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Eugene Carson Blake interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 3.
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- speaker[Bauer] That a couple of people have talked about in
- speakerresponding to the race
- speakercrisis and it
- speakermaybe in some others as
- speakerwell. Was? There has
- speakerbeen at least in the sixty's there
- speakerwas kind of a cleavage between the Social Education and Action
- speakercontingent, primarily
- speakerbased in the old Board of Christian
- speakerEducation and the
- speakermission side of the church. Namely National
- speakerMissions primarily National Missions but to a degree
- speakerForeign Missions. What people have
- speakersaid in a number of ways is that a good portion of
- speakerthe capacity of the Presbyterian church to do
- speakersomething together together has
- speakerbeen vitiated or whatever the right word is by
- speakerthis tension between
- speakerthe mission side
- speakerand the others. [Blake] Well. part of that
- speakerI don't want to be quoted on this one because [tape stopped.]
- speaker[Bauer] In the days when you were Stated
- speakerClerk, and I'm not suggesting it was because you
- speakerwere Stated Clerk, but in those. In that
- speakerera, was there more kind of
- speakerunanimity with between the mission and the education
- speakerside than in, say in
- speakerthe Neigh [Neigh, Kenneth Glenn] - Morrison [Morrison, William A.] era?
- speaker[Blake] Well. I'm prejudiced. Not, not for
- speakerquotes. I'd be on Neigh's side and
- speakerRamage [Ramage, David, Jr.] and those guys altogether because I thought they knew what they were doing. [Bauer] Right. Okay.
- speaker[Blake] And Morrison I had no use for.
- speakerThat. There for that. That was
- speakersad because
- speakerPayne [Payne, Paul C., General Secretary, Board of Christian Education] had been my favorite of the generation before, you see.
- speaker[Bauer] Yes. [Blake] I had worked with Payne
- speakerand Ganse Little [Little, H. Ganse [Hervey Ganse], Sr. President, Board of Christian Education].
- speakerThese were the. I'd rather have Ganse Little on my side on the
- speakerfloor of General Assembly than anybody I knew. [Bauer] That's
- speakerright. Great man. [Blake] He and I were mixed up together.
- speakerHe followed me at Pasadena [Pasadena Presbyterian Church] . We were both
- speakerasked to think about Columbus,
- speakerand I went to Pasadena instead, and he went to Columbus [Columbus, OH, Broad Street Presbyterian Church, 1941] a month
- speakerlater. [Bauer] To Pasadena. [Blake] To Pasadena. So our. He and Virginia
- speakerand I have been good friends for a long, long time.
- speaker[Bauer] But there
- speakerwas the. Was there
- speakera Social Education and Action-
- speakertype function in the Board of Christian Education in the Payne [Payne, Paul C.] era?
- speaker[Blake] Yes. Yes, indeed.
- speakerAnd, that was a
- speakerI can't recall, wasn't it?
- speaker[Bauer] Right. OK. Yes. [Blake] He would
- speakerbe it. [Bauer] Right. Right. [Blake] And he was. He
- speakerwas more than
- speakera bureaucrat. Cameron Hall [Hall, Cameron P.] was a man of vision.
- speakerAnd, they worked
- speakertogether.
- speakerWhen the National Council [National Council of Churches] was
- speakerformed. This shows something of the state of the church.
- speakerthat isn't nineteen fifty.
- speakerThis was, I would
- speakersay, just about the top. It was before my time,
- speakerso I can say that the top point of the
- speakerdenomination was in nineteen fifty
- speakerwas when they put the National Council of Churches together, three of the four
- speakervice presidents were
- speakerPresbyterians. That's Morse [Morse, H. N. [Hermann Nelson]. General Secretary, Board of National Missions] , Payne,
- speakerLeber [Leber, Charles Tudor, Sr. General Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions].
- speaker[Bauer] That does say something about it. [Blake] It does. It does. It says we had not
- speakeronly able people but we had people who were ecumenical.
- speakerThey were.
- speakerThe reason
- speakerwe started a new curriculum was that Paul Payne
- speakergot tired of the kind
- speakerof ecumenism there was in the educational forces.
- speakerExample. There were enough fundamentalists of
- speakerinfluence in the thing so
- speakerthat they decided. Or they wanted
- speakerto
- speakerdecide not to take up
- speakerthe books of the Bible
- speakerbut that the men
- speakerthemselves. So that you did not have
- speakerto decide on what, who had
- speakerwritten what. [Bauer] Authorship. You could walk right past
- speakerauthorship. [Blake] Well, yeah. That does. They
- speakerthey just. And, Payne [Payne, Paul C.] just wouldn't stand for. I mean he
- speakerwas. [Bauer]
- speakerThat is amazing. [Blake] I am wasting your time. [Bauer] No. you aren't. This is fascinating.
- speaker[Blake] I was thirty-eight years old I was put
- speakeron the
- speakerBoard of National. Of Christian Education from upstate New
- speakerYork because Colonel Babcock was,
- speakerwho was vice president of the
- speakerboard had made Morristown his
- speakerhome many weekend from time Lawrenceville of Princeton. i was going up there with his
- speakerson, who was my classmate.
- speakerRoommate matter of fact.. And so I became thirty eight years old and I was
- speakermade chairman of
- speakerthe. What was it? It was a lovely
- speakertitle
- speakerCurriculum Committee, I guess. It wasn't that, but it
- speakerwas. You knew it had to do with curriculum. [Bauer] Yes. [Blake] I found out after I'd
- speakerbeen there two
- speakermeetings that what the staff did with that committee was
- speakerto ask them to approve courses that they
- speakerhadn't read
- speakerand approve authors that they didn't
- speakerknow. So after two meetings of that,
- speakerI said, "Boys. We have finished with this nonsense.
- speakerWe are. You know as well as I do what you can get away with. What you can get away with at the General
- speakerAssembly. We're responsible now. We're not approve anybody
- speakerfor you.
- speakerAnd I said we will think
- speakerabout what the curriculum ought to
- speakerbe. [Bauer] Oh, my! [Blake] And,
- speakerso I made them read to the next meeting of
- speakerour media committee.
- speakerShelton Smith down in
- speakerCarolina and. Who was the guy in New York?
- speakerListen There was
- speakera radical educationalist at Union Seminary.
- speakerI can't even think of the name now. In any case, they were
- speakercontrasts. [Bauer] Right. [Blake] and that
- speakerwas where I got; then when Paul [Payne, Paul C.] came along shortly
- speakerafterwards, he grabbed hold of me, and we've
- speakerstarted a new
- speakercurriculum. [Bauer] Oh, my! That's terrific. Well, listen
- speakerreally do appreciate this. [Blake] This has been great, and I am sorry that
- speakerI do have
- speakera dental
- speakerappointment. [Bauer] Ah, that is right. I don't want to
- speaker[Blake] You have another something else you're going to do to.
