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VOLUME • 67 NUMBER • 7 JUCY1984 publication. and Radical reuse for Religious required History: Fragments Permission of a legacy Robert L. DeWitt DFMS. / Gordon Greathouse Paul Buhle Church Episcopal the of Archives 2020. Copyright Letters

minded Communist oppressors!) May 200 Soviety defections during the WITNESS not Christian our Lord give you Wisdom and Love and games). In responsing to your recent invitation to Light. One might therefore ask whether, over become a regular subscriber to THE The Rev. Andrei Urusov the last four years, their behavior and WITNESS, I have some observations Research Center their intentions towards us have changed after having read the February and of Christian Russian Culture radically? Or has the constant drumbeat March issues. Trail, Ore. of negative propaganda coupled with My first reaction was that THE WIT- hostile actions generated from the Reagan NESS was a publication of either the White House succeeded in changing our National Council of Churches or the Gillett responds perception as viewers considerably more World Council of Churches. The copy- than the Soviet reality has changed?

publication. right is by the Episcopal Church Publish- The letters of William R. Hooper and the Beyond this is the deepest moral issue: ing Company. The tradition and history Rev. Andrei Urusov, while undoubtedly our bounden duty to preserve this planet and of the Episcopal Church is as much or sincere, must be seen in the context of both for ourselves, and for life into the more biblical than any other denomina- anticommunist hatred of the Soviet Union future. Not to talk, not to proceed to reuse tion. THE WITNESS is so far left, liberal, that is rising to alarming levels in our relate to the Soviet Union and its people for anti-United States and lacking in biblical nation. People and politicians who are as fellow passengers on space ship earth, truths, I question if you can be Christian. determined to see the U.S.S.R. as "the is, for religious people, a sin against all focus of evil" will not easily be persuaded required One thing you liberals are consistent life: a collective death-wish. about is that you seldom learn from the that history shows that the Russians can Richard W. Gillett lessons of the past and are always having and do accept periods of accommodation Los Angeles, Cal. to reinvent the wheel; i.e., "Demystify- with other nations.

Permission ing the Russian Threat" by Richard W. The United States has signed a num- Gillett in the March issue. ber of international treaties with the Perspective needed I pray for your enlightenment and a U. S. S.R. which, in their detail, they have In the May issue the editors correctly DFMS. / fair opinion of the issues. kept about as well as we have. During castigate Democratic party defense of Dr. William R. Hooper Khrushchev's time, cultural exchanges the needs of capital at the expense of the

Church Ellensburg, Wash. flourished; under Brezhnev, detente reigned poor. This includes, of course, support for several years. Despite Reagan's poli- for Washington's war against peasants cies of hatred toward the Soviets, they and workers in Central America. Setting Cow, horse different have offered to negotiate a mutual and aside the war of words about the amount Episcopal I am sorry to say that most of your arti- verifiable freeze on nuclear weapons, or form of aid to the dictators or contras, the cles I can read in advance. They give no and have pledged not to be the first to use what Democrat has said (s)he supports of new ideas, and they just reflect the senti- them. Yes, there have been the Korean the rebels in El Salvador or the popular mental, confused religious social trend of airliner disaster, the detention of Andrei government in Nicaragua? Sakharov, and the Soviet withdrawal

Archives the Western World which I am constantly We are faced not with "Reaganism" meeting from the time I arrived in this from the Olympics, and other things that but with a retrenching capitalism. Con- rightly have disturbed us over the years. 2020. beautiful land of America. cerned Christians must do more than Of course such statements sound of- But from their side the Soviets see a re- question the attacks on the poor. We fensive. But really there is no offense in cently announced U.S. strategy for global must join forces with workers, Blacks, stating (as a simple vulgar example) that superiority, the revelation of plans to Hispanics, women, gays and other op- Copyright the cow and the horse are different, al- fight and win a protracted nuclear war, pressed both here and abroad who are though they have common elements like the U.S. intention to wear down their moving or ready to move. We ought to a head, a tail, four legs. The desire of economy in order to create an internal come armed with a perspective that calls your writers to reform the world is so crisis, and a clear hands-off policy in for independent political action as the intense that they seem to lose track of the allowing numerous organizing efforts by principal form of struggle to fight for a reality we live in. (Last example, the fringe groups in California to embarrass workers' and farmers' government in the article on Russia in the March WITNESS, and disrupt them during the Summer United States. where Richard W. Gillett confuses the Olympic Games (including a publicly Robert Schwartz Russian people with their internationally announced target by one group to obtain Chicago, 111. Fan since 5

required lication never lagged, and if he could New Haven, Conn. Seeks aid for video read your tribute to him it would be one of those times when he would be "moved Many thanks for the special issue of Advocate needs repair to tears and pull out his handkerchief and THE WITNESS celebrating the 10th Permission wipe and blow." Love to all in my name The special issue of THE WITNESS anniversary of women's ordination to and his. for the 10th anniversary of women's the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Virginia Shannon DFMS. ordination was excellent. In the article It's a splendid issue. / by Susan Pierce, "Courage, Longtime I am producing a video documentary West Port Pt, Mass. Hallmark of Rector, Ordination Site," on the ecclesiastical career of the Rev. Church she wrote that when Paul Washington Betty Bone Schiess, which will explore Mountaineer's road map was asked about "burnout" he said, the series of events that led her to that "God is inexhaustible. You just have to historic moment in Philadelphia. Here I am, an aged old West Virginia

Episcopal look up." His whole life in the diocese I would appreciate hearing from hillbilly, 74 years old. I am just recover- ing from pneumonia, a very sick old the has been one of looking up. When many WITNESS readers about any photo- of of us were discouraged, frustrated, angry, graphs, slides, video tapes, 8 or 16mm mountaineer. he was a source of inspiration and hope. film available. Please contact me at Now about THE WITNESS. In my But now he needs help to renovate his 4502 Broad Road, Syracuse, N.Y. 13215, estimation it is the very, very best in a Archives church, which is falling apart; $1.5 mil- (315) 469-3902. Many thanks for your battle for freedom and human rights. lion is needed for restoration and this assistance. And your church has some very clear

2020. money must be raised by the end of the road maps on how to find and locate year. Joseph Agonito Jesus Christ. Pray for me, I need it very I first became aware of the plight of Professor of American History much. Onondaga Community College Copyright the Church of the Advocate when I read Emory R. Bays an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Charleston, W.V. Shortly afterwards I learned that WDAS, a local radio station, was forming a Sick of 'women's lib' group to Save the Advocate. I gather that THE WITNESS favors, Oops! Recently I attended a press conference and has favored the ordination of wom- at the church. It was moving to hear one en. I hate to be caught in the position of The Volume Number on the June issue of THE WITNESS should read person after another get up and testify being opposed to a probably superior Vol. 67, not 62. that Paul Washington and the Advocate publication over a single-issue stand, but had had a profound influence on their this is so fundamental, I must. I am sick Editorial

America's Wailing Wall publication. and

reuse simple, moving memorial in women who gave their lives in a In this season of Pentecost, the for A the center of Washington, war that lasted 16 years. That war season of community in the spirit D.C., witnesses as a sobering also left 300,000 wounded and and a time of communication, U.S. corrective to the patriotic and 75,000 permanently disabled. The Christians would do well to required militaristic jingoism coming out of first casualties were two advisors ponder the current dangerous and the Administration in recent killed in 1959. Five years later, divisive actions of our government. months. It is the Vietnam War there were 20,000 soldiers in Echoes of the futile Vietnam war

Permission Memorial, to be completed this Vietnam. reverberate louder every day in the year with the addition of a mountains and jungles of Central The latter statistics have a America. Reports that napalm and DFMS. sculpture. / familiar ring. They match phosphorous bombs were being The memorial presently consists disturbingly the U.S. troop of slabs of highly polished black used against the people of El

Church deployment in Central America. granite set into an embankment. Salvador prompted one reporter to Some 33,000 troops were on land observe that the U.S. military had The meandering path through and sea during recent "war games" Constitution Park seems to come a lot left over from Vietnam. -

Episcopal in Honduras, and the number of upon it without warning. But as advisors in El Salvador keeps During Pentecost, Christians the people near it, they grow silent. of growing. Are we being led down a might reflect how we are linked to They talk in whispers, if at all. The path to face another black wall? people of all nations and cultures. black wall looms above, every inch When the divinity of each Archives of surface inscribed with more than It is a heartbreaking experience individual is forgotten, people can 58,000 names of those who died or for those who stand before the be labeled as leftists or rightists, 2020. are missing in action. Vietnam memorial to see the freedom fighters or terrorists, until Every now and then someone smaller, more personal tokens left the Babel becomes so towering that gasps or murmurs upon recognizing by friends and relatives — flowers a peasant with a Bible is more Copyright the name of a relative or friend. with cards, notes and photographs dangerous than a soldier armed to Some take pencil rubbings. Many taped near a name. People gather the teeth. feel compelled to run their fingers here in a community of suffering across the slab, feeling the and loss, and for many, there is no We must say no to napalm, inscriptions. As they reach out, peace, no resolution. Surely there mined harbors, death squads and they touch their own reflection, is no denying the courage of those all the other horrors. Otherwise we looking back from the mirror-like who died in Vietnam, but that they will stand before yet another wall granite. died to maintain the delusions of of names and weep for lives lost For a brief period, one is in the grandeur of a military industrial because of lessons that were not midst of those 58,000 men and complex is sad beyond bearing. learned. • « THE WITNESS

