The churches and prejudice (Part 2 of 2); Patterns of American prejudice

There was a day not too distant when there was much ambiguity in the actual practice of the churches especially as enunciated by the church leaders. No more thank god. There are of course pockets of resistance. But on balance Never before has the testimony of the Christian leadership been clearer or more forceful than it is today in this matter. In some way Christian leaders seem to be overcompensating for their lack of leadership in the past. A father grow up he literally asked to go to jail with the Negro youth of Milwaukee and the chapel of Yale does go to jail in Baltimore with his wife and with the mother of the Massachusetts governor Mrs. Peabody. This change has come about I think none too soon. There is still a gap of course as was noted by our former speaker in the followership of the church. Catholics for example of earlier minority groups throw stones at Father groping and even at the nuns who are marching with him. Nuns who teach their own children and probably taught them in an earlier day. Even so the corner has been turned. The

question is no longer whether to but how and when and where to testify on behalf of those who suffer discrimination and prejudice. I should add a word here about the rhythm of the revolution of civil rights as I have observed it here in America. From some vantage point on the commission. Ten years ago the Commission on Civil Rights was organized by Congress to study the denial of the equality of opportunity. Legally that is by reason of race color religion or national origin and to publish the facts of discrimination in voting housing employment education and in the administration of justice and to propose remedial federal legislation. Some 40 reports later some 200 local reports later and many hearings later all across the country. About 80 percent of the laws we have recommended on the commission to three presidents and two succeeding Congresses have been enacted into federal law. Now while law does not solve the problem it does express I believe a national consensus on where we should be going and what we

should be doing to make the promise of our Constitution and Bill of Rights come true for all our people. Now that our national consensus has been proclaimed in the civil rights laws of the past 10 years. Incidentally the first ones that were passed in over 80 years previous to this time. The next problem is how to make this national conscience effective on the local level. This is what I would call phase two of the civil rights revolution and it's a much more difficult phase in the first move towards a national consensus. We can all easily subscribe to national consensus because it's far away it's like loving the Chinese. Just as the churches and the statements of church leaders and the actions of some church followers helped achieve the phase one objective the passage of these important federal civil rights laws. All the churches are even more necessary and I think much more important for the phase to action on the local level because this is where the church lives and has its being. And this is where its members live and have their being here the laws will be realized or forgotten

here locally will deliver the promise of equality and dignity and opportunity or we will deny them all effectively. Now how does the church do it. It doesn't do it all of course. It isn't the only thing it exists for but it's something in which it must be tremendously concerned and it does it in many ways. I think it begins by education preachment if you will. But this is just a beginning. Today more than ever before the word must be joined to the act as we say in a religious context the word became flesh and the act of all religious persons in the local community must be what counts. All religious persons working together in the church who will on all its levels and working together to end prejudice and the fruits of prejudice which is the social order which we have inherited. There is no limit to the scope of this collaboration for justice and charity and social unity and peace. Note that after a Vatican Council too there was not just a

secretary it established for Christian unity. But a secretary for non-Christian religions and another for non believers. What is indicated here I think is that acumen is a must operate on the widest level for the broadest impact when we're talking about interracial justice or the combination of prejudice and all of that so quickly in the area of discrimination. I believe that our manner of preachment in our collaboration actively in community action on the whole front of interracial justice must be as broad as possible on the local level. All religious leaders all religious people can and should speak with one voice and they shouldn't be fussy about others who are not religious who want to speak with them. They should devise all manner of programs for working together for social justice for all the people and neighborhoods and cities and villages and sections of states all across the country. The battle against prejudice may indeed be nationwide as it is. But the point of contact is

local It's right here and no one can disengage himself from this action. You're either with us or you're against it. If as the recent report on the right commission commented on the root cause of disturbance in our cities is white racism and all the sad affects that derives from white racism. Poor housing poor education poor employment hopelessness and frustration for most American Negroes especially the young. Then each local community must do its own work of local diagnosis. How strong is white racism in this particular neighborhood not next door not down the street not over and across the bay but here in this neighborhood in this section of the city. How is it practically this white racism how is it practically manifested in this action in the area of housing and education and jobs and administration of justice and public services. How then does one get to the roots of this right white racism as it is diagnosed and as it exists right here.

