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Eugene Carson Blake and Roswell P. Barnes in conversation, side 5.
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- speaker[Blake] My closest Roman Catholic
- speakerhierarch is Cardinal Willebrands [Johannes, Cardinal Willebrands] of the Netherlands.
- speakerHe and I were joint chairmen of the
- speakeror co-chairmen of the joint planning committee between the World Council of Churches
- speakerand the Roman Catholic Church for the six years that I was General
- speakerSecretary of the World Council of Churches. I inherited
- speakersomething it had begun. The names there are Bea [Augustin, Cardinal Bea] and Visser 't Hooft [Visser 't Hooft, Willem Adolph].
- speakerThey were the ones who have known each other for a long time and
- speakerJohn the twenty-third and Bea and Visser 't Hooft had got the thing
- speakergoing. I had the
- speakerinheritance, picking this up.
- speakerI can remember meetings in Milan, in Rome,
- speakerin my apartment in Geneva. All kinds of different kinds of
- speakermeetings. And, I had a
- speakerseventy-fifth birthday greeting from Willebrands not long ago, a year ago now,
- speakerin which he sent me his best wishes,
- speakerPardon me, dear. He phoned you just the other day. He phoned me the other day from Baltimore.
- speakerYes. I had sent
- speakergreetings to him because I knew he was in Baltimore, and I couldn't go.
- speakerSo we have a personal kind of warmth.
- speakerI had worked on my French before coming to Geneva.
- speakerSo that was a very smart thing I found out afterwards.
- speakerPhilippe Maury thought I was just great because I thought it was important enough to try to
- speakerwork on French, even if I couldn't speak it very well. But, I did speak it at the
- speakerlast moment before I came came up to Geneva to be the
- speakerGeneral Secretary. I had put off a reception they had in Grenoble, where I
- speakerwas studying, for in my honor. All the Catholic priests and
- speakerthe Reformed pastors of Grenoble gathered together. And, we
- speakerdiscussed ecumenism and theology, ecumenical theology, together in
- speakerFrench. I was a guest of honor and I was discussing all kinds of matters with them.
- speakerI couldn't do it now. And, I couldn't have done it before. But, I
- speakerdid then. But, that is aside from the point.
- speakerWe did have this joint working group.
- speakerAnd, in that we did develop. Joe
- speakerGremillion [Gremillion, Joseph] was at the time the head of the. What was he the head of, Roswell?
- speakerSocial Problems Secretariat. Something like that.
- speakerWas that? Wasn't quite like that.
- speakerHe was my, he and Willebrands and then one other,
- speakerFather Arrupe [Arrupe, Pedro] of the Jesuits, whom I met when he was
- speakerin New York for the first time after his election. He came to Fordham. And, I
- speakerwas President of the National Council of Churches at the time and sat next to him for three
- speakerlunches running. And, most of the Jesuits could have killed me, I think
- speakerbecause they all would have liked to have sat and talked to him. But, I was
- speakernon-Jesuit and got a chance to talk to him. In any case, those were
- speakerdays in which the Roman Catholic Church agreed
- speakerthat the World Council was, and they used the word, "a unique instrument." Now,
- speakerthat "unique" is a little interesting word. It isn't just
- speakeranother organization. But, it is "a unique instrument," for unity, and that's when
- speakerPope Paul Sixth and the Uppsala Assembly.
- speakerPaul Sixth just changed. If you compare the Uppsala Assembly with
- speakerthe fifty-four Assembly in Evanston.
- speakerThey didn't allow Roman Catholics even to cover it in the press room,
- speakertheoretically. They did, but they weren't allowing them to go.
- speakerAm I correct on that? At least, [Robert] Bilheimer and I went out and tried to
- speakerstraighten it out, I know, whatever we were doing.
