THOUGHTS ON THE HISTORY OF THE FREE METHODIST GRADUATE STUDENTS' THEOLOGICAL SEMINAR Frank H. Thompson, A Founding Member "The Church that Cares" was the motto that Free Methodists used to repeat as they attempted to show servicemen and women who had gone away to war that they were still being remembered by the home folk and the home church . I had endorsed this idea as a pastor, and I quoted it in my appeal to Dr. George Turner, of Asbury Theological Seminary, to lead the Free Methodist Church to do something similar for graduate students in Theology and Biblical Stu_dies, who were feeling alienated and alone in the universities and graduate seminaries where they were preparing for further Church service. The spot where we talked was the swan pond near the Billy Sunday Tabernacle, in Winona Lake, Indiana. The time was June 1964, during the twenty-sixth Free Methodist General Conference. Dr. George Turner of Asbury Theological Seminary had been a powerful mentor to me, and had encour­ aged me when I entered the Th.M. program, and then the Doctoral program in Old Testa­ ment Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. I had urgently requested he hear me out. I had a desperate need and a seemingly impossible dream. The proposal I made to Dr. Turner was that leaders of the denomination take forceful steps to establish and maintain nurturing relationships with graduate students in biblical and theological studies who were enrolled in major universities and divinity schools. There were several reasons for my anguished request to Dr. Turner. I was a card-carrying Free Methodist. I had been a pastor for nine years. I had established conservative credentials. I had whole'-heartedly endorsed the "Church that Cares" posture of the denomination during my pastoral years. I wanted very much to continue to be a minister in the denomination which had led me to Christ, nurtured me, educated me, and ordained me to the ministry. But, to put it bluntly, I was scared. I was immersed in new, heady, and exciting ideas, and alternately exalted and terrified by what I was hearing and learning. Fears and frustration were engendered in me as I watched attacks being made on such fellow Free Methodists as Dr. Dewey Beegle of New York Biblical Seminary, who raised questions about the standard interpretations of "biblical inerrancy" held by such influential leaders as Dr. Carl F.H. Henry. Many things I was learning seemed true and enlightening to me, but I was not sure I could talk about them as a functioning member of the Free Methodist Church. I was feeling very alone and very threatened, removed as I was from any significant relationship with thoughtful Free Methodists. I felt convinced that, if I became a "liberal," my friends would say, "I told you so," but if I did not, they would say, "Prove it! " I needed to talk to a powerful friend, and I saw Dr. George Turner as that person. Dr. Turner and I talked about a gathering between the graduate students and denomi­ nationalleaders. They would talk. The atmosphere would be non-judgmental. There would be complete openness and acceptance. If a person said something contrary to the so-called "party line," there would be no threat of recrimination or retaliation on an ecclesiastical level. Instead, there would be a mutually respectful practice Christian love and candor. The - students would say what was on their minds and in their hearts. They could even express their fears and angers. The leaders would respond. Conversation would go both ways. Students would listen to leaders, too. We would dispel the miasma of suspicion which was often felt between leaders and graduate students during and at the completion of their graduate years. It would be a time for face-to-face exchanges of views, and cultivation of mutual friendship and of Christian fellowship around the Scriptures and prayer. Dr. Turner's response was magnificent. It was warm and positive. He said that, as a matter of fact, he and Missionary Secretary Byron Lamson had discussed their concern for overseas Free Methodist students who came to the United States for graduate work. Turner and Lamson wanted to establish continuing and helpful relationships with these powerful young scholars, and to save them for the ministry of the Free Methodist Church. Some, too, had become estranged, and felt impelled to leave the denomination over newly-perceived doctrinal and technical issues. A fellowship might help these visitors to our shores. Missionary Secretary Lamson's response to Turner's approach was equally magnifi­ cent and magisterial. He not only endorsed the idea, but immediately arranged for a Fall, 1964 seminar. He announced that it would be held at the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship House in Nyack, New York. He would finance it with Mission Board funds. The denomina­ tional and