Certainly everything we've said of prejudice it's irrationality it's emotionality it's inflexibility. All of this applies to white racism which judges every single negro man woman and child and judges him or her badly irrationally emotionally blindly and inflexibly just because of his or her color with nothing to do with the personal quality of this individual personal and social injustice is wider spread and more immediate on this level of racial inequality because of the visibility of color a factor most often not not present in other kinds of prejudice based on religion or nationality. Now my point is simply this of love of God and love and of neighbor are inseparably joined as the sum total of the Christian message and as the most central point of Christian morality then this matter of racial prejudice which induces hatred and hostility and blind discrimination towards our negro neighbors becomes the number one sin

of Christians in our day and a matter of the highest priority for all who call themselves Christian. Both leaders and members of the church all being equally Vonne by the same supreme law all presumably heading towards the same and segregated goal of eternal glory. Here the solution must transcend words and even attitudes. Each person must personalize the solution by his individual contribution to it in concert with all those against whom prejudice is mainly directed. A solution here cannot come from on high for Negroes. It must be worked out on the local level with the negroes. Prejudice only really disappears and I believe this deeply. When it is supplanted by personal respect and personal friendship which grow out of working and living together engaged in a common cause which is the region of a nation of our nature in our society and all the structures.

I believe that this living together this working together can be inspired by the same religious conviction and need not be but if it is it may be strengthened. I would suspect any white person Christian or non-Christian or whatever who just spoke well of negroes without ever having lived or worked or associated with Negroes without ever having had a negro friend or a Negro associate in the common cause. The same of course would be could be said of other groups we've mentioned in the context of mutual prejudice Protestants and Catholics Jews and Gentiles Spanish speaking Americans and Anglos. It's interesting thing that the Protestants and Catholics of wartime Germany really found fellowship and friendship and a true ecumenical spirit for the first time in 400 years after the death of Luther when they suffered together under Hitler. And the guy died together for a common cause. And I might add bori common shame for what their people did to the Jews. It is true that many

organisations assist this process of getting diverse groups together in America. The end WCP the end CCJ in a long long list of others. But I suspect that personal religious conviction can reach more deeply into individual lives and attitudes and actions than simple membership in such organizations. Even though these are very good and have done very good work and are doing good work today I have seen too many people. And this perhaps is a font of my cynicism on this matter. I have seen too many people who speak one way in public here on the stage and quite another way in the back room in their kitchens or in their clubs. I'd like to conclude on a note of cautious optimism. And I stress the word cautious because I don't take optimism as a reason for stop working. I think it's a reason for working harder. The goal is beginning to be within sight. Whatever the past performance of religion in the struggle against prejudice in its many forms even religious

prejudice I deeply believe that there are many good signs at work today for the elimination of much prejudice in the United States. First on the level of religious prejudice itself this seems to be a diminishing blemish if not disappearing in many parts of this country between large groupings of Protestants and Catholics. And I hope that we're beyond the hand-holding stage in this action. The Jewish gentile tension seems to dissolve much more slowly particularly in certain areas of higher Jewish concentration. What I find very few people today who are proud or easy with the anti-Semitism in themselves may be the Nazis unwittingly did us that service because who could possibly want to be associated with them. A key attitude today in the whole ecumenical movement is to try to understand everybody else's religious values even though they may differ in form or expression from one's own. And this is true of the Christian reaching out beyond even Christianity to other religious values of the East for example.

Moreover there has almost disappeared the isolated religious approach to secular problems of inner racial justice and human development. I think we all accept today the idea that each religious group must work together in unison with all other religious groups and even with non-religious groups with anybody who wants to work to bring the best of its spiritual and moral strength to bear upon this common problem that faces us and threatens to destroy the vitals of our civil society and our civic peace. Now one goes beyond religious prejudice per say into the field of racial prejudice which I think is a larger problem in modern America. Here too there are some reasons for hope. They may be modest reasons but I think we should be honest and say there are some reasons for hope in this area. First of all never before have religious leaders and religious people been more concerned with what forces they can specifically bring to bear upon the solution of this problem. No respectable religious body today declares itself on any moral problems