EDITOR Mary Lou Suhor

SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Robert L. DeWitt

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Richard W. Gillett Hugh C. White publication. and STAFF Ann Hunter reuse Susan Small for Lisa Wheian Table of Contents

required Decade of crises in a bicentennial era PUBLISHER 6 Robert L. DeWitt Episcopal Church Publishing Company Celebrations to mark women priests' 10th year Permission

ECPC BOARD OF DIRECTORS 1 ^~\ Bus stations: crossroads of poverty DFMS. / Judith Moore H. Coleman McGehee VICE-CHAIR 1 A Historical turbulence of Scudder, Spofford years Church Gordon Greathouse j 1 f~\ Radical religious history: fragments of a legacy Gloria Brown

Episcopal Paul Buhle TREASURER the Carman St. J. Hunter of ASSISTANT TREASURER Robert Eckersley

Archives Otis Charles Steven Guerra 2020. Carter Heyward James Lewis Cover, Beth Seka; graphic p. 7, Via Pads, Des Moines; graphic p. 10, Joseph A. Pelham Copyright Margaret Longdon; graphic p. 12, Gregg Williard/LNS; graphic p. 19, Pour/LNS; graphics Robert Potter pp. 20, 21,22, Lynd Ward. Antonio Ramos Kwasi Thornell

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR THE WITNESS is published monthly. Editorial office: P.O. Box 359, Ambler, PA 19002. Phone (215)643-7067. Subscription rates $ 12 per year. $ 1 per copy. THE WITNESS is indexed in the American Barbara C. Harris Theological Library Association's Religion Index One: Periodicals. Copyright 1984 by the Episcopal Church Publishing Company. Printed in U.S.A. ISSN 0197-8896. 1964-1974: Decade of crises in a stormy see by Robert L. DeWitt he frenetic decade of1964-74 in the Diocese of Pennsylvania reflected problems T in the greater society centering around racism, sexism and peace issues. The Rt. Rev. Robert L. DeWitt, who headed the diocese then, recalled the turbulent period in a lecture (excerpted below) during the bicentennial celebration of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. publication. DeWitt spoke in the ambience of a historic exhibit of 200 items, including a and Church of England prayer book used before and during the American Revolution (with the prayers for the King crossed out); and a Book of Common Prayer edited by reuse Benjamin Franklin. for Some observers have compared the DeWitt years with those of Pennsylvania's first bishop, William White, when "everything was up for grabs." Full text of the

required address may be obtained from Philadelphia Theological Institute, Remington and Dover Roads, Philadelphia, PA 19151, for $3. ecently I came across a box of on five issues of those years which were asked a Black woman whom I knew what

Permission R family photos. With such a dis- central to the Diocese of Pennsylvania: she thought about the riot. "Riot?", she covery, one is in a situation comparable racial strife, the Vietnam tragedy, the questioned. "That wasn't a riot. That to sitting down near a dish of peanuts — it institutional life of the diocese, its rela- was just a coming-out party!" The gulf DFMS.

/ is almost impossible to stop at one. So I tionship to the national Episcopal Church, between the typical Black and typical found myself looking at one after another and the ordination of women. White reactions to the unfolding events

Church of those pictorial representations of what The first day I was on the job as was enormous. In some respects, un- once was. My parents, brothers and Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese, several bridgeable. Truly, an American dilemma. sisters, wife and children all confronted of our clergy were in jail, arrested be- The Girard College situation was per-

Episcopal me from both my near and distant past. cause they had been involved in demon- haps the most vivid, most contentious And I found myself trying to recall what the strations in that racial powder keg known focus the racial issue had in my years in of it was like then. What was going on in as Chester, Pa. In the days, months and Philadelphia. Stephen Girard had written our common life? What were we thinking years that followed, I was to learn the a will generations earlier under which a of back then? What were the things that authenticity of the title of the landmark school was established, well-endowed, Archives moved us? What dismayed us? What book by Gunnar Myrdal on racism in for the benefit of poor, White, male lifted our hearts? America, An American Dilemma. Race

2020. orphans. And it now found itself situated Gibson Winter, speaking to us both as riots more than a decade earlier in De- in the heart of the enormous Black individuals and as a community, sug- troit had been for me a baptism into a community in North Philadelphia. When gests that if we don't remember what we consciousness of racism. But Philadel- Copyright Cecil Moore and others of the NAACP have been, we don't really know who we phia was to be my confirmation. My began organizing protest demonstrations are. instructors were Paul Washington, Layton at Girard College, calling for its being What were you doing during the years Zimmer, Mattie Humphrey, Clayton opened up to Blacks, an electric shock 1964-74? For all of us those years were Hewitt, Cecil Moore, Stanley Branche, went through the whole metropolis. And an intensive experience in rapid social Jim Woodruff, Barbara Harris, Jesse then, when the Episcopal Diocese sup- change, national crises, shifting values, Anderson — and a host of others, in- ported the picketing, it was seen as new horizons, challenges to many of the cluding Frank Rizzo. adding blasphemy to outrage. ways we had been both looking at and When North Philadelphia came apart Said many, if not most, of the White reacting to events. I would like to focus in a great racial demonstration in 1965,1 community, "Wills are sacred and in-

6 violable." Said most of the Black com- The Rev. Jesse Anderson, astute, veteran and conscientious opposition to the war munity, "Wills are not sacred, and this of many conventions, member of the was misplaced outrage over his chal- one is illegal!" The legal point involved Standing Committee, Rector of the Black lenge to a false patriotism. Repeated was that a person, dead, may not do congregation of St. Thomas, made a efforts were made at successive diocesan through the terms of a will what that speech. Said he, since the word "repara- conventions, and between conventions, person would not be allowed to do if tions" is a stumbling block to so many, I to force his resignation. But he was alive. I will always be grateful to Attorney propose we not use that word, but rather needed. I recall a testimonial dinner William Coleman for his cardinal role in substitute another word, hallowed by given in his honor at the Unitarian taking that case to the Supreme Court centuries of usage in the Anglican Book Church, near Rittenhouse Square. Hun- and getting a favorable ruling. But that of Common Prayer. That word is "res- dreds in that ecumenical gathering at- was after much agony, alienation and the titution." And he so moved. And the tested to his leadership. That event was politicizing of the diocese. convention by a wide margin approved — in effect — a Unitarian contribution And yet for the diocese there was no the program! to a Trinitarian Episcopal Church, just publication. moral position to take other than that Then the issue of White racism took as Gracie's ministry was an Episcopal and which it did. The diocese had at that another, very dramatic turn. Vietnam. contribution to the whole Philadelphia time, as I recall, some 18,000 Black And for the diocese it was as though community. reuse constituents. The issue involved "our" Caesar and Christ came center stage, In the early stages of the opposition to for people. And beyond that, deeper than and had a very earnest conversation. It the Vietnam War, almost nobody who that, was the clear claim of justice, a was a pretty one-sided conversation for was anybody was in the ranks of the claim the church could ignore only at the required quite a while. Caesar had the speaking dissenters. I still have in my files a cost of surrendering its vocation, re- lines, and in time of armed conflict clipping which states: "They cast a net linquishing its call to be the people of Caesar is good press. of conscience over American youth and God. But David Gracie had come to town. gathered in a mixed bag — young people Permission And then came the Black Manifesto, Quiet, dignified, scholarly, devout, he wise and witless, God-inspired and beat, and its demand for reparations for gener- nevertheless came to be caricatured in reformers and social renegades. The

DFMS. ations of injustice done to Black people catch recalled the self-descriptive words / the press as a man possessed by by Whites. It was a bold, imaginative monomania — the burning of draft cards. written by an abolitionist 100 years effort. And bold and imaginative was the The storm that arose over his principled before: 'We are what we are. Babes, Church local spokesperson for the Black Mani- sucklings, obscure men, silly women, festo, Muhammed Kenyatta. I will never publicans, sinners, and we shall manage forget when he intruded into a communion this matter just as might be expected of Episcopal service at Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse such persons as we are. It is unbecoming the Square. After interrupting the service in abler men who stood by and would do of and speaking to the demands of the nothing, to complain of us because we Manifesto, he strode to the altar and could do no better.' " Actually these

Archives picked up the alms basin. He flung the words were written of the young people money on the floor of the sanctuary, who engaged in the civil rights struggles