- speakerThey had boxes of their own that could be reached over the counter from the regular
- speakerdistribution center to the press. And, they
- speakerdidn't want it. That was up slightly as. They achieved
- speakertheir purpose,
- speakerbut it wasn't in the press room. not allowed in the press room. But, that
- speakerkind of thing was going on. And, here Pope Paul gathered
- speakerall the people who are going to be at the Uppsala Assembly in Rome before they came.
- speakerHe had read the papers better than most of the people who are going to
- speakerUppsala himself. And, he, under Willebrands, who was not one of the
- speakerrepresentatives but was there also. He insisted
- speakerupon their participating in the Assembly of the World Council of
- speakerChurches. That's when. There's another man I should mention
- speakerthe speech that was made at that Assembly was by a Roman Catholic. No, if I can get
- speakerthe name right. You'll have to put it in the transcript of this thing, but
- speakerwas it Montini? who was
- speakera writer. I think.
- speakerOsservatore
- speakerRomano.
- speakerSomething like. He is an important
- speakerRoman Catholic Roman journalist and he made a speech.
- speakerPope Paul scolded him afterwards, and he had never shown him the speech ahead of time. What day is it?
- speakerEven think of showing it to you. You'd have been responsible then.
- speakerbut it was it was I say it was one of the best speeches if you want to look up the archives in the World Council
- speakerto look them up and see that speech. It was a great speech.
- speakerI'll just throw in something on the side
- speakerthe kinds of decisions you make. A lot of my colleagues want us to have. Who is the man who is
- speakeralways in trouble during the Catholics? Kung?
- speakerHans Kung? I knew I'd get that if I described him right.
- speakerHans Kung
- speakerThey wanted me to invite Hans Kung to Uppsala. I said that is
- speakernonsense. Don't invite Hans Kung. He's. That's not
- speakerwhat the Roman Catholics would do. Let me ask Willebrands. So I asked Willebrands
- speakerand he sent us Montini. He's the one he picked out. He's the one you should invite.
- speakerand so on. That kind of relationship we began to have. And, it
- speakerwas a combination of new
- speakerposition, but new appreciation of each other, in the
- speakersense. And, I began, for the first time in my life, really to understand
- speakerwhat happened at the Counter-Reformation, and why the Counter-Reformation
- speakerwas as important as the Reformation in terms of what was
- speakergoing to happen, ultimately.
- speakerBecause the Roman Catholic Church got its belated
- speakerreformation at the Counter-Reformation and became the great church that it
- speakeris.
- speakerAnd, that is something! What about the pope coming to visit you?
- speakerComing to visit. That was another
- speakerthing that happened. He was
- speakerinvited by the Roman Catholic representing to the United Nations, whose name I've
- speakerforgotten, who was not particularly close to
- speakerthe World Council, to come up to visit the
- speakerILO on their anniversary, fiftieth anniversary like, International
- speakerLabor Organization. And, Willebrands heard the word. And, he went in to see
- speakerPope Paul. And he, said, "You can't go to Geneva without visiting to the World Council of Churches."
- speakerAnd, Pope Paul said, "I
- speakerthink you're right." So then we made plans for
- speakerhim to come. That was an interesting visit.
- speakerJump ahead a little bit. Shortly after
- speakerthat I was dated to be in Lisbon. And, I was treated as if I were
- speakera pontifical representative. They called on me in my hotel. I had to call on their hotel, that
- speakersort of thing you know, because the pope had just visited me in Geneva.
- speakerBut that kind of situation was a new situation
- speakerand it still is new. I hate when people get discouraged about the progress of
- speakerthe ecumenical movement. I say we, in the last twenty years, have been through the most important time
- speakerin a thousand or fifteen hundred years for the unity of the church to be visible.
- speakerAnd, why should we be discouraged just because of stupid folk
- speakernow cut out, please or
- speakerothers aren't getting along as fast as they should.
- speaker[Gillette] Do you do you see any relationship between that new openness with
- speakerRoman Catholicism and the earlier openness? The
- speakerdoors you opened with Moscow trip? Was there any relationship at all between
- speakerOrthodoxy in the west and Roman Catholicism in the west
- speakerlooking?
