Parish, the Thought - David B. Bowman

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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_fa6dc792-8ebf-54cd-94a2-39323883bfa5">8. Vitz, Psychology as Religion, 66.

      Engagement Beyond the Sanctuary

      I simply argue that the Cross be raised again at the centre of the market–place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage–heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek (or shall we say in English, in Bantu, and in Afrikaans?); at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. And that is where churchmen should be and what churchmanship should be about.

      Protest in the Heart of Grand Rapids: Baez and Harris Come to Park Church

      By 1968 intense opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict spread across the land. Some of my colleagues and I found ourselves counseling young men concerning their relationship to military conscription, known as “the draft.” If the local draft board proved sympathetic, a young man might escape being “called up” to this ugly war, especially if he could show evidence that his religious views led him to oppose war in general.

      One young man in Park Church, experienced conscientious objections to the war but he had no personal record of conscience toward war. He felt it ethically dishonest, in face of an imminent draft, to lay claim to pacifism. He was the son of a mortician. His assignment? The mortuary on the battle field.

      One day, Park Church received a request from folk singer, Joan Baez, and her husband, David Harris, to hold an opposition to the war concert in the sanctuary. It happened. I well remember the two of them walking into a packed house, she physically diminutive and he a towering figure.

      But the decision to host the event at Park Church, across the street from Veterans Park, came only after much conversation and disagreement.

      This account is based on my recollection of events. Maybe a recent conversation with Loyd Winer, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the time, is likely closer to the facts. He says that after the Trustees said “no” to the overture, the Custodian, Mr. Brodien, came to him saying, “I’m a black belt in karate. If there is any trouble I can handle it.” So, Mr. Winer approached an agent for Joan Baez. It was agreed that if the agent would write a $5,000 check (no small change in 1969) to cover any property damage to Park Church, the protest concert could proceed. When all came off peacefully, Mr. Winer returned the uncashed check to the agent. This is Mr. Winer’s memory of the process.

      Traditionally, Congregational churches had no central council or board, no hierarchy of decision making. Park Church inherited that tradition. Who then would decide whether or not to allow Baez and Harris to hold the concert in its sacred precincts? Surely the membership of the congregation at that time would not have held a homogenous view on the prosecution of the Vietnam conflict. What to do? This is how I remember it.

      The Senior Minister, Rev. McKenney called the Trustees together. They voted by a narrow margin to disallow the event. Why? The ostensible reason involved fear of damage to the building, either from disruption inside or brick bats outside in the street. One must keep in mind the fact that pro and anti–war feelings ran high in those days.

      The Board of Deacons also met. After all, they too had influence over events held in the sanctuary, the spiritual center of the church. After deliberation, the Deacons voted narrowly to allow the Baez/Harris protest event to take place.

      What to do? Though I served as Associate Minister in the church, and one assigned with primary emphasis toward youth who soon would face the draft, Rev. McKenney gave me no invitation to attend these meetings. In an unusual process, the Trustees and Deacons came together for a joint decision. They concluded that as long as the sponsors of the event put up a bond, the protest concert could take place in Park Church.

      As Baez and Harris swept into the right–hand front door of the church, I merely observed. But given the prominence of this folk musician and partner in the protest movement, one felt Park Church caught up in the current of the history of the time.

      Why should the Trustees, apart from ideology or attitudes toward the “war,” have been apprehensive? Central to their legitimate concern—the sanctuary windows. These twelve large, blue– toned, authentic Tiffany windows from the turn of the century were irreplaceable. How horrible to think of bricks or stones hurled at them, even though they were protected by translucent plexiglass. Any Trustee, given the time of protest and counter protest, might well have had second thoughts.

      All took place in peace.

      Opposing War Selectively

      In 1968, when I took up the role of Associate Minister at Park Church in Grand Rapids, the opportunity to preach from that ornate, uplifted pulpit from time to time presented itself. On August 11, 1968, I spoke from the text, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25).

      In almost defense attorney–like mode, I sought to present a Christian case for Selective Conscientious Objection to war. I argued in my opening sentence, “Mainstream Christianity has stood for the past fifteen centuries as a selective conscientious objector to war.” I chose not to attack the morality of the Vietnam conflict per se or to take up the cudgels for the pacifist tradition in the faith. I claimed this text from St. Luke differs both from, “Resist not an evil doer” (Matt 5:39) and from, “Let every person be subject to the governing authority” (Rom 13:1).

      The context in that moment included young men facing their local draft boards and seeking “conscientious objector” status from the ugly Vietnam war. Many boards took the stance that unless the alleged objector held conscience against all war their rejection of that particular conflict did not hold water, since that amounted to a political judgment, not a moral conviction about killing in general.

      I noted that the tradition of selective objection to armed conflict in the history of the church found itself borne out in the situation at hand. I remarked, “It is fair to say that the large majority of organized resistance to the Vietnam War is not inspired by an ideological pacifism, but rather by specific moral objections to this particular undeclared and bloody war.”

      I continued to press the point. Is the only decision for a Christian person or community to salute and march off or to say, “By God, never!”? Pointing to the “just war” theory that grew up in the Catholic tradition, as distinguished from the vow of Stephen Decatur Jr., “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”13 I invoked the German martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who forsook his pacifist stance to involve himself in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

      The Old Testament reading for the day came from 1 Chronicles in which we learn that David, who wanted to build the temple, heard God say, “You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on the earth” (1 Chr 22:8). Would God have been less displeased if David had shed less blood? Selectively?

      In closing, I noted a statement issued by the World Council of Churches, meeting in Uppsala, Sweden, on July 16, 1968, enlisting the “spiritual care and support” of those in military action, as well as for those who found themselves

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