without saying strong words on the problem of racial prejudice. Moral right think all religious bodies today have a new and growing programs very active programs directed towards the achieving of generational justice. I believe that these religious programs on the local level are having some effect on local legislation I've seen it in some place such as legislation for open housing and they're having some effect hopefully modest to begin with but some effect enough to increase their efficacy in effort by more effort now. Some effect on local services such as police protection or welfare or educational programs. The only point I'm making is that the inner cultural and civic changes are taking place slowly and almost imperceptibly despite the age long and massive resistance of white racism which to some extent may be composited by black power. And I take that word not in in a very specific way not in a broad sense which I could live with and accept. All I'm saying here is that something is

happening and that religion is somehow involved more and more today and what is happening and that it's involvement is an involvement towards a growing integrated force in our society. Now I'm going to stop this right now with one question. Is all of this too little or too late and I'm going to answer it as honestly as I can. I hope not but I don't know. Thank you very much indeed to President has spurred Mr. Starke for the presentations. Now we have in the bullpen two respondents who are going to comment. Five to seven minutes each. I say something very precise and pointed. While they are doing this I get nerds.

Those of you who weren't comfortably seated in the aisles to find some seats if you will. And there will be a man going up this side and you have some someone over here this lady going up and down this side to collect any written questions you may have. Maff first call upon Professor David Norwood Friedman professor of Old Testament at the San Francisco Theological Seminary a seminary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Dr. Friedman. Is. I would say I want of the half dozen outstanding New Testament scholars in North America quite clearly so. A man who has invested a great deal of his own life and energy and passion in the questions which concern us this morning. Any of you who are all acquainted with biblical scholarship will recognize his

name. He is one all kinds of awards and fellowships and scholarly honors but without further ado on the merit badge side. Let me give you Professor Friedman. I also want to disclaim any. Theological qualifications and to state simply that I am a student of the Bible. And. Some my colleagues would be surprised to hear that I'm authority on the New Testament. My field is the Old Testament. And deeply concerned about the problem of prejudice especially in terms of its religious roots. Now it would be kind of futile

to try to respond to what the previous speakers have said partly because I agree very wholeheartedly with most of what they have said and partly because while they were speaking I was wondering about what I would say. I'd like to say one word tangentially about the question of race prejudice and then whatever is left of the time to speak on the question of religious prejudice. They're not unrelated and. The point of departure will be the gap between the pronouncements of the church leaders the church councils and the Church followers. I think that Dr Stark has correctly identified an important gap here. It seems to me also that we ought to understand how serious the gap is and why it's there. I don't think that it is only a matter of stupidity

or a matter of catching up. I think the followers have a point namely that in some sense they are more consistent with more faithful to the history and tradition of the church than the new leadership. And by way of illustration which bears on the question of race prejudice in this country let me point out that a little more than a hundred years ago the big religious debate in the country was over the institution of slavery. I'm sure for all of us here that is now a dead letter but it was a very live issue then and in the debate Christians were divided of course. And now I think that reasonable judges of the controversy will agree that so far as ex Jesus is concerned so far it's an accurate understanding of the Biblical tradition. Those who defended and

advocated slavery had the better of the argument. If the Christian church for the previous eighteen hundred years had been essentially indifferent to the question of human slavery if it had contemplated without horror had condoned without fear had even encouraged to a limited extent this institution. It was because the same institution is assume and condoned and encouraged in the Bible itself both Old and New Testaments. And the reason is that the writers of those books and the original audiences of those books never understood the matter any other way. Now that it seems to me as essentially true today of the question of religious prejudice it is the argument of the councils and the leaders that prejudice is an excrescence

that doesn't belong in the essential nature of Christianity. Oh I would beg to differ. Until our own century until our own religious prejudice was regarded not as something to be avoided at all costs and I've Jord. But rather. With regard to this thing as a virtue on the part of the Christian and not less so in other religions. Perhaps I should say parent theoretically that the situation in my opinion is essentially the same with Judaism. But for various reasons all very important. Jews have never had on a worldwide basis the political power to act on these things to to the harm of other people such as the church hats. But if it turns