- speaker[Blake] Let me take the Vatican position in general, which anybody else should be careful of.
- speakerThe Vatican position is that they would like to talk one for one to
- speakerevery other church in the world including the Jews and the Muslims and everybody else.
- speakerOne for one now, because that gives them the chance to make you come to
- speakerRome to talk and so on. And, we are stupid
- speakerwhen we allow them to break it up and do a series of dialogues.
- speakerOK I just.
- speakerKnow your question was specifically? Whether or not you feel
- speakerthat the earlier trip to Moscow and that door that was opened between
- speakerProtestantism in the West and Eastern Orthodoxy, whether
- speakerthat any way influenced Rome? It could have been.
- speakerBut you see the Roman situation is that they don't have much of
- speakeranything where the Orthodox, the Russian
- speakerOrthodox church is strong. Is this tape still on?
- speakerYou don't want to say anything? We'll turn it off, if you? No.
- speakerI want to. It made that assumption. I'd like you to have you tell about
- speakerthe pope coming up to
- speakeryour office. Oh, that was a nice one. He came up. I have a picture
- speakerin my study, which, if any of you come to visit us, I will show you, of the pope
- speakersitting at my desk in Geneva. I am grinning
- speakerbecause John Taylor [Taylor, John Vernon. John Vernon Taylor, Bishop of Winchester] is taking a picture of the pope sitting in my desk. And behind me
- speakerin the shadow is M. M. Thomas [Thomas, M. M. [Madathilparampil Mammen]] and Willebrands. They are
- speakerthe ones. He came up very uncharacteristically talkative as he could
- speakerbe after he had been in the
- speakeropening meeting where we received him, and there were speeches. He and I did not
- speakermake speeches but everybody else did.
- speakerI guess.
- speakerYes. You know, we both made speeches, didn't we? We greeted each other. Yes, he said, "I am"
- speakerHe started out,
- speaker"I am
- speakerPeter." That made Visser t'Hooft so mad he didn't hear anybody or anything else
- speakerhe said for quite a while. Because immediately the second paragraph, he said, But the
- speakername I have chosen is Paul. Then he made a good Protestant
- speakerspeech from that point on.
- speakerBut that was another thing. When he came up into the room
- speakerafterwards.
- speakerHe was bubbling over with talk. And, he said, "Oh, I'm like a man who's been in the desert
- speakerwithout food or water.
- speakerSuddenly, I see an
- speakeroasis.
- speakerThere's water and fruit, and I find that kind of thing.
- speakerI think that's one of the most poignant
- speakerYou can't be. You can't be angry at men like that. That's amazing! Isn't it?
- speakerWhen was that? That would be sixty-
- speakereight. We said, wait a minute,
- speakerwhen was the World Council meeting? That was during sixty-nine.
- speakerIt was. It was the year. It was the after the Assembly
- speakerin Uppsala, which was sixty-eight, sixty-nine, it was
- speakerguess in June. Was that right? Am I right?
- speakerDates? I don't remember
- speakerThat is very interesting.
- speakerBack to Jerry's question
- speakerabout the relationship between our relations
- speakerwith the Eastern Church, Russian Orthodox Church and
- speakerRome and the Vatican, Roman to World Council. I'd be interested in your answer to that.
- speakerI'm trying to
- speakerorient myself in time.
- speakerI think it was just after New Delhi.
- speakerWhen Sharon, John Sharon, who was
- speakerone of our bridges back in the early
- speakerdays asked me
- speakerwhat were my worries.
- speakerOne of the worry is that either you or we
- speakertry to play one off the other
- speakeras between Istanbul Rome and Geneva.
- speakerAnd I said,
- speakerOne of the problems is that we put it that
- speakerway as if there are three different,
- speakerunits, three different churches
- speakerand if we do it that way, we're sunk.