2020. dramatizing the sacrilege of a religious of the earlier '60s. But they apply with offering to God which belied and denied equal validity to the participants in the the weighty matters of the Law of God, mounting pressure against the war in Copyright such as racial justice. That was religious Vietnam. poetry acted out, worthy of a Jeremiah. But it was hard for the diocese. Hard Thanks to Kenyatta's persistence and on the diocese. Hard on the bishop! The unlimited imaginativeness, the issue of thing which convinced me I should not reparations was kept alive. And finally resign at that time was my growing the diocese faced it squarely at a special awareness that those beatnik peaceniks diocesan convention. A commission had were right. They would say the most been appointed to submit a proposal. It outrageous and unfounded things about called for a serious response to the the government's prosecution of the war, ethical issue central to the Manifesto. about what was really going on. Time after time I discounted the protesters' recall once when David Gracie came there are very, very few things which, protestations, only to learn not long after into the office and reported that he had given a chance, I would do differently. that they were correct. The Pentagon been re-reading Tolstoy's War and What a staff! — Charlie Ritchie, Jack Papers later documented this. Peace, and had suddenly realized what a McCarty, Al Vail, Sue Hiatt, Dave Some time later the Freedom of In- bishop's role is. Since I expressed in- Gracie, Jim Woodruff, Jack Hardwick, formation Act revealed that FBI files on terest, he continued that in one scene in Layton Zimmer, and many others. I many people, prominent and obscure, the book a general is on horseback shudder to think of my days in Phila- vindicated what people in the peace watching the battle, as soldier after sol- delphia without them. movement had been alleging. Where the dier runs up to him out of the confusion I spent untold hours with the staff peace activists got their facts I never of the fray and asks where to go, what to discussing issues, comparing points of knew. But I learned where the official so- do. The general, as confused as the rest, view, assessing possibilities, striving for called facts were coming from. They nevertheless draws his sword and with consensus. I recall no decision arrived at came from a pool of statements that great decisiveness points this way or this way that I ever regretted.

publication. officialdom wanted people to believe. that. The soldiers salute and charge back Another bonus was the presence of Sometimes they happened to be true. into the chaos. The church, too, said

and the Philadelphia Divinity School and its Often they were tragically false. Some- Gracie, needs someone who tells us dean, Ed Harris. On many occasions I

reuse one once stated: When war is declared, which way to go, even if he doesn't really appealed to them for theological help on for the first casualty is truth. I was late in know either! some of the strident issues of the day, realizing that. But I have been reminded It has been said that a bishop's role is and was never disappointed. of it often in recent times with reference to represent God to his people, and to One last observation about the diocese required to Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua. represent his people to God. Bishop as an institution has to do with the I would like now to turn to the Diocese Emrich of Michigan, with whom I had meaning of democratic processes in the of Pennsylvania as an institution. The served as suffragan, often added that on life of an absolute monarchy. For not the

Permission diocese is a rather awesome adminis- issues the bishop is not called to be bishop, but God, is the ruler of a diocese. trative assignment. In existence for 200 representative of the people, but to rep- And God's edicts and statutes are not

DFMS. years, it has accumulated myriad com- resent God. This is not arrogance. The subject to democratic review. I think this / mittees, commissions, trusts, policies same vocation pertains to every Christian. theological point is fundamental. At the both written and unwritten, and a veritable We are not called to be crowd pleasers, same time it is true also that OUT per- Church host of diocesan institutions. Because it but to be faithful. But how does one ceptions of the will of God are de- is an Episcopal diocese, the bishop has know what faithfulness requires? St. batable, and profit by debate; and that an ex-officio relationship to most of Augustine said to the gnostics of his the courses of action which may follow Episcopal those committees, commissions, insti- time, with whom he was engaged in a from those perceptions of the will of God the tutions. It is no exaggeration to say that a great controversy: "Let those be angry are also debatable, and profit from debate. of bishop in this diocese could, if he wished, with you who do not know with how This is the basis of the legitimacy of have a full time job simply attending great toil truth is attained, or how difficult democratic processes in the life of a

Archives meetings of those institutional entities. it is to avoid mistakes. Let those be angry diocese. But as with any democratic In any one given year there can be with you who do not know what sighs institution it puts a heavy premium on

2020. anywhere from 1500 to 2000 confir- and tears are needed if the real God is to education. For a diocese, it calls for mations. Custom calls for the bishop be known — even in the tiniest degree. people's being educated in the faith, personally to sign each of the confir- But for me to be angry with you, is utterly schooled in the church's theological as-

Copyright mation certificates. Is that the most impossible ..." sumptions. Jack Hardwick held the re- responsible way for him to spend that I would freely admit — as I have many sponsibility for much of the educational considerable amount of time? times before — that being Bishop of the concern of the diocese, and many hours Administration is necessary to any Diocese of Pennsylvania was too big a we spent discussing this problem. In a institution, and thus to the church, too. A job for me, alone. How can one person, time of racial struggle, in a time of war, bishop is a priest, a deacon, an ad- against many, insist that he or she has the voice of a majority of the people is ministrator, a pastor, general utility figure- the truth? That is why Augustine's words not necessarily the Word of God. Too head. He signs things, he attends things, speak to me so eloquently. At the same tragically often the voice of the majority he has his picture taken. But what is his time, I would also say that with the staff is an expression of prejudice, chauvinism, central task, the focus of his work? I help I had during my years as diocesan, Continued on page 23

8 Celebrations to mark women priests' 10th year publication. and ow do you celebrate the 10th anni- ordination a decade ago. Bishop Ramos will be people who were part of the versary of the "irregular ordina- is currently Associate Director for the struggle for women's ordination in this reuse H tions" of women to the priesthood — that Caribbean and Latin America, National diocese." for event which a decade ago on July 29 chal- Council of Churches. Schiess credits strong support from an lenged the patriarchy and changed the Lay people, clergy and bishops from organization of lay women, the Episco- required face of the Episcopal Church? Well, it all over the country are expected to pal Society for the Examination of depends. attend. The offering will go toward the Feminist Issues, for giving her the strength The institutional church will ignore it. Church of the Advocate building fund, to pursue her call and carry out her

Permission Many in the Episcopal hierarchy ques- since the edifice badly needs renovations. vocation. She says of the group, "It was tion the "appropriateness" of celebrating Syracuse, N.Y., also has big plans to organized in 1968 by women touched by the July ordinations, to the point that in celebrate. The Rev. Betty Bone Schiess the feminist movement and interested DFMS. / some areas, plans to celebrate have been of the Philadelphia 11 says of the service not only in women's ordination but in quietly smothered. to be held at Grace Cathedral, "It will pushing for systemic change. Since the

Church Nevertheless, announcements of pub- affirm that it takes a lot of blood, sweat group was founded they have drafted lic and private celebrations have been and tears to change things for women in two resolutions calling for pay equity for popping up across the country, and the the church. Readers and other participants women in the church."

Episcopal event in Philadelphia, site of the first

the ordinations, promises to carry on in the of iconoclastic tradition of a decade ago. Call for wholeness At the service of thanksgiving scheduled The following call for the ordination ness to this order of ministry, which July 29 at the Church of the Advocate, a of women bishops in the Episcopal exists to "lead, supervise and unite Archives call will be issued for the election and Church will be issued at commem- the church." orative services for the 10th anni- We pledge ourselves to pray and

2020. ordination of women bishops. (See box.) The Eucharistic service will utilize versary of women's ordination in work diligently for the prompt ac- Philadelphia's Church of the Ad- complishment of this healing and inclusive language, and celebrants will vocate July 29: fulfilling action, so that the whole

Copyright be the first women who were ordained in We, the undersigned, are keenly world "may see and know that Philadelphia and Washington, whoever aware of the incomplete and divided things which were cast down are among them can attend. The service will nature of the ordained ministry being raised up... and that all include lessons from the Feast of Martha because there are no women things are being brought to their bishops in the Episcopal Church. perfection by him through whom and Mary, and the long awaited festive Therefore, we call upon the all things were made, JesusChrist procession, postponed for security reasons Episcopal Church, its laity and our Lord." 10 years ago, will wind through nearby clergy alike, to proceed urgently (Readers wishing to add their streets preceding the event. Preaching and with dispatch to the election names to the above should drop a will be the Rt. Rev. J. Antonio Ramos, and ordination of women to the postcard to THE WITNESS, Box episcopate in order to bring whole- one of the four bishops present at the 359, Ambler, PA 19002.) The day before the anniversary ser- vice, a symposium of clergy and lay- women from the Diocese of Central New York will take place at the Cathedral in Syracuse. "We'll brainstorm about the future of the diocese," Schiess said. "On the agenda are problems regarding racism, sexism, and diocesan pay equity and personnel policies. The laywomen have decided to move ahead for change. If this happened in every diocese, things might change." Dr. Charles Willie, Harvard professor and long-time supporter of Schiess, will publication. preach at the Syracuse service, as he did

and at the ordination 10 years ago in Phila- delphia. Willie resigned his post as Passover

reuse president of the House of Deputies after for the Philadelphia ordinations to protest the church's attitude towards women. The Syracuse service will be sponsored required by the rector, wardens and parishioners of Grace Church and by members of the Episcopal Society for the Examination

Permission of Feminist Issues. Other smaller but no less significant Ten years so far fear, silence, submission.