out that this prejudice. And in the case of the Christian it is fundamentally anti Jewish prejudice that if this is really at the heart of the faith then it will take considerably more than pronouncements or the expression of benevolent attitudes to change the essential character of this religion. Certainly an extreme statement but let us remember that with very few dissenting voices for the last nineteen hundred years the church has managed to survive with very ill and anti-Jewish prejudice without any difficulty whatever. And as a case in point let me urge that when Christianity Western Christianity with which we of course are most familiar suffered its most deepest breach the split which we are just now beginning to make

little approaches to heal the Reformation the split between the Protestant and Catholic parties of the church on one subject they remained in divisible. The subject of anti-Semitism. Not only did the Protestants not reject Catholic and he Semitism they rivaled it with their own and exceeded it on many occasions. Now that to me is very indicative of the fact that nobody then in the church thought that this was a significant issue. And if we now raise the question we must do so in the face of the history of the church and the Biblical tradition itself. It seems to me that we are faced with the rather drastic alternatives. That if it is so. In other words if the followers of the church cling to their

prejudice not simply because they are un and lighten but because they feel they are being sold a bill of goods because they feel that the prejudice which was approved during the last nineteen hundred years is still an authentic part of their Christianity. Then it seems to me that we must face this realistically the New Testament the basis of of Christian belief and practice is simply an anti-Semitic book. This is now widely held by scholars and needs I think to be faced realistically. That it is not enough simply to re translate it not enough simply to to examine it historically but to recognize it for what it is the product of a very serious and very heated dispute

between two branches of Judaism resulting in a permanent split. It is essential to the nature of Christianity that Judaism be wrong in order for Christianity to be right. We can say the same of Judaism but our concern here is with prejudice in the church. If Judaism is not wrong then the case for Christianity is fundamentally weak. Therefore there is something inconsistent in attempting to hold to the position that we as Christians should consider Jews and Judaism authentic in its own right. And Jews as having an equal claim to the truth of God when in fact Christianity is built upon the exact opposite proposition. What alternatives are there for a church whose history is

bound up with this essential common ingredient that all Christian churches in evidently must hold that this faith Christianity is superior to all others but especially to the faith from which it broke Judaism. Well either it must reconstruct its 30s in such a way as to be compatible with Judaism which is not immediately visible on the horizon or at most frankly admitting that this is the case and as in the case of slavery I accept wisdom from the outside or above and say from here on we are moving in an entirely different direction from the one which we have followed so long. Thank you very much. Professor Joseph Noonan a stunning member of the

University of California Berkeley School of Law graduate of Harvard College the Harvard Law School with his Ph.D. from the Catholic University. He is editor of the Roman Catholic and natural law forum. His most recent publication which received tremendous publice Edina claim was on contraception a history of its treatment by Catholic the economists and Philo Jim. It's a pleasure to present to Professor Newman. I hope you won't mind if I correct some of that data. My first name's John and the natural law for him is not a Roman Catholic to know but it totally sectarian nonsectarian enterprise. Some years ago a survey was done of

the sexual behavior of American males and females and it was learned that a number of them did not observe the laws on the double rate and premarital sexual intercourse and one could have said at that time the question curators have a series of doctrines on sexual intercourse which confine it to marriage. Most of the Christian clergy with some exceptions go along with these official documents. But the question why the backsliders of them. On Sexual intercourse which confine it to marriage most of the Christian clergy with some exceptions go along

with these official documents. But the Christian life the backsliders and the lodge number of them failing to live up to these Christian doctrines. The social logical argument I find many lump in one basket. Also see just which of course is unfair. But to take it the social logical argument plan was let's look at the facts. Let's look at the behavior and we see that the doctrines are inconsistent with human nature. Let's adjust the doctrines to the behavior. Strikingly enough in this other realm of social logical investigation when the behavior of people does not correspond to the official documents the conclusion is not that we should revise the documents

to rationalize prejudice. There is no argument here of let's see how many times a week someone is unkind that was naive or prejudiced against his neighbor. Let's go on a quantitative basis and on that basis alone Limon think the commandments of. But here the argument is quite different. That is for you ology which is somehow responsible for this failure to conform to the ideal. And while of course there are theological cholera elements which have been observed it seems to me curiously naive to suppose that the problem is in the theology and not in the nature of human beings. And while in the sexual field it's recognized that there are strong impulses which are hired to bring into control the irrational ideal.