- speakerWe got off on the wrong road. We leave out Jerusalem in that entirely.
- speakerWe must not
- speakertell the eastern churches and Rome that
- speakerthey can become competitive for their
- speakerrelationship with the Third World, which
- speakeris in Geneva. And, I said, we'll be tempted
- speakerlike the dickens. You will be tempted like the dickens.
- speakerAnd, we will spoil it all. Get in God's way
- speakerif we do it. And,
- speakerhe thought that was
- speakerimportant that I should have mentioned it. And, he came
- speakerback to that several times subsequently about
- speakerpeople he talked to about it. He said. "We
- speakeralmost slipped." And,
- speakerat the time, when the pope and the ecumenical patriarch embraced
- speakerin Jerusalem,
- speakerwe almost slipped. And, we didn't make any reference to you. It looked as if
- speakerwe were going to hive off together.
- speakerAnd we're putting pressure on each other to do it and
- speakerwe almost slipped.
- speakerWe just recovered in time. Now that
- speakerthat was all vaguely in the background of our minds then
- speakerI think. And, I believe that
- speakerWillebrands has
- speakerbeen a straight shooter on that. What does that mean? I think he'd been a straight
- speakershooter.
- speakerI have the feeling that
- speakerone of the problems. I had or interesting experiences. It
- speakerwas a little bit aside of our subject. But when Hesburgh [Hesburgh, Theodore M.]
- speakergot in touch with me one time before they had went to establish the
- speakerschool in Jerusalem. And, he said that they wanted to do that and what did
- speakerI think of it. I said for goodness sakes, don't establish it yourselves, you and the pope.
- speakerGet some other people to help you establish it. It won;t be you inviting us to
- speakergo there, as if you had the Holy City yourself.
- speakerbecause what's what I was saying so we've got money here and other
- speakerpeople to help start that thing but that
- speakerkind of thing is you can do it either not really liking what you're doing
- speakeror you can do it just on purpose. And I think, there is probably more of the not realizing
- speakerwhat you're doing than there is really meanness on purpose.
- speakerVatican Council.
- speakerWhat was it you said about relations with the Jews?
- speaker[Barnes] What of it? [Blake] That they wanted the one to one.
- speaker[Barnes] Ah yes it was under the one to one menu.
- speakerIs this on?
- speaker[Miller] We'll turn it off, if
- speakerI'm getting fuzzy, Jerry. Let me see if I can straighten it
- speakerout. Turn that off for a minute, please.
- speakerThen I made to the chief rabbi and his associates in
- speakerMoscow.
- speakerWe were perplexed as to how much to
- speakerdo. We knew we must get into communication with them.
- speakerWe had questions raised
- speakerbefore we went to Russia by our Jewish friends in New York.
- speakerAnd, we were disturbed because there did not seem to
- speakerbe a concern on the part of the
- speakerSoviet delegation in our conferences for the Jews.
- speakerWe didn't want to compromise them, but we didn't want to yield to them and their
- speakerhesitations.
- speakerSo Walter [Van Kirk, Walter] and I paid them a visit. And,
- speakerI don't remember who we used as interpreter, but I
- speakerknow we had a problem with it, and
- speakerwe had a report. Not a good report
- speakerbut we showed a concern.
- speakerIt's one of the unsatisfactory loose ends of the
- speakerdeputation.
- speakerI had another experience. And, I don't know what which one it was. I was in Moscow one time
- speakerand with the same concern on my mind. And so, I
- speakerjust made it clear to my host whoever it was in the one department
- speakerof the. Russian Orthodox Church that I was
- speakerwondering if I should see a rabbi.
- speakerAnd, they didn't say any thing more about it. Just raised the question. Next day we're going,
- speakerdriving along a street. And, he said. "Would you like to stop at the synagogue?" So, I said. "Yes,
- speakerI would." So we came to the synagogue. The rabbi was there waiting for me.