DFMS. celebrations will take place in parishes in the wilderness,

/ Only surrender to the need and gatherings around the country, from ten summers and hundreds of the time — to love Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., and of spring storms since justice and walk humbly Church Boston. we few ventured out with your God. into the vast heartland. The Philadelphia service is scheduled Do not take time at 4 p.m. at the Advocate, and a press How quickly it happened, to explain to the neighbors. Episcopal conference will follow. only a few days' notice Tell only a few trusted the for some of us: friends and family members.

of The Syracuse service on July 29 at the Cathedral is scheduled for 3 p.m., accord- Pack nothing. Then begin quickly, ing to the Rev. Judith Upham, rector. Bring only before you have time

Archives your determination to sink back into Other groups across the country are to serve and the old slavery. celebrating the anniversary by sponsoring your willingness 2020. a one-woman play, "Solo Flight," based to be free. Set out in the dark. I will send fire on the life of Jeannette Piccard, noted Don't wait for the bread to rise. to warm and encourage you. balloonist who was ordained in 1974 at Take nourishment for the journey, Copyright I will be with you in the fire 79 years of age. The play, written by but eat standing, be ready and I will be with you in the cloud. Phyllis Paullette is a warm tribute to to move at a moment's notice. You will learn to eat new food Piccard, who died in 1981. "Solo Flight" Do not hesitate to leave and find refuge in new places. is being performed in the Midwest by your old ways behind — I will give you dreams in the desert Molly Culligan, and in the East by to guide you safely home to that place Roberta Nobleman. Culligan can be you have not yet seen. reached at 475 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, Alia Bozarth-Campbell was one of MN55102(612-291-0195),andNoble- the first women priests to be The stories you tell man at 110 Beacon St., Dumont, N.J. ordained in Philadelphia in 1974. one another around your fires She reflects on the past decade in in the dark will make you 07628 (201-384-6181). • the poem/prayer above. strong and wise.

10 Continue to call each other by the names I've given you, to help remember who you are. You will get where you are going by remembering who you are. Touch each other and keep telling the stories of old bondage and of how I delivered you. Tell your children lest they forget and fall into danger— remind them even they were not born in freedom, but under a bondage they no longer remember, which is still with them, publication. if unseen. remembereand d Or they were born in the open desert reuse where no signposts are. for by Alia Bozarth-Campbell Make maps as you go, remembering the way back

required from before you were born. So long ago you fell into slavery, slipped into it unawares, Permission out of hunger and need. as though for the first time. Outsiders will attack you, You left your famished country

DFMS. and some who follow you, Some of you will not change at all.

/ for freedom and food in a new land, and at times you will weary but you fell unconscious and passive, and turn on each other Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves and slavery overtook you as you fell Church from fear and fatigue and asleep in the ease of your life. blind forgetfulness. and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth You no longer told stories and feel abandoned by you. You have been preparing of home to remember Episcopal for this for hundreds of years. Some will find new friendship who you were.

the I am sending you into the wilderness in unlikely faces, and old friends

of Do not let your children sleep to make a way and to learn my ways as faithful and true through the journey's hardship. more deeply. as the pillar of God's flame. Keep them awake and walking on their own feet so that you both Archives Those who fight you will teach you. Wear protection. Those who fear you will strengthen you. Your flesh will be torn remain strong and on course. Those who follow you may forget you. as you make a path 2020. So you will be only Only be faithful. with your bodies the first of many waves This alone matters. through sharp tangles. of deliverance on these Wear protection. desert seas.

Copyright Some of you will die in the desert, for the way is longer than anyone Others who follow may deride It is the first of many imagined. or forget the fools who first bled beginnings — your Paschaltide. Some of you will give birth. where thorns once were, carrying them Remain true to this mystery. away in their own flesh. Some will join other tribes Pass on the whole story. along the way, and some Such urgency as you now bear I spared you all will simply stop and create may embarrass your children by calling you forth new families in a welcoming oasis. who will know little of these times. from your chains. Some of you will be so changed Sing songs as you go, Do not go back. by weathers and wanderings and hold close together. that even your closest friends You may at times grow I am with you now will have to learn your features confused and lose your way. and I am waiting for you. •

11 Bus stations: Crossroads of poverty by Judith C. Moore us passengers are scraping the bot- alike. nobody could freeze us out by turning off B tom of the U.S. economy's barrel. Blue-uniformed Greyhound employees the utilities when winter came." His They are the elderly; the young, suddenly walk between benches with push brooms, hands shook when he stuck his daughter's

publication. bankrupt families; the emotionally dis- sweeping up cigarette butts, paper cups, pacifier back into her mouth. turbed; people of color; Vietnam veterans; an odd sock, newspaper. The Pinkerton I visited with 29-year-old Aldo, a Black and young enlisted servicemen. But more and guard moves around the room's edges, man born in Georgia and raised in an

reuse more, they are difficult to distinguish watching for trouble. At 4 a.m., the depot orphanage after his mother died in child-

for from the homeless street people who seems more like the open ward of a birth when he was nine. His teachers wander in from the depressed, "tender- mental institution than a waiting room, thought he was retarded, Aldo said. "All loin" areas of big cities. with exhausted bus travelers holding it was was I was broke up." No one required Early this spring, I spent 10 days in heads in hands, street people mumbling, taught him to read or write. For the past San Diego, one of the fastest growing and an extravagantly-dressed prostitute seven years he had worked in a Man- cities in the United States, to do a story striding through on four-inch heels, her hattan sweat shop, sewing on raincoat

Permission about bus travelers. During that time, I bosom bared in a red blouse. A tall, thin collars and sweeping and cleaning toi- visited the terminal during each of a Mexican woman, her arms scrolled with lets. When the boss died, he told me, the day's 24 hours. I heard some cheerful amateur tattoos, fights off the attentions boss's wife took over and fired Aldo. So DFMS. / stories, but not many. of an obviously non-Marine who had Aldo, who said he liked to travel, took his San Diego's 50-year-old Greyhound draped his narrow shoulders in a green savings and came to California by bus.

Church terminal stands under the long shadows Marine overcoat. He said he had been in Los Angeles for of new glass-front bank towers. The city's Early in the morning, families — father, five days and didn't much like it. So he dispossessed huddle on patches of grass mother, infants and toddlers — began to thought he'd hang around San Diego and

Episcopal at the base of these 20 and 30-story stumble off buses from north and east. then head back to Manhattan. "I miss the giants. They panhandle, chat with and Fathers toted diaper bags and styrofoam that city," he said, "like she was my of comfort one another, tipple wine and coolers stuffed with food. Mothers carried baby." share food wrested from streetside gar- babies. I asked the dayshift guard why so Aldo was handsome, strong and friend-

Archives bage cans. At noon each day I heard a many young families were arriving. "They ly, and although he could not read or blue-suited preacher offer these people come here looking for work," he answered. write, was marvelously, melodiously ar-

2020. salvation. "Repent," was the crux of his "We see lots of them." ticulate. In the course of our conversa- message, his voice carrying on soft sea I talked with Ron, a bearded, long- tion I asked him if he had ever been breezes. haired 26-year-old father. I held his married^ His brow furrowed. "No," he

Copyright At night, the street people ramble in freshly-diapered and fretful daughter said. "I'd like to be married. But I can't. I and out of the bus depot. Sitting sprawled while his wife stood in line to buy milk. don't have nothing to offer a woman." or upright on benches and chairs, leaning "We rode two days and three nights," He got lonesome, he told me, and often and slumping against walls, chain-smoking Ron said. Around his feet were stacked considered getting a dog. During the last and bumming cigarettes, staring: every- green plastic bags packed with everything two days in L. A., he said, "abrown mutt- one, then, looks dazed, tired, and con- they owned. They came on the bus, "be- dog followed me around. When I said fused — passengers and street people cause the loan company took back the goodbye to him" Aldo gazed at me with car." Yes, Ron had come to find work, raised eyebrows, "he looked like I'd Judith Moore is a free-lance journalist based construction work, and they had chosen kicked him. I'd have liked to bring him in Berkeley, Cal. San Diego because, "We figured at least along."