There is no recognition here that the flame problem is at the height of things but there are impulses that lead people to be proud in the grasp of and kind to the neighbors. Well no it does not seem to me that we can get wisdom from. Sociology particularly if the value system is smuggled in without open confession of what values are being used to measure the teaching as the stock preferred to the premises. And I was unable to tack what his promise was for asserting the. Wrong of prejudice. But it does seem to me that the churches have always maintained one promise which is fundamental and that is the concept of puss. Well that concept says that there is. Another being and other beings in this world who have independent destinies or not to be true to those

things on means they are for equal rights with me. I concept could be a humanistic concept but it's the value of money as we know it has been a Christian development and it goes back to the saying of Pong to the Galatians that there is neither a great true male or female free man on slave in Jesus Christ. The great prejudice is in history you have not only been religious and racial but those based on age. Those based on facts and those based on nationhood and the first people all over the centuries have gone very far to eliminating some of the more of their own prejudices and have done so in the name of the equality of persons. I don't know any other doctrine which has provided premises

in terms of which discrimination on these bases have been has been eliminated. The concept of put some shame had by questions with Jews and humanist day. But there is a slight complot of the Christian message which is peculiarly Christian and where again one file has book speaks of where's the problem to be met. I believe the problem is to be met most basically here. Fundamental to the question the message the requirement that one pray and that one be willing to sacrifice himself for others. There was sociologist who was trying to measure human behavior. There is a terrible temptation to dismiss Priam as irrelevant.

But the yield to that temptation is to be offensive to any religious person. Prayer is not the least of efficacious of approaches but the mo. And say the prayer is the approach of Christianity is to say what Christianity has done most in bringing down to this person the person level the elimination of prejudice. The Beyond is the meaning from life that is given by Christianity in terms of self-sacrifice. The words of Christ and not simply that we love one another. Well as he puts it it is a new commandment that we love one another as He loved us which were to the point of self-sacrifice and that self-sacrifice of the cross will always be foolishness to the world. Always meaning what. And the Negro people of this country in particular let played the role of Christians for a hundred years

who have sacrificed themselves for others who have been better questions than most white people and now derided as fools and now we are bearing the cross of Christ in this attack on they ass off sacrifice and they are out suffer abnegation. But this is the Christian way and the Christian churches today are denying themselves when they were praying from slaying that the advocates of black power. But their course is fundamentally anti-Christian. If the Christian churches have a contribution to make to America today. If they're not simply trying to clean up the record of the past but the meet the current crisis they must again say that the way of Christianity is the way of prayer and a willingness to sacrifice to be self Avonlea gating and at the same time to respect the political good of all human

beings. Thank you. We are most grateful grateful for those two straightforward and on target responses. Are there any questions which have not been handed in. Most of the questions of Kami I'm labeled either for Doctor Stark or doctor has Bert. So our procedure will be in order that we don't have a prejudice against the audience here which is listening to all this so that instead of the panel talking back and forth to one another let's let's get the questions out first. Dr. Hasbrouck would you pick up the three questions of yours which to which you would like to speak. Speak to them as quickly as you can and then we'll ask Dr. Starke to do the same thing and we'll go back and forth until until either the time runs out of your questions are finished.

Dr. hazard I'm going to actually pick up for question because the first one I think is facetious and maybe it isn't facetious but I it isn't substantive and that's in the in the sense of what we're here to discuss. But I think an honest they ought to read it off. It says what about Kargil Macintyre. All I can say is that reminds me of a story that is very true that recently I was going around the country trying to raise some money for the university and we had a lot of television programs. And instead of being able to talk about Notre Dame every time I would go on a television program The first question out of the press was what do you think about clerical celibacy and birth control. And after about five of these sessions I was getting a little fed up so I said Look you're talking to the wrong guy I said all I have to do about these two questions is I have to try to observe celibacy and practice birth control the hard way.

