they just weren't
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functioning very much at all. Adn they said to the church and the New York Times
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in
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either out of that movement
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the ways in which the Church and Society folk could mediate
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church
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and laity concern operation
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[Bauer] Who carry the
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freight on this? I mean, you keep saying "we."
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Are you talking about the Council?
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staff crew? [Lewis] I did most of it. It was
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It was not a ministry of the Council of Church and Society. It was a ministry of the Board of Christian
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Education. It was not run out of the Council.
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I defined it. Of course, the Council
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Of course, the Council at that point. [Bauer] At what point
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did the Council become? [Lewis] It became the Council on Church and Society in sixty-eight.
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It had been a
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counseling committee of the Board of Christian
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Education up to that time. But it was a Board of Christian
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Education
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ministry essentially. [Bauer] not the Council of
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Church and Society operation.
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[Lewis] The Board
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until the reorganization
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split the relationship between the Council of
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Church and Society. And, the staff of the department was very
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ambiguous. It was the Board of Christian Education's department
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on Church and
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Society, not the council's. The
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council had something to say about the sort of
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stuff that went on. Contrary to the opinion of the people who
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re-organized the church of the council of Church and Society had never
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been a programmatic body.
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Never determined progam priorities. Never had passed on program. It had never adopted budgets or anything.
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It always kept in arrear as a kind of
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advisory on flaming G.A. pronouncements.
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program budget stuff decisions
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were made at the Board of Christian Education regular process.
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but it was. I did most of it. And, of course, when Milton came on.
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he was responsible. We named
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an advisory
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committee to run it after the very
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first. Committee of what? I guess maybe ten people.
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Sensitive
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challenge. was one of those people.
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I don't remember now who they were, but there was an advisory
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committee that ran it theoretically. It met from time to time to set
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policy and direction, mission and program.
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And then we got Yolten [Yolten, L. William] staff. Yolten had been in Australia.
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He had been a university pastor from Australia, visiting thing, and he came back and took this over. You know Bill first move
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formidable energy. But unswerving
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concentration on general a fairly narrow range
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of
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points, which he pursues with
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great vigor and energy. I think for
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most of the years he ran
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that with a good job of doing what needed to be done.
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Toward the end, it got
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more and more
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shrill, I think, as his own. [Bauer] As the
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anti war pitch grew. [Lewis] Yes. [Bauer] Well, when did Johnson resign?
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[Lewis] Well, he. You mean Nixon? Johnson didn't
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resign, he just didn't run again. [Bauer] Ah, year. That is what I mean.
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[Lewis] It was sixty-six, sixty seven. [Bauer] He said he wasn't going to run.
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sixty six [Lewis] See, Nixon was elected in sixty
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eight and in seventy-two again [Bauer] So that the
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fever pitch of the antiwar movement was pretty high when
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this first
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policy statement came to the G.A.
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[Lewis] Well it was. The antiwar movement went in
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cycles, as you know. When Johnson
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stepped down and decided not to run again,
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and conversations had
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kind of tailed off. Then when Nixon came in and
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revived, they went up again.
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There had been a
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clear statement about the war. It wasn't all that clear.
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The so-called Declaration of nineteen sixty-seven
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at Portland
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that Robert McAfee
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Brown did. declaration
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of conscience it
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was called. up until that
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point under
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Clifford's [Earle, Clifford John] kind of United Nations balance of
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power sort of
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leadership and the General Assembly's
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ambivalence, I think,
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as well as Clifford's not very crisp leadership
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Well, the Vietnam War was a
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big problem. And some people feel one way and some people feel another,
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The church should study this, which was kind of what was said in sixty-
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six. But you have got to remember that
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the big escalation of that war didn't come until late
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sixty-five sixty maybe early sixty-
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five, but it really didn't start building
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up in the concern of some people. I remember
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interviewing a guy for a job
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It must have been about
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sixty, late
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sixty-four, or sixty-five, something like that, who had
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a big concern
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about the Vietnam War. Remember at that time, it was really not all that much.
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all these elements and stuff like that.
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Tried to argue all kinds of balance of power stuff.
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So sixty seven declaration of conscience was the first statement. In sixty
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eight I was asked to take over the Church and Society
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Office the first of January sixty-eight.
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I had been in South America.
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Most of the first half of sixty
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seven, February to August, really.
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I had been in South America on a sabbatical. It was during that
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period that the Board of National missions took over the
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Church and Race operation. I remember talking to
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Jim Gailey [Gailey, James R.] and Bill Morrison [Morrison, William A.], Bryant George
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from Argentina, and then from Uruguay, as these guys were
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calling in about. Bill calling
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in, because that was what they were deciding to take
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commission status away
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from CORAR [Commission on Religion and Race] and increase
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its effectiveness by incorporating it into the Board of National
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Missions so that it would have a vital connection to
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[Bauer] Yes. [Lewis] Yeah.