12 It was the day that Gary Hart had cocaine and crystal methedrine, "speed." retaliation she had poured a cup of sugar swept New Hampshire and I asked Aldo "Praise the Lord," he said, "I never into the gas tank of his pickup truck. who he would like to see for president. stuck a needle in myself and I never got Lois had not had any teeth since she "Ain't nobody," Aldo said, "ever raped busted." was 23. A dentist pulled them all, she a woman so bad as Reagan he raped this For the first time in 10 years Bud was told me, also addressing the elderly man, country. I don't have any more hopes. I "all clean," he said. "No booze, no dope, who as Lois talked, continued to laugh just have dreams." no cigarettes." And he felt scared, scared and to shake his head. "The dentist," she Bus passenger luggage is made from he couldn't stay clean and scared to see said, "he gave me false teeth but they cardboard cartons laced with twine, from his old friends. "Out there on the streets," never did stay in right. I shoulda sued green heavy-ply garbage bags, from pa- he pointed toward the depot's entrance, him. I think most of my teeth weren't per shopping bags. Older travelers carry "is a mean hungry army, people turned spoiled." She had gotten dentures twice 30- or 40-year-old battered suitcases to wolves that will eat you alive." from welfare, but they never fit. and I saw two elderly women dragging Bud's round face was freckled and his Drawing her heavy-bosomed frame up wide green eyes regarded me with almost straight, Lois told us she worked as a

publication. suitcases by ropes attached to handles. Often, as in the case of Ron and his grave interest. He told me he had gained country-and-western singer. The elderly and family, everything they own is with them. weight at the rehab center. His plaid flan- man cackled. "Sure as....," he said, nel shirt pulled across his belly. "you never been no singer except to reuse The depot's steel lockers cost 75

Permission sure of that. "I want to get myself straight very minute the time was up before in- usually voiceless in this society abound before the end." serting another three quarters. in the bus depot. Everywhere I went with What were his hopes? my tape recorder and notebook, I was DFMS. / Very few passengers have friends or "I'd like to get a big fishing boat and always keenly aware of my own depend- family waiting when they arrive. Down- make a home on it for people to get away ence "on the kindness of strangers." town parking is expensive. Buses are Church from the rat race." And he took my hand Charity exists between us and a terrible often late. When men and women get off in his, which was sweating, looked into nakedness. After we talked, these buses they go to the pay phones and call my eyes and said, "Thank you for talking strangers almost always thanked me Yet, someone to come pick them up. Episcopal with me." it was they who had often poured out the the Bud, 22, had just hauled his suitcase Lois told me she was 48. The elderly essence of their lives. of and a box tied with clothesline from the leathery man, carrying a paper sack on Skip church one Sunday. Go to your pay phone to the bench and taken out his top of which I could see a folded bath- Trailways or Greyhound bus terminal. brown leatherette Bible when I sat down robe, took a seat on the other side of Lois Archives Wander. Watch the long lines form. Look next to him. The San Diegan had arrived and laughed, saying, "Not hardly she at passengers, stiffened by hours in

2020. from "up North" and was waiting for his ain't." Lois, at five foot two, weighed at cramped postures, limp into the bright-lit sister. When I asked where he'd been, he least 200 pounds and wore her dyed au- depot. Help someone carry his or her said, "I've been trying to be born again. burn hair in a pompadour held in place luggage. Sit down on a bench and visit

Copyright But it's awful hard work." What he with bobby pins and hair spray. Her left with a young mother or father. Stand at a meant, he continued, was that he had just eye had been blackened and a fist-size lunch counter. Drink coffee and ask the that afternoon returned from two months bruise on her cheek had turned greenish- person next to you, "How far did you in a drug rehabilitation facility. blue. Dark red lipstick outlined her mouth come today?" Bud grew up in a part of San Diego and she was entirely without teeth. where poor Whites had migrated before After asking if I had a cigarette, she The travelers will give you the Gospel and during World War II. His parents explained she had come from a nearby in their own words. You will hear God's broke up when he was 9, and when he rural town to stay at her mother's in San voice in the stories of God's people. You was 10 he started smoking marijuana. He Diego. Her boyfriend, she said, had will be anguished. You will also, pecul- graduated, he told me, to alcohol, then to smashed her dentures with a rock. In iarly, be inspired. •

13 Historical turbulence of Scudder, Spofford years arlier in this issue, former WITNESS editor Robert L. DeWitt reflected upon E the stormy political decade of 1964-74 during his tenure as Bishop of Penn- sylvania. The following pages reveal the turbulent history lived by the WITNESS editor who preceded him, the Rev. William B. Spofford, who was harassed during publication. the '50s by the House Un-American Activities Committee for his political activism. and Equally as prominent during the three decades covered, beginning with 1920, was the noted Episcopal laywoman Vida Scudder, who organized the Church League reuse for Industrial Democracy. for Radical Christian history, recalling how Christians dealt with the relation be- tween faith and politics in their lives, is frequently missing from library shelves. The required following segment by Gordon Greathouse is taken from the study guide, Which Side Are We On: Christian Commitment for the '80s. (See back cover.) Permission DFMS.

/ BEGINNINGS met in New York City, she effectively argued for forming an organization with broad middle class sup- The Church League for Industrial Democracy (CLID) port by uniting liberals and socialists who would Church came into being shortly after a group met in May, work for civil liberties and industrial reform without 1919, in New York City under the leadership of Vida explicitly favoring socialism. Scudder — a prominent Episcopal churchwoman CLID's watchword was "industrial democracy," Episcopal who had been active in the Socialist Party as well. which meant that democratic principles should be ex- the A writer and somewhat of a mystic, Vida Scudder

of tended to the workplace. CLID held that, unlike the was deeply concerned over the claims of the social U.S. government which is supposed to be of, by, and gospel, and possessed an unusual organizing ability. for the people, the industrial system is of, by and for

Archives As a professor at Wellesley College, she had a wide its owners. Thus, CLID chose to respond to the new network of friendships and was alert to the fact that a developments of an "un-Christian industrial and eco- 2020. specifically socialist organization could no longer nomic system" in order to create a more Christian gain a wide following in the middle class. society that "substitutes fraternal cooperation for Vida Scudder felt that church social action organ- mastery in industry and life." Copyright izations had to be based in the middle class to be By selecting the phrase "industrial democracy" realistic and her greatest fear in the years following CLID members also accepted the viewpoint that the the first World War was that the middle class would conflict between labor and capital was the central support anti-left repression. Thus, when the group issue of social concern. Although not blind to racism and sexism, they felt that these could not be over- come until the competitive economic system was Gordon Greathouse is a Methodist minister. Former di- rector of Church Research and Information Projects transformed. For them, once the possibility that (CRIPS) New York City, he is now working in Brazil. some can advance by dividing and exploiting others

14 was eliminated, racism and sexism would fade away. and one of its Presidents, Bishop Edward L. Parsons Throughout the summer of 1919, meetings were of California, was later a national Vice President of held in several eastern cities in order to form a the American Civil Liberties Union. Educating church members about labor issues was always a central purpose of CLID. From its first meeting, many voiced the concern that seminary cur- ricula acquaint students with social and industrial problems in order that they could "know, preach and practice the social gospel." Thus, efforts were con- tinually made to have CLID organizers speak to sem- inary communities. By 1921, two-thirds of the Epis- copal Theological School and Berkeley Divinity publication. School faculties had become members. In 1926, a

and "Students in Industry Project" was set up in which seminarians took industrial jobs during the summer reuse and met together on weekends with social gospel for leaders, businessmen, and labor organizers to discuss how their experiences related to their faith and to

required church programs. This project continued into the 1930s in a modified form. In an effort to educate church membership, CLID speakers led discussion groups at summer church Permission conferences and spoke to university and church meetings. Joint conferences were held with the Fel-

DFMS. Vida Scudder / lowship of Reconciliation and the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order in several cities. Its field national organization. In October, when the Epis- representatives worked closely with Y.M.C.A. Church copal General Convention met in Detroit, CLID groups and often were invited into pulpits in order to emerged as a visible movement by holding public inform local churches about social problems. forums in the evening at which prominent labor Episcopal leaders and social activists spoke. These activities In 1924, the Rev. William Spofford, a former the continued throughout CLID's history. At some Con- Secretary of the Church Socialist League, became of ventions, they were expanded to having social Executive Secretary of CLID. At this point its ac- activists give sermons in local churches. The purpose tivities were greatly expanded, especially in the Mid- west. His contact with all types of political and labor

Archives of these forums was to raise delegates' consciousness about social issues, and sometimes they were regard- groups, along with his ability to interpret economic issues to church audiences, made him an invaluable 2020. ed as more interesting than the Convention itself. leader. Under his direction, CLID membership passed the 1,000 mark and The Clipsheet, a quarterly ACTIVITIES OF THE 1920s publication, was started to keep members informed Copyright During the 1920s, CLID focused its activities in about League activities. At the same time, William three areas: (1) civil liberties, (2) church education, Spofford was the Managing Editor of The Witness and (3) corporate responsibility. In its first year of magazine which often carried news and advertise- activity, CLID took up the fight against government ments about CLID and provided a current social and church repression of Episcopal teachers and min- analysis for a broader audience. Spofford was also isters who "incurred persecution through advocacy very active in developing and promoting employer of social change." The defense of civil liberties con- conferences, student workshops, and church-labor tinued to be an important concern of CLID members, leader meetings.