The question that comes up most frequently in in this group that I have has to do with a point made earlier by my companion speaker about. Particular ism and free will and in a sense it's I can almost get three questions in one by approaching this because if it comes up again and again one version of it please comment and estimate the possibilities of meaningless meaningful de-emphasis of the doctrine of particular ism and radical free will an emphasis on ethics in the church is another one. Do you think the church should repeal or at least soft pedal the doctrines or particularism in free will and include ethical affirmations in our creeds and Christianity has been accused of fostering prejudice because of its particular ism. How do you respond. And I think I have one or two others here the same thing

please clarify the statements you made which salvation is never for a chosen few in light of Old and New Testament. A Roman Catholic thought and pronouncement in Vatican 2 a new developments and friends of the Roman Catholic Church a sense of world mission. The let me take these one at a time first particularism then the free will one. First I think that it's it's possible for someone to believe deeply conscientiously and sincerely what they believe without thinking that everyone that doesn't agree with them is either a fool or is going to hell. I think the problem in the past with particularism was is that there was formed a kind of thought within a religion that if persons were of the same persuasion as yourself there was something very bad about them in its most crass form you could say they were stupid or they you could say that they were going to hell or they were lost or they weren't part of the all sorts of names for this they didn't belong

to the new Mahdi TE or the gnostics or the spirita wallows or the chosen few if you will. I believe the emphasis today and I think it comes out very strongly if you read the documents of Vatican too. I think it's a good emphasis and it came with great anguish I might say it wasn't put through easily because it was running current to a long history of particularism the current emphasis today I think is on freedom of conscience that if there is one thing that we each have most personally the most sacred in the whole world that must be upheld and must be reckoned with. Is there freedom of conscience that it isn't a freedom that that someone gives to us or someone creates and hands to us. It is that which makes us a person that we answer for ourselves that we stand for our own opportunities and that we we do whatever we think we must do to be the kind of person we want to be. This has to do with your whole moral code has to do with the things you believe it has to do with your relationship to God and man and salvation and all these enormous questions that face all of us. Fast Fact that drives some of us to

the wall at times. Now I think the mentality today that that most bears on the subject of discussion this morning is that we begin by saying that each one of us must work this thing out with the grace of God for ourselves what we believe in the matter of faith what we believe in the matter of philosophy which is a rational belief what we believe about ourselves as persons what we believe about our attitude towards other persons what we believe about the things that John M. is talking about about about God and prayer and self-sacrifice and recognizing other people's personhood. I don't have any problem personally and I don't like to be personal about this but I think the only answer I can give you is honestly and sincerely as I can is that I believe deeply what I believe and I'm willing to die for it. That's about as strong as I can put it. I don't think I'm the martyr type but I like to believe that if it came to that I I could at least on this one basis of my faith go through with it or stand up for it until death. But the and I think there are a few other things

I would like to hope I could die for two that are not directly of the faith but relate to things I believe in the faith. And I think I can say that that's a pretty strong statement I say that with considerable humility because you never know how strong you are until I point the gun at you or start twisting the wheels on the rock. And I'm not claiming any extraordinary virtue or courage here before this audience but. But even having said that in saying it was whatever modesty I can bring up because you have to be modest about this particular point of your life. At the same time I can say this as strongly as I can say it and still feel completely open and and completely friendly and completely at ease with any other person who may think that the things I believe are stupid or medieval or irrational or are just simply wrong because I think that I have to speak for myself and he has to speak for himself or herself. I think that the problem of the past the tension the prejudice came up where if someone

wasn't of your persuasion or of your faith or of your belief or of your particular category of your crowd. Somehow he was outside the pale. I think today the attitude is more this that that if salvation is important it's important for everyone. If the lard has done things for salvation they're done for everyone. But you can pray that whatever salvation is whatever terms you think bear upon it that it ought to be available to everyone and you ought to pray that everyone comes to this grace or this salvation that you should be willing to live your own belief in such a way that is it in a sense represents something strong polarized if you will but at the same time doesn't mean something that is an insult to other people or or something that pushes other people away or put them in a war or lesser inferior category to see particularism I think is true of everything that's true of every mathematical form you believe in. It's true of what you think of physics it's true what you believe to be the history of the world we live in today or the situation socially or ethically or militarily or

otherwise. You can't believe anything without in a sense being particular about it because it's about a precise belief. I think there's a difference between being particular and being exclusive mystic or being disdainful or patronize ing or many other things that a person could be about the things he believes in real relevance to other people who don't believe them. I would take a somewhat similar test tacked on the point of freedom. It seems to me that we can be strongly convinced that each of us is free but we can also say that freedom is one of the most circumscribed elements of our life. Part of freedom has a relationship to how much money you have in your pocket to put it very far in your pocketbook to put it very crass construction on it. You may be free to do a lot of things but not simply have the money to be able to do them. You may be free to be ambitious to be present United States to