- speakerAnd, I asked after him and how things were. Everything was perfect. But, I mean
- speakerthat but it was of and a formal
- speakersituation that was worth doing. I mean this we cared about him.
- speakerAnd, we were able to report back that you had seen the rabbi. And, through the
- speakergood offices of the Russian Orthodox Church, which I think is important too.
- speakerI haven't answered your question. I haven't been thinking about it. I've been listening to Gene.
- speakerI don't know why.
- speakerI think it's partly because they
- speakerare Jewish friends of become very perplexed
- speakerabout their own course and their
- speakerrelationship to Israel. And, that has
- speakerso absorbed their attention. Ethical
- speakerpolitical. Haven't had much energy left over to
- speakerask where they're going.
- speakerIsn't part of the problem, Roswell, the lack of clarity
- speakeron what the ecumenical movement is from our point of view, the Christian point of view?
- speakerI live in a town where we have a federation of
- speakeror whatever you call that Council of
- speakerChristians and Jews.
- speakerIt means that all that happens is that whenever the Jews want us to do something, there is a meeting.
- speakerOtherwise, there is no meeting. I mean, that is to say, there is nothing done.
- speakerI. My own feeling is that there is a tendency toward that
- speakerin the National Council of Churches now.
- speakerThat you don't go to Washington except with the Catholics and the Jews.
- speakerBut they go separately.
- speakerYes. I. That is something that I didn't
- speakerachieve for my agenda when I was there, to get
- speakerpeople to understand the distinction between ecumenical and inter-
- speakerfaith, and interreligious and Christian unity. This is one of the things
- speakerthat really is hard to live with. And, you get
- speakermisinterpreted all the time when you don't do it. I remember vividly on the
- speakercivil rights thing in the sixties
- speakerafter. It was Alabama in
- speakerMay, where the hoses and the dogs. And, the dogs were shown on
- speakertelevision that really made people in the north realize what was going on down
- speakerthere. I noticed that Wallace was re-elected governor.
- speakerSo nothing changes except he has changed a little. He's
- speakergot the negro votes at least. Black votes, I should say.
- speakerbut the. Then. Now, where I lost myself.
- speakerGood. What was I saying here? You've got
- speakersympathy. The difference between interfaith. Well, this is
- speakerI was vice chairman of the new Committee on Religion and Race for the National Council of
- speakerChurches in the spring of sixty-three.
- speakerLichtenberger [Lichtenberger, Arthur C.] , the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, was the chairman. He became
- speakerill just that time, called me up and said, "I
- speakercan't. My doctor won't let me do anything. Will you take charge of this thing?" And, I found myself
- speakerby the middle of the month running the
- speakerCommittee on Religion and Race in the National Council of Churches.
- speakerI wander into a meeting there the first one about the
- speakermiddle of June and we already had our staffing in
- speakerbeing, management and
- speakerBob Spike [Spike, Robert W. [Robert Warren]]. Bob Spike was the head. And then had his assistant and one other very
- speakeryoung man. I've forgotten who he is now. He was the one, who
- speakerspoke to me as I came in the room. He says, we've got an invitation to go to Washington on July fourth
- speakerfor a CORE demonstration. And, I says, You'd better
- speakerfind out about it, because we may have to go. That's all I said as I
- speakerwalked into the room. It's always your best friend's mother among the reporters who ask the
- speakerhardest questions. And, after I had made my speech, George Dugan, who was at the Times in those days. I had
- speakersaid, among other things in my speech, we have decided it's time for us to
- speakerstop talking. We've been saying the right things since nineteen twenty. But, we don't do a thing
- speakerabout it. George says, "What are you going to do?" I
- speakerfelt I couldn't afford to have egg on my face permanently.
- speakerSo I said, Well, there's going to be a
- speakera demonstration in Baltimore on July Fourth, maybe we'll have to go there.
- speakerI saw them all begin to write like this. I knew I had struck something.