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You ought to read sometime, by the way the account of Charles
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Stelsley's work in the church, back in nineteen. [Bauer] Yeah,
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a little bit. [Lewis] It is
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the same kind of stuff. They finally
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reorganized. [Bauer] That's right.
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[Lewis] So that
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when I got back the first of
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September that had all
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been done pretty much.
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and the Church and Society Department was sort of flailing
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around trying to figure out what they would do for the sixty
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eight General
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Assembly and.
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And I think already pretty well decided they would try to
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focus their efforts more. But, they left about October
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I guess. About the
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the first of January, and we decided to go to the
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Assembly with the Church and Society operation or even working with it,
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with two major foci: the crisis in the cities, the
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crisis in the nation and the Vietnam War. And, that was the
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first major statement
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about the Vietnam War, that sixty-eight one. And
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as you say, the church and laity concern was already in
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the streets. The Vietnam War movement was
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already vigorous. Sixty-eight was the year we
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started emergency ministry also.
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that
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And got that moving.
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bit because if you remember the sixty nine
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Assembly was James Forman and the
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whole Black Manifesto
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in the San Antonio. The Church and
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Society report that year
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was, figured mainly around Latin
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America issues documents, illusion of reality, stuff
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like that. Nixon had just
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taken
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over remember in January sixty-nine. Johnson
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had announced that he was not going
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to be a candidate in the late spring sixty
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eight because he wanted to help unify and settle this war.
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So people were sitting there
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waiting. By seventy again,
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remember, that was the Chicago
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Assembly. You had the submarine
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church, all that crap, but you also
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have a big debate on
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the Vietnam. The invitation to Nixon to come address the
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Assembly. He sent Romney instead. George Romney came and addressed
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the assembly. So it was heating up
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again in sixty-nine.
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[Bauer] nineteen seventy. [Lewis] Seventy.
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And, it kept on putzing around until
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seventy-two, seventy-three. The
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program lasted how long? five
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years "Emergency Ministry."
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least I think so it was five
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years and we just went on to the next one, which
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was enough veterans. [Bauer] Vietnam veterans was
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over by seventy-five.
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How long did that last? That's about right. [Lewis]
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They overlapped. They overlapped. [Bauer] They overlapped somewhat.
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[Lewis] They overlapped. That's
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right yes I think it was over by seventy-five.
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[Bauer] That's what i wanted to. I think so.
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I went to see
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C.T.S. there was just a vestige of
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the thing around at that point. Maybe it went on a little
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bit longer.
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[Lewis] It seems to me it
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was seventy-seven. [Bauer] Could be.
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[Lewis] Even the people in Louisville. We moved the operation to Louisville.
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[Bauer] That's right that's right. [Lewis] There was not that much awareness of it
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and took it more into community organization.
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[Bauer] Pete [Lewis] Salerno [Salerno, Peter D., Jr.] [Bauer] Salerno. [Lewis] He took the board to community
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organization and to work with vets in
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prison. He is the one who started
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the incarcerated vets business when he discovered that there
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was a vastly disproportionate number of Vietnam vets in prisons.
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But, I think it went on to seventy
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seven. Maybe late seventy-seven. It was five years.
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It started in seventy-two. [Bauer] Where did the money for that come from?
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[Lewis] Same place. [Bauer] Same place.
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[Lewis] And in each instance
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I must admit that the
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terminal facility that was built into it was not
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altogether a matter of altruism,
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institutional responsibility. I mean Du Val [Du Val, William K.] in particular
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and some of the other people on
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the World Relief Committee were
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just adamant about getting those funds out of there. They were
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attacking them all toward the end of each period. As they could
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because they began to see
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there was a drain on these funds. And, my
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arguments that they had been
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funding servicemen's centers overseas
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for twenty-five years, seemed the thing to
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So both of those were
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terminated, which is an important point,
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although the reasons for this termination are altogether
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really one of the things it does concern me about
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some of these other operations. And, I think one has to be a prominent
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concern is when you hook the church institutionally into
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some crisis response,
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how in the hell do you keep it from becoming institutionalized, bureaucratized
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and built in as a kind of continuing
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commitment of the church?
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I am doing stuff like this, I know, but I'll tell you, I'm.

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Details

Title: Dean Lewis interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 1.
Description: Interview conducted as part of Bauer's preparation of the report "An Historical Study of Past Denominational Responses to Social, Political and Economic Crises."
Creator: Lewis, Dean, 1926-2021. (interviewee)
Bauer, Richard Waldron, 1930- (interviewer)
Date: 1983
Type of resource: sound recording-nonmusical
Genre: interviews
Form: audiocassettes
Extent: 1 audiocassette : 1 7/8 ips
Language: English
Subject names: United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. General Assembly (194th : 1982 : Hartford, Conn.)
Topics: Vietnam War, 1961-1975.
Civil rights--United States.
Geographic subjects: United States.
North and Central America--United States
Rights status: Contact repository for more information
Rights status: IN COPYRIGHT - NON-COMMERCIAL USE PERMITTED; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/
Physical location: ARCHIVES 85-0930; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Related item: R. W. Bauer papers, 1977-1985.--http://prestohost68.inmagic.com/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?ctID=Y2RiNWNk...
Identifier (local): bauer_lewis_1983_side1
PID (Persistent Identifier): islandora:115623

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Dean Lewis interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 1.

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