15 The third area of CLID's activities during the 1920s prosperity would remain forever and its benefits was corporate responsibility. During this decade, the would gradually pervade society. The working class middle class by and large had a satisfactory standard was not so easily deluded since the 1920s for them of living. Those with social consciousness wanted to were "The Lean Years." Nevertheless, the Great De- be assured that their life style was not the result of pression once again made capitalism the central exploiting the working class. Thus, many church issue, and capitalist defense of its privilege through members read Vida Scudder's pamphlet Christians fascism became a chief danger. and Investments and tried to invest in "responsible" 1930s AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION corporations. During this period, hope still lingered that if cor- The Depression also gave rise to three important porate and labor leaders could just understand each people's movements: The Congress of Industrial Or- other, industrial disputes could be avoided. Thus, a ganizations, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, publication. couple of conferences were called to get both sides and the United Front against Fascism. Each of these movements joined together liberals and radicals in

and together, but this idea was soon dropped. Most members of CLID were sympathetic with the struggle for economic justice and democratic reuse labor, feeling that justice was on its side, particularly rights. In later years, participation in these coalitions for in the railroad, textile, and coal industries. One of became the focus for bitter criticism and persecution, the first attempts to assist labor was by providing but at the time, they were the avenues for meaningful food money for striking coal miners so they would activity for socially-concerned Christians. required not be starved into submission. This action brought During these years, CLID's activities were greatly the praise of seven Anglican bishops whose letter of expanded and its membership grew. Its struggle for appreciation arrived in time to be read at the 1922 economic justice and democratic rights throughout

Permission General Convention. the previous decade were now regarded with pride by In later years, CLID leaders played fact-finding and Episcopalians. Soon it had a dozen chapters in the

DFMS. East, Midwest and West and more than 3,000 mem-

/ mediating roles in such labor disputes as the Patter- son Silkworkers Strike (1925) and the Passaic Textile bers spread across the country. Its activities now Strike (1926). For a period in the early '20s, they took took on a new form and intensity. Church out ads in major newspapers setting forth their posi- Throughout the '30s, an important part of CLID's tion about industrial disputes. These and other ac- program continued to be educational activities. The tivities won them the respect of many labor leaders summer intern jobs were expanded and drew together Episcopal and their members were frequently invited to labor students from nearly a dozen seminaries. As semin- the ary students took various types of jobs in Cincinnati, of meetings. A number of union newspapers praised the League for its concern about social justice and for its they were able to come together and share their support of labor. reflections on how religious values might be applied

Archives These efforts did not occur without resistance. to the workplace. In 1931, a School for Social Ethics, From the very beginning, publications such as the a mini-university, was started at Wellesley College 2020. Manufacturers Record of Baltimore carried articles where prominent church leaders taught summer criticizing the League. In 1925, opponents of CLID courses throughout the '30s. submitted a memorial to the House of Bishops to In addition, CLID continued to play an important Copyright condemn the League as well as the Fellowship of Re- role at Episcopal Summer Conferences as well as at conciliation and the Civil Liberties Union. When this General Conventions. Some chapters developed pub- failed, they brought a resolution against "Politics in lic seminars while others participated in Conferences the Church" to the 1928 General Convention, but it for Seminary Students. Literature and study pro- also failed. grams were developed for all members who were in- The stock-market crash in 1929 created an entirely terested and at some points CLID cooperated with new atmosphere. During the "Roaring '20s" many organizations such as the People's Institute of members of the middle class naively believed that Applied Religion in leadership training programs. In

16 Few, if any, of CLID's leaders were members of the Socialist or Communist parties, but they had no qualms about cooperating with anyone who was honestly working for social justice. The issue was support for a particular cause rather than party affili- ation. This was a cause of much persecution during the McCarthy Era, with its sweeping denunciation of "fellow travelers." Many of CLID's activities in the second half of the 1930s were done in cooperation with other organiza- tions in the United Christian Council for Democracy (UCCD). UCCD was a federation of left Christian publication. groups which came together in 1936 under the leader- and ship of Reinhold Niebuhr. While each organization maintained its own orientation, all rejected the reuse "profit-seeking economy and the capitalistic way of for life." CLID was a member of UCCD together with the Fellowship of Socialist Christians led by Reinhold

required Niebuhr, the Methodist Federation for Social Service William Spofford led by Harry F. Ward, the Rauschenbusch Fellowship all these and other activities, their primary concern for Baptists, the Reformed Council for Social Recon- was helping Christians live out their faith by en- struction, as well as other groups of Presbyterians, Permission gaging in activities for social justice. Congregationalists, and Evangelicals. In the years By the beginning of the 1930s, CLID had dropped immediately after World War II, CLID held annual DFMS.

/ its discussion about corporate responsibility. As un- meetings with these other organizations in order to employment grew and working conditions deterior- share perspectives. While the Council was never more than a federation, it did make important contri-

Church ated, its activity in investigating labor conditions and supporting strikers took on a new importance. In butions in civil liberties and labor relations by bring- 1931, CLID joined with other groups to provide relief ing progressive Christians together.

Episcopal funds for striking textile workers in Danville, Virgin- ia and in the following year they sent 21 members of STRUGGLES AGAINST RACISM & FASCISM the of the clergy to investigate working conditions in the During this period, CLID was active in three areas. Kentucky coal fields. CLID's primary focus continued to be support for By the second half of the 1930s resistance to the

Archives labor struggles. In this period that meant assisting Depression had reached a higher level. Industrial and sharecroppers in southern states to organize them- tenant farmer unions were rapidly gaining strength 2020. selves into the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the United Front had a broad base of support. (STFU). STFU developed under the leadership of the CLID, too, was developing with and responding to Socialist Party and CLID helped by raising funds and

Copyright these advances. Strike volunteers were organized to sending field workers. In 1936, for example, funds join picket lines and teams were sent across the coun- were sent to help Arkansas sharecroppers who had try to preach the social gospel. lost their land, and a field worker was sent to the Throughout this period, CLID took an anti-capi- Delta Cooperative Farm in Mississippi. talist position and presented a positive view of social- Supporting labor struggles also meant aiding the ism. Nevertheless, its primary concern was to devel- development of industrial unions through the CIO. op support around particular issues rather than raise CLID understood the need for organizing the unor- consciousness about how these were caused by capi- ganized as well as joining workers together in indus- talism or how socialism might eliminate the problem. trial rather than trade unions. Thus, CIO organizers

17 were frequently asked to speak to church groups and erated countries," and opposed any relations with were regarded as a leading force in the working class. Franco's regime in Spain. A second area of CLID's activities in the second half of the 1930s was the struggle against foreign and ELSA, EXPANSION AND REPRESSION domestic fascism. Fascism arose in Italy in the early In order to reflect this broader program, the name 1920s, and it gained strength in Europe and the Unit- was changed to the Episcopal League for Social Ac- ed States as capitalists backed it to protect their inter- ests and stifle domestic protest. CLID realized that tion (ELSA) in 1946. This expanded emphasis, how- unless people were organized to stop it, fascism ever, was built on a weak foundation. In the post- would continue to grow and eliminate democracy. war years, the term "industrial democracy" lost its Thu6, they saw the Spanish Civil War as a crucial power to draw people together in common cause. As conflict between fascism and democracy, and sup- industry boomed with European reconstruction and the production of long-awaited consumer products, publication. ported the loyalist cause. They sent funds for orphans through the friends of Spanish Democracy and tried most members of the middle class lost interest in and to educate congregations through articles in church industrial issues. At the same time, William Spof- ford, who had led CLID for the last 20 years, was no reuse publications and pamphlets. longer able to continue his activities as both Manag- for A third area CLID became involved in during this ing Editor of The Witness and Executive Secretary of period was the struggle against racism. Although CLID. Thus, for the next two years his son (now their activities in this area were greatly expanded in required the post-war years, during this period they saw reac- Bishop) William Spofford, Jr. carried on these activ- tionaries using racism to divide and weaken the labor ities with ELSA. He in turn was succeeded by three movement. Thus, they issued a number of pamphlets other Executive Secretaries.

Permission to raise members' awareness, and endorsed programs In the early 1950s ELSA succumbed to the repres- to eliminate racial discrimination in government and sive atmosphere of the McCarthy period. As church radicals were attacked within the church and with-

DFMS. to combat lynching. / out, many shied away from organizations such as As CLID became more active in all these fields, it ELSA. In addition, without a unifying issue such as again became the focus of attacksby conservatives. Church At the 1937 General Convention, Merwin K. Hart led industrial democracy, many joined other organiza- the Church Layman's Association in an attack on tions to further their social concerns. Finally, without CLID for being a Marxist organization. With support a unifying leader it was no longer possible to main- Episcopal from Bishop Manning, they were able to get a resolu- tain an active organization, and ELSA slipped into the tion passed in the House of Deputies to bar CLID oblivion. Thus, in effect, ended the three decades of of from future Conventions. This resolution was over- the turbulent life of CLID. whelmingly defeated by the House of Bishops but the Whether a movement in the Episcopal Church will

Archives fight arose again at the 1940 Convention with the soon emerge which will bring together these different same result. Similar attacks were mounted in Con- concerns and commitments, grounded in a cogent

2020. gress — in 1938 by the Dies Committee and again in analysis of the present-day systems and structures of the 1950s by Senator Joseph McCarthy's redbaiting. injustice, is yet to be seen. That possibility is de- In the 1940s, CLID expanded its activities to in- pendent in large measure on whether the church is Copyright clude support for relief projects in China and the willing to build upon and learn from its own history. Soviet Union. With the end of World War II, a new However, we must be careful not to canonize our and broader program was drawn up that included on history. Throughout the last 200 years we see the the domestic front a call for full employment and a same forces to be resisted — sexism, racism and im- guaranteed annual income along with opposition to perialism — but their structures and forms have the closed shop, the poll-tax, and legislation that de- changed through time. Our analysis and strategies prived women of equal rights. On the international must change as well. By recovering the vitality of our front, they called for support of the Dumbarton tradition, we can work and dream in our own time. Oaks Conference and "people's movements in lib-

18 publication. and reuse for required

Permission Radical religious history: DFMS.