- speakerSo, when I came back, I told them, the boys, that they better look that up because I
- speakerthought I had to go to Baltimore on July fourth. That's the deep planning I had,
- speakerin one of the more important actions of my life.
- speakerRiding on the Ferris wheel when your mother wasn't watching. But I went down after that
- speakermeeting to the Statler Hilton and
- speakermet with [John Francis] Cronin was it on the National Catholic Welfare at that
- speakertime? Cronin and Tannenbaum [Tannenbaum, Marc H.]. And,
- speakerthey said to me this is the real cooperation
- speakerof Roman Catholic and Jew that I have run into. Look this is a Protestant country.
- speakerYou've got to take the lead in this thing, but we'll give you support anywhere you need it.
- speakerThat was. That was that point.
- speakerThe problem was great. he said. If the bishop is impossible, we have lay
- speakerpeople we'll get to for you, as warming as that kind of attitude grassroots.
- speakerNow you can you can do something when you've got that kind
- speakerof a relationship that is clear. I mean they knew I wasn't about to be a Jew. And, they weren't about
- speakerto be Protestant or anyway. But we did from then
- speakeron, do something for quite a while in terms of that
- speakerpart. We did get arrested in Baltimore [Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, July 4, 1963]. And, I got my picture all over the world, And got elected the
- speakerGeneral Secretary of the World Council of Churches on account of the picture, I think, more than anything else.
- speaker[Gillette] Had you had any previous indication the Holy Spirit would peculiarly use New York Times
- speakerreporters to motivate you? [Blake] Well, they were pretty good to me always
- speakerin New York earlier. Lately, they haven't been very good.
- speakerThey think that the most important thing in the Vatican is the church in Darien.
- speakerwhere they don't make reservations because God takes care of the hotel for them.
- speakerWhen
- speakerWhat's left over?
- speakerWe still have conversations.
- speakerWhat do you want to cover? And, what do you want to do with
- speakerthese tapes? What have. What has
- speakerhappened today that has a real
- speakerinterest to you that somebody should follow up on
- speakerwith us? Or will you? Or on his
- speakerown?
- speakerI
- speakerthink one of the big advantages that today you're seeing two of the nine
- speakerleading people on the delegation, two of the delegation, and here they're
- speakerreflecting on their twenty-five, twenty-six years later on the
- speakeraction that took place in nineteen fifty six. I think this is the
- speakerextremely significant fact that
- speakerit seemed from the records and in your earlier conversation that the meetings
- speakerwere very conversations were very positive then. And, you both feel
- speakerthat indeed they were positive and are positive. That this
- speakeris this is a good beginning.
- speakerSo what.
- speakerI think that the question that we really have left open is How do we do it
- speakernow? Because,
- speakerwith the present attitude of the
- speakerVatican, we don't have the same
- speakersituation that we had under Bea and Willebrands.
- speakerWith the
- speakerOrthodox,
- speakerfrom what I hear, I have not had directly from them. I have seen
- speakeror words, so on. But the Orthodox I hear, keep hearing reports, that they're
- speakerrestive in the World Council of Churches. I don't
- speakerknow why or what that is all about. But, they've always been somewhat restive
- speakerbecause the culture of the World Council hasn't been their culture.
- speakerIt isn't an Orthodox body. And, they're used to going to Orthodox bodies.
- speakerBut I don't know just how we move.
- speakerI don't think there's any value in multiplying bilateral
- speakerexcept in so far as the bilateral conversations
- speakerin the churches represent a necessary
- speakerclearing away of debris between the cultural and political relationships.
- speakerDoes that make sense to you? Who is in
- speakercreative consultation
- speakerwith Willebrands from our cohorts
- speakerexcept Visser 't Hooft? Bishop who? Visser 't Hooft. Visser 't Hooft. I don't think
- speakerthey are very close. All right.
- speakerI don't think they are. I'm not sure. I think you are, Roswell. I'm not saying they are very close. I think I'm pretty close to him.
- speakerbut I don't. I'm not close to us, though.