church leaders would be himself and Dr. George Turner as co-sponsors of the - session, Dr. Lloyd Knox, denominational publisher, and Dennis Kinlaw, representative of Asbury Theological Seminary, and also a graduate student in Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis University. He invited a list of students which included Professor Joseph L. Davis, on leave from Seattle Pacific College and studying at Union in Richmond, Virginia; Kazuhito Shimada at Union in New York; Yoshikazu Takiya in Old Testament Studies, and Donald Yorp, in Theology, both at Drew University; and me, in Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. At the last minute, I came very close to a decision not to attend. As I waited for Joe Davis to pick me up at my home in Hightstown, New Jersey, I agonized with my wife, Marilyn, whether it would indeed be wise for me to attend and, perhaps, "blow my cover." She said I had to go. I thank God that I did attend. It was a turning point in all our lives. Drs. Lamson and Knox established such an accepting atmosphere on that "First Morning of Creation" that we simp! y poured out our hearts to one another. (The now­ established oral tradition requires that I notify you that we scarcely took time even to go to the bathroom lest we miss one word of anything anyone said.) The leitmotif of affirmation and inspiration was sounded late that first afternoon. Dr. Lamson, during a moment of quiet in the torrent of words, said, "I guess that the question we're faced with here is, 'Is there anything that is true that a Free Methodist can't believe?'" A luminous sense of love and - acceptance surrounded us. Unbeknownst to us, the pattern had been set for all of us by this kind and understanding Christian statesman. Denominational leaders followed it. So did the graduate students who came year by year. 2 In 1965, Lamson announced that the Graduate Seminar, as he now called it, would be held in the lovely and impressive French-chalet-like Wainwright House located in Rye, New York. As the years passed, the seminar came simply to be called "Rye." People knew what "Rye" was. People went to "Rye." The name persisted even after the formal move to the International Friendship House, in Winona Lake, in 1975. (It should be said here that this, and subsequent relocations of the seminar took place because of constraints of space, money, travel , or all of these. ) After lhe first session of academic catharsis, it was felt that a structure was needed for ongoing consultations. A pattern emerged. Students presented papers on a theme, and to have school men or denominational executives critique them. As time went on, students made presentations from their current studies, and the students were encouraged to form an "inner circle" for presentation and conversation, with the college and denominational attendees sitting in the outer circumference. It was at the fifth meeting, in 1968, that we began the tradition of using a form of the Wesley Covenant Service during the final worship period, and it was the custom for a denominational leader to be the preacher. Association of Free Methodist Educational Institutions presidents eventually decided to fund the sending of college representatives; the denomination sponsored the travel and accommodations of graduate students from every part of the United States. The effort came I - to be considered a prime ministry of the caring Church, and this rwenty-eighrh occurrence in September, 1991, is testimony to the place the Free Methodist Graduate Students' Seminar has come to have in preparing teachers and other professionals for the ministry of the Free Methodist Church. I have recited these facts at some length simply to inform you of the circumstances, needs, and caring impulses out of which the consultation grew. This lengthy prologue may be testimony to the fact that I am beginning to claim the privileges of an Elder of the Tribe who recites stories which confer a crucial sense of identity and hi storical depth to a new generation. - Changes began to be suggested from the very beginning. In the 1965 seminar, it was proposed that students from other denominations be invited. Many of us knew persons from the Wesleyan, Pilgrim Holiness, and United Missionary churches who felt and struggled as we did. Wesleyans were invited and, in 1969, Melvin Dieter attended and affirmed the possibility that the Wesleyan Church might become a co-sponsor of the consultation, and finance the attendance of its graduate students at the annual gathering. Wesleyans did attend for a number of years, and the fellowship was affirming and exciting. The attendance at the 1965 seminar contains interesting names: Denominational leaders included Bishop Paul Ellis, General Secretary Cleo Denbo, Missionary Secretary Charles Kirkpatrick, and Retiring - Missionary Secretary Byron Lamson.