/ fragments of a legacy

Church by Paul Buhle

visited with Willard and Ruth Adlard milennium. They organized the unions, Episcopal ly, ruminating over the legacies of the MacLennan Uphaus to tape them for Gnostics, Cabbalists, Sufis, Tantric Budd- initiated protests against racism, led the the 1 of my Oral History of the American Left hists, Hopi seers and their meaning for battles for Social Security and against archive just a few months before Willard's the Radical Reformation's current heirs. the Cold War. What had brought Willard death at age 91. Willard was already a We had been profoundly moved by lib- and Ruth among them, decades before Archives legendary figure in Protestant radical- eration theology and its poet-philoso- liberation theology pointed toward a re- ism; he epitomized one era of religious phers' aim to recuperate pre-Columbian conciliation of radical faiths? 2020. commitment and looked forward to the culture, to grasp at truths long relegated Willard had felt close to his German- next. His 1983 talk at the WorldFellow- to the margins of Western history. American grandfather and the Reforma- ship Center had been entitled, "Integrat- All but a few of my other American tion energy the old man had passed on. Copyright ing Mysticism and Social Revolution." Left respondents would call themselves For one historical moment still rever- We had discussed the subject excited- atheists — aging Jews, Finns, Hunga- berating today, Protestantism had ex- Paul Buhle, who directs the Oral History of rians, Poles and Italians. They broke pressed an almost primal thirst for com- the American Left at Tamiment Library, from religion in their youth, or came from munalism, for the oneness of human- New York University, is seeking to interview parents who had already made the break. kind, nature and the cosmos. Willard other "religious radicals" active during the Yet they devoted every available energy recognized the lingering traces in his own 1920s-50s. All tapes will be available (de- to a vision of a cooperative society just as life's mission, keeping alive the dissenting pending upon the wishes of the interviewee) "spiritual" and hardly less other-worldly voice of socialist Christians. for listening at Tamiment. than the Radical Reformation's earthly Two distinct traditions can be identi-

19 The second, less mystical and more Horace Trauble, embodied the more practical tradition flourished among mystic aspect of Christian Socialism. ministers within mainstream denomina- Traubel, editor of the Unitarian magazine, tions. They played some role in preparing The Conservator, ceaselessly preached the ground for the American Revolution, the gospel of socialism as the essential but their modern presence gained force Good News and the Socialist Party as around the sorely oppressed — mill the bearer of the mission. workers, Black slaves and free Blacks — Traubel died in 1919, and the mystic who so badly needed a redemptive confidence in American cooperative message. destiny lay mortally wounded. So much For example, at Pawtucket, R.I., the of Anglo-Saxon America had turned to site of the first "family system" textile Billy Sunday, the Ku Klux Klan, anti- mills in the Americas (and the site of the unionism and xenophobia. The Bishop Brown incident of the

publication. first labor strike involving women work- ers) a Baptist minister in the 1820s took 1920s marked a sea change in Christian and this characteristic text: "Do not rich men radicalism. William Montgomery Brown oppress you? Woe to ye rich men, weep of Galion, Ohio, retired Episcopal bishop reuse of Arkansas, author of prominent apolo-

for and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you." gias for the faith, had turned political with a tract on Black rights. He went over The local millowners turned him out of required to the Left with both feet in his 1915 the church, a common result of such out- Communism and Christianism, a much- spokenness. And yet, in the abolitionist translated and reprinted personal appeal press, Black and White, and in the popu- for the new "religion" of revolution. He Permission list, labor and socialist press to follow, a sold hundreds of thousands of copies of religious voice was almost always heard. such books and became a cause celebre

DFMS. Many ministers established "Free" / fled in American Protestant radicalism, — too .nuch so. In May 1924, he was both intertwined in Willard Uphaus. churches, or abandoned pulpit altogether declared a heretic and stripped of his to become editors, circuit-riding lecturers, office. Today the site of his Brownella

Church One stems directly from the memories of the Radical Reformation sustained by organizers. College in Galion is an official state the French Camisards, the German fol- Thousands of them rallied to the ban- museum.

Episcopal lowers of Jakob Bohme and scattered ner of railroad unionist-turned-socialist, For decades, foreign-born radicals in

the others. Many European sects viewed Eugene V. Debs. From his first govern- the United States had been anti-clerical of North America as a last hope for heaven ment persecution in 1894, Debs was because of their experience with reac- on earth. depicted popularly as a Christ-like figure tionary views of their respective clergies, A single, remarkable example may suffering for the common people. (A and because "scientific socialism" of- Archives stand for the others. German-American poem published on his imprisonment for fered believers the doctrinal basis for an Pietists led by Johann Conrad Beissel leading the Pullman Strike read in part: alternative faith in the destiny of human- 2020. founded the colony of Ephrata outside "A beam of light fell o'er him like a glory kind. They rarely acknowledged the ex- Philadelphia in the 1730s, a settlement 'round the shriven/And he walked the tent to which their own workers' songs, which soon supported the most prolific dusty pavement as it were the pass to theater and iconographies had borrowed Copyright book-publishing center and the most heaven.") In 1920, his last presidential directly upon Judeo-Christian themes, creative writers of new hymns in the campaign, nearly a million Americans and how many uneducated activisits in future U.S. territories. The aging John voted for the jailed anti-war martyr. Oral their ranks quietly held to their own Greenleaf Whittier, Poet Laureate of memories of oldtimers recollect sobbing personal versions of religion. post-Civil War America, rightly saw in the streets of blue-collar neighbor- At any rate, the eclipse of Protestant them as the neglected alternative to a hoods across America when Debs died radicalism and the triumph of the mil- materialist destiny. Perhaps we can un- in 1926. itantly atheist Russian Revolution gave derstand their contribution better today One of Debs' personal friends and cause for a new level of intolerance, than at any other time in U.S. history. literary executor to Walt Whitman, particularly within the assembling Com-

20 munist Party. Ideology had less influence practical theology. Other Christian radi- emancipation movements. Much like the at the local level, where especially by the cals from Bishop Brown's day onward old IWW, which taught semi-literate later 1930s many pro-labor priests and had been essentially reacting to Marxist workers their power through a chart de- ministers could be found, and many hegemony over the Left. scribing the industrial government of a more church members among the CIO A hell-fire Presbyterian minister in social order, Williams devised charts unionists. Tennessee, Williams enrolled in con- which described the betrayal of God's Communist seekers of social justice in temporary religion at Vanderbilt and Word and the regathering of the righteous the '30s often found themselves unable took up the task of integrating religion forces. to reach constituencies of all kinds — with modern problems. Over the next Williams recognized the danger of a Protestant, Catholic, Jewish — with a few years, Claude and his wife Joyce domestic fascism preying upon people's tone and language that would have been worked with miners resisting layoffs un- frustration and confusion. He insisted effective. Militant church people, often til cashiered by his Presbytery. He went that "in this mass religious movement playing important practical roles, found on to lead the unemployed, organize there is one of the most terrific demo-

publication. themselves locked out of intellectual dia- sharecroppers, direct Commonwealth cratic dynamics in America." The poor logue. This cost a generation of radicals College and multitudes of other activi- in the South, "by a penetrating instinct and dearly. ties. In the late '30s, he and his wife were and an unsophisticated realism sense the

reuse The smaller Socialist Party, led by active in the Southern Tenant Farmers emptiness, the sham, artificiality and for former Methodist minister Norman Union. hypocrisy of our formal religious ser- Thomas, symbolized for many the renais- Largely as a result of their association vices ... Herein is heard the present- sance of conscience among middle-class with the STFU, Claude and Joyce day Macedonian Call." required Protestant denominations. It recruited Williams established a People's Institute For the rest of his life, Williams paid freely from the YMCA and YWCA, for Applied Religion to train religious for the insight. Hounded from place to activist church youth organizations and leaders as activists. In effect, Williams place, threatened with KKK terror and

Permission college campuses. A handful of popular- re-interpreted the Bible in terms familiar government harassment, he was eventu- ists such as Kirby Page, editor of the to the Radical Reformation or to Black ally removed from his pastorate and

DFMS. influential religious-radical World / Tomorrow magazine, reached far into this constituency. Ruth MacLennan

Church Uphaus recalled to me her use of Page's meditations as she grew from Ohio public school teacher to Socialist Party militant Episcopal and Farmer-Labor Party candidate for the Congress. And yet the latter-day Socialist of Party had little in common with the natural Protestant constituency, the

Archives Southern Whites and Blacks then stream- ing into factories, north and south. The