- speakerAre you, are you, are you talking with him creatively? This
- speakerkind of question.
- speakerNo no I haven't had a chance to do that.
- speakerWho else can do this? I guess Paul Crew is as busy as any American.
- speakerHe has him down in Baltimore at the moment or did have him last week.
- speakerDo you? or maybe you don't see this from where you sit,
- speakerbecause of, because of where you sit, but
- speakerI get the feeling that while the whole ecumenical movement in dialogue between Roman
- speakerCatholic and Protestant and Protestant and Orthodox, while it may be at a
- speakerquiet stage at the hierarchical level, hierarchy being Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox
- speakerthat it is going gungho in the
- speakergrassroots. In spite of an apathy to
- speakerwhatever the hierarchy is doing. Do you? I don't know whether you two
- speakerreally because of where you sit get to see this. I don't see it anywhere
- speakerexcept in the local. There are all kinds of wild and beautiful things going on in the
- speakerlocal scene. I think the nuclear business is doing. One other thing, that's
- speakeruniversal. And, it is going so far so fast. No matter what the
- speakerhierarchy does. It couldn't stop it if it wanted to. It is.
- speakerthis is the thing they sent a message to, right?
- speakerWhat is the relationship between that and the theological
- speakerecclesiological factors of ecumenical
- speakerreport and institutions? That the latter may or may not be relevant.
- speakerRight. Who is
- speakerdiscussing that question? I don't think anybody is.
- speakerI think the people are just going ahead.
- speakerThey're praying together, celebrate together, they're working together, and they're doing it together.
- speakerAnd, nobody is really stopping. In my activities recently have been where
- speakerpeople are interested and see my name in connection with it, and
- speakerask me to do something. The PCS this week.
- speakerNext week, I go to Iona College on
- speakerBread for the World and nuclear disarmament. I think is the combination of the subject there.
- speakerand that is happening at the church to which we,
- speakerI belong. What's that? I mean, peace seems to be the thing. Peace is one
- speakerlong and didn't mean to say oh well. Peace, certainly. Well,
- speakerit's nuclear relationship to peace, too. And its the reaction against the stupidities of our
- speakergovernment. Yes, it is. That seems to be true in Europe too. Everybody's
- speakeris stupid.
- speakerAnd, the dangerous stupidity in the Middle East. Yeah, that's another one.
- speakerNo one had time to write so many things as I wrote at one time.
- speakerYou've got to have it, and you have a wife who makes you lazy.
- speakerWell, that's right. Forget her.
- speakerWho today is doing that kind of thing that we used to try to
- speakerdo? That's the trouble.
- speakerAppraising the state of the churches and incidentally the state of the nation and our
- speakercontemporary culture. Who did that? Did I?
- speakerI tried to. I think you both did. I think this is what people are moaning about. I think we both did.
- speakerWe don't have the leadership.
- speakerPeople are turning to the New Yorker or to the op ed
- speakerpage of The Times occasionally. Occasionally. Our
- speakercommentary. Secular sources
- speakerfor the analysis of where we are.
- speakerAnd, they're not expecting to get any insights from the churches.
- speakerThey're seeing. Are we on the tape now?
- speakerOh, boy! I'd forgotten that. Al right. That's good. Keep going. I
- speakerI didn't mean. I somebody saw the red light.
- speakerThey're seeing
- speakera prophetic leadership on the nuclear business and our
- speakerdestiny from Roman Catholic leadership, that
- speakerseems to decided that something needs to be done. And, they're not asking whether it's expedient or
- speakernot. And, there's something refreshing about it. And, I welcome it. I do too.
- speakerand I think that
- speakera good many of our friends that are just running scared
- speakerare becoming increasingly confused as they are running scared. And don't see where they are going. That's a
- speakerterribly arrogant and supercilious attitude to take. Things aren't what they used to be, Roswell. They aren't!
- speakerGood old days!