2020. socialists, for all their sincerity and dedi- cation, remained a missionary sect. At the margins of radicalism, other

Copyright religious personalities shone: A. J. Muste, who passed through Marxism to found the Fellowship for Reconcilation; Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and their followers in the Catholic Worker milieu; and militant southern activists in labor, religion and culture — Don West, James Dombrow- ski and Claude Williams. Of all the Christian radicals in the 1930s, perhaps only Williams developed a full-blown,

21 stirred race pride and a boldness never to American Third World policies, especi- seen before in urban Black America. ally the Vietnam War. The stage had During the 1930s Father Divine, rally- been set for a synthesis previously un- ing huge forces for survival of Blacks imaginable. through the Depression, emerged briefly As we watch the unfolding events — in as a major social figure with strong radi- the Christian martyrdom of Latin Amer- cal connections. ica, the rousing of U.S. Catholic bishops But King possessed an intellectual against nuclear arms, the increasing en- sophistication which none of his spiritual gagement of local religious figures and predecessors, and indeed, few of the laypersons on issues of deindustrializa- trained Marxists, approached. Like tion, impoverished families, unemployed Marx, King drank deeply from the well or disabled workers and political refugees of Hegel's philosophical discourse. "A — the significance of the fragmented his- final victory is an accumulation of many tory comes better into view. publication. short term encounters," King reasoned, On the mystic-spiritual side, popular and and the failure to appreciate the up and literature such as Elaine Pagels' Gnostic down waves "underestimates the value Gospels, feminist history and anthro- reuse of confrontation and dissolves the con- pology, and the poetic expressions of for fidence born of a partial victory by which Sandinista leader Ernesto Cardenal have new efforts are powered." inspired the widespread sense of timeless required convicted of heresy — the only such case About Rosa Parks, who ignited the nature-religion which elements of Chris- in 20th century Presbyterianism. Toward bus boycott that brought the militant tianity have absorbed and now return to the end he could still be found holding Civil Rights movement to national and light. We may be sure that the Shakers

Permission Bible classes in Fungo Hollow, Tenn. — international attention by refusing to and Ephratans would find sisters and classes which resembled the communal move to a segregated area, King wrote: brothers here. reinterpretation of Scripture held by She was anchored to that seat by On the other side, material aspirations DFMS. / Ernesto Cardenal among the campesinos the accumulated indignities of of Christians and radicals of all kinds for in Nicaragua. days gone by and the boundless a cooperative society seem more in tune

Church Willard Uphaus looks back to associ- aspirations of generations yet un- than at any time since the dawn of so- ation with Claude Williams as one of the born. She was victim of both the called "scientific socialism." One believes most stirring and transforming moments forces of history and the forces of that the mill village rebel preachers, the

Episcopal in his life. destiny. Shehadbeen traceddown Black spiritual community leaders, circuit-

the Uphaus emerged from a rural Indiana by the Zeitgeist — the spirit of the riding socialists and militant labor priests of background and rose to prominence as a time. knew the day would finally come. religious leader of the CIO while Williams At almost the same historical moment "The traditional Marxist and Freudian grew to fame in the South. Willard re- that King took leadership of the unfold- critique of religion are simply irrelevant Archives called attempts the two men made to ing political movement, the Krushchev in the face of its role against the nuclear

2020. probe the other's faith, Williams having revelations about Stalin and the Hun- state," concludes Marxist-Freudian Joel (as Uphaus said), "to rub my Yale nose" garian workers' uprising against the Kovell. "The Enlightenment and its tra- in the reality of southern poverty and Russians shook the old Marxist self- ditions," he goes on to say, "are unable

Copyright hope; Uphaus helping to bring Williams confidence to the core. Marxists every- to comprehend the life-saving value in- back to a transcendental element he had where, including the United States, were herent in the appropriation of the sacred. almost lost in his practical struggles. about to undergo the kind of wrenching If the current age is survived, this rap- In the next generation, Martin Luther doubts earlier radical Christians had suf- proachement of religion with emancipa- King, Jr., placed Christian commitment fered, and not a few became agnostic or tory practice will stand as one of its major back toward the center of radicalism as it atheistic toward their familiar Marxist features." had not been since abolitionist days. By faith. One can only add that our friend, the 1920s, the curiously tangled theo- The final decade of King's life saw Willard Uphaus, had the rare privilege of logical doctrines of Marcus Garvey and Vatican II, the stirrings of liberation theo- self-consciously living out the vigorous his "Back to Africa" movement had logy, and growing Protestant opposition dialectic in our amazing age. •

22 1964-74 ... Continued from page 8 pirants who were bitterly frustrated at been enriched by scores and scores of group egoism and vindictiveness. That being kept in an ambiguous, "ladies-in- talented, well-trained women. voice needs constantly to be tutored in waiting" role. I saw their hopes dashed Looking back from the vantage point the wholeness and the holiness of the will at two consecutive General Conventions of today to the 10 years' tenure of the of God. where the issue was a canonical change 12th Bishop of Pennsylvania, what con- One of my privileges during most of which would clearly warrant the ordi- clusions can be drawn? The regnant my years as diocesan bishop was to nation of women. I was now familiar issues are still with us. Those years did serve on the Executive Council of the with the theological and ecclesiastical not settle the question of racial justice National Church. That this happened to objections to such ordinations. But I either within the diocese, or in the com- coincide with John Hines' being Pre- came to feel that the theological question munities which lie within its jurisdiction. siding Bishop was the working of a was settled in my mind, and in the mind As to war, Vietnam has given place to peculiarly beneficent Providence. Sitting of the church as well. Test votes in the Latin America and the Middle East — on the Executive Council and engaging House of Bishops had indicated a clear and to the overarching threat of nuclear in its deliberations and debates was of majority in favor of the ordination of war. The fact of women having access to publication. great help to me in gaining perspective women. It was obvious that a majority of the ordained ministry of the Episcopal and on the issues confronting the Diocese of deputies to General Convention also Church leaves untouched the larger ques- Pennsylvania, for they were the same were in favor, though the technicalities tions of abortion rights, the ERA, and reuse issues. of counting votes in the House of Deputies the role of women generally in a stub- for Perhaps most helpful to me and to the had effectively frustrated this evident bornly male-dominated society. I even diocese was the clear and strong position will of the convention. dare to guess that the administrative life required taken by the national church under Ten years earlier, in 1964, the House of the diocese is in many respects still Bishop Hines' leadership on the whole of Bishops had issued a position paper refractory and unmanageable. issue of racial justice. That he gave it on "Christian Obedience." It said, in So to what end do bishops and others

Permission precedence over more customary things part: "The church recognizes the right of raise issues which will not be settled, and such as canons and liturgy and other any person to urge the repeal of unjust tackle problems which outlive what at more churchly matters was leadership in laws by all lawful means, including par- the time seem to be the solutions? I think DFMS. / and of itself. It sent an important mes- ticipation in peaceful demonstrations. If there are two responses. The first is the sage to the dioceses, ours included. and when the means of legal recourse matter of faithfulness. God is the saviour

Church The ordination of women to the priest- have been exhausted, or are demon- of the world. We are not called to save hood occurred on July 29, 1974, after I strably inadequate, the church recognizes the world, but simply to be as faithful as had resigned as bishop. This culmination the right of all persons, for reasons of we can to what we understand God's will

Episcopal of a long effort by many, many women informed conscience, to disobey such to be, in the time and at the place we find the was not. a part of my ministry in the laws ..." The irony of this is that the ourselves. In this world our model is a of diocese. I do like to think of it, however, paper just quoted was occasioned by the crucified Lord. We are not required to be as a part of my ministry as a bishop. concern over racial justice, not the rights successful, but to be faithful. Faithful to My interest in the ordination of women of women. And a further irony is that the a Kingdom which is not of this world, but Archives was undoubtedly formed and informed unjust laws it had in mind were civil which does undergird this world, en-

2020. mostly by Suzanne Hiatt, one time su- laws, not ecclesiastical canons. But velopes it, permeates it, and will outlast burban missioner for the diocese. Few Christian obedience toward one is the it. women had given more thought and same as toward the other, and sees no And this would be my second point —

Copyright study, concern and enterprise to the distinction. that in our attempts to be faithful we will issue than had she. As to bishops, in- My personal estimate is that eventually ever and again see signs of that Kingdom. cluding this one, she was several light the 1974 ordination will have made a We will, as it were, see Satan falling years ahead in her perception of what considerable contribution to what I feel from heaven. Not victory — that is for could and should be. She was also some- will be the ultimate and inevitable coming God alone—but signs of encouragement thing of an unofficial bishop to scores of about of the Roman Catholic Church on which serve as intimations of that King- women who shared her aspiration for the question of the ordination of women. dom we serve, and to which we belong. I ordination. That would perhaps be justification saw many signs of that Kingdom during Having known Sue Hiatt, I also came enough. But meanwhile the ordained my ten years as Bishop of Pennsylvania. to know many of the other women as- ministry of the Episcopal Church has What Christian could ask for more? •

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