- speakerThey aren't what they used to be. They are worrying about how the mail's going to
- speakerget there. Yeah. M-A-L-E? M-A-I-L. Oh,
- speakerpostal service. I think that is the thing I mean. something terrible.
- speakerThat our government is spending money on finding out how to keep
- speakeron delivering mail after the first nuclear hit.
- speakerAnd, it's doing it. We are spending money.
- speakerYour taxes are being spent for that. They should all know and
- speakerI won't say who but people when they do hit the papers.
- speakerThe papers in the first place don't know anything about the normal
- speakerchurches, the mainline churches, as I have tended to call them. I don't know whether they are the main line any more,
- speakerbut we hear
- speakerabout the extreme right and Jerry Falwell and
- speakerthe electronic church and all of these things.
- speakerBoy, electronic church, you could really write a check for five dollars
- speakeronce a year. Why, you can really be something. Guarantee your salvation. Yes.
- speakerThat's exactly it. But,
- speakerAnd one who shall be nameless here, in my judgment
- speakerwas on the wrong side of the question
- speakerof tax exemption for Bob Jones College.
- speakerI don't know who he means, do you? No, well I'll never put.
- speakerbecause he's on the right side of most of those question. And, it's
- speakernot out of wrong-headedness.
- speakerIt's wrong, out of wrong-headness. It is not timidity. It's not timidity. No,
- speakerit's not timidity; no. It's a legalism that I found that
- speakerover the years when we were working
- speakerclose together, rather than one working and not the other, was that
- speakerhe could be influenced more easily than anybody that I knew of.
- speakerIf you just asked what he was thinking about when he
- speakersaid this.
- speakerOn COCU, one time I came back from Europe and the, up in Boston, Cambridge or some
- speakerplace. He was wanting us to
- speakerhaving a terrible time trying to get a final plan of union worked out. Then
- speakerlet everybody with a constitution everything that everybody approve it or not approve it.
- speakerI said, Look! That's the way we would do it. They won't do it that way.
- speakerYou can't possibly. Then they went and did it the way Paul would do it, and that was even worse.
- speakerWell, now you fixed all of them. I fixed them all.
- speakerI'm just agreeing with Roswell. Things aren't believed to me.
- speakerWell, lest this sound like
- speakerterrible arrogance or pathetic nostalgia. Let me tell you that
- speakerVisser 't Hooft and I, on his frequent visits here, infrequent
- speakervisits after he retired, I'd retired would come up to the country. And, we'd have
- speakerseveral days, Did you really? not under pressure, to go over things. And,
- speakerhe would send chapters of his memoirs up to me for the periods when
- speakerwe were like you and I on this Russian trip. The only
- speakerextant and surviving participants in some things.
- speakerAnd, we used to make out a little agenda on slips of paper of things that
- speakerwe wanted to be sure and touch while we were together.
- speakerOne time he came up, I had an agenda.
- speakerThree items and he had, and
- speakerwe swapped our papers. And,
- speakerone of the items I had
- speakerleaders, nostalgia
- speakerand
- speakerhe had the same and two others, and we swapped these papers and looked at each other in
- speakershock. And, he said, here after one hundred
- speakeryears we've been this accumulation of items for our
- speakeragenda. And he
- speakerlaughed and shook our heads, both of us. Well, we agree
- speakerwe ought to talk about it. And
- speakerwhat do we mean. We have misgivings about our judgment;
- speakerPartly it was because the leaders when we were young, were older. We were
- speakerin awe of them conceded them too much authority.
- speakerPartly, it's our frustration of
- speakerage. And, it was better when we were younger.
- speakerAnd, can we get an objective appraisal?
- speakerAnd, so we began to swap notes on
- speakerit. And, I made up a list of the
- speakerleadership of the various features of the church's activities and
- speakerinstitutional life through my
- speakerexperience.
- speakerAnd he did the same. And
- speakerthen we said, "Don't gut it!"
- speakerThey don't have the stature that they used to have.