be some great this or that and still be completely cut off from that because from the day you were born you didn't get a chance that you were born in a family where there were no books or you were born in a neighborhood where everything led to frustration rather than to hope or you could have been born in a country or a time or a place or a circumstance. Or your freedom didn't really mean very much I I look at the world today with 900 million plus people who can't read and write. How free are they to be human beings when the totality of the culture would tire dish out and you call the new sphere the totality of human culture and and development is closed off them because they can't read or write. How free are people to have to live on a hundred dollars a year and there are a hundred something like 50 percent of the human race falls in this category today how free are they really to be human beings in the sense of having any kind of human dignity and where they live the clothes they wear or the education they get. Their aspirations for the future for themselves and their children. Freedom indeed is a very

precious thing again I believe. That's why I spoke earlier freedom of conscience one aspect of freedom. I think one of the things that. Is most important about our lives and I hate to see it played down in any way. But I think without playing down personal freedom and in the enormous advantage it gives to us and what it contributes to our being persons in making ourselves what we want to make of ourselves with the grace of God and whatever help we get from other people we can still say we're free and that our freedom is enormously circumscribed. I don't think anybody is right Matt mine will not say that. That the normal negro youngster born today in a in a ghetto situation is not very free in the sense that many of you are free. If you do if you weren't born in that circumstance and are negro I think you you have to say that that many people around the world because of the countries they are born in are not very free. I wouldn't want to be a peasant outside of Pleiku this morning I don't think I'd be very free where I'm going to go what I'm going to do. What my future is going to be like next week.

So all I say is I I am for freedom but I'm for recognizing the freedom has many restrictions and many of them are artificially created such as restrictions of the social order today in this country and that we're free to change them. And I'd rather put the emphasis on freedom for change rather than than freedom as something that is a matter of blaming us. I'd like to see freedom as opportunity freedom as opportunity to change so that other people are free and we make freedom a greater reality for many more people. I think I've taken too much time and I've got to sit down for a moment my associate take up. I like to brew deal very briefly with a couple of the questions that seem to be quite common in the stack I have over there and then give a bit more attention to a question that I really got an awful lot of.

First of all I'd like to clear up a misunderstanding which I seem to have created for many people. This happens when you're you're speaking and you're quoting items that have been included in public opinion polls. And if you're not very careful I suppose when I come to one of those I should do like this because it's likely to be taken as an assertion that you're making. For example I got a number of people asking me how what is my evidence for the statement that Negroes can get as get ahead as easily as whites if they would only work hard. I don't think there is such evidence you know on the back of Mars because I don't. I don't think it's true. What I was saying is that a great many white Americans believe this and that as a result of believing this they don't feel that they have any further responsibility in the matter and that indeed a good many black Americans believe this as a result of which they feel nearly oppressed.

They they don't really know. Seymour Martin looks at one said in class that he felt that the French garbage men were happier than American garbage men because the French garbage man was a very political animal and he knew it was the system that put him where he was. It was the American garbage man tended to breed believe in free will and walked around ashamed in front of his family and his friends because his freewill had brought him to carrying garbage out the great deal of truth in that. And I can only be very sympathetic for Negroes who believe that they are where they are through the exercise of their totally free will in a society. Enough of that said a number of people mentioned. I think it's a relatively obvious point I should have said something about that while I've been blaming a lot of these misapprehensions on radical notions of free will. Isn't it true that a completely predestinarian religious ideas would have the same effect. Of course I think that's obviously true.

You look at it at India how is the caste system justified for all those millennia it was justified by a notion that men were fixed in their places by the act of the gods I can think of nothing as a better ideology to justify complete social immobility. However predestination I'm not a theologian again but it strikes me has always been a relatively minor and ambiguous notion in Christianity and certainly if you go out with survey instruments and ask laymen in the fuze in America today or ask Americans generally there isn't much believe in predestination notions rather Americans that American Christians tend to believe that. That they are utterly unfettered now it isn't that they don't hold these beliefs very inconsistently because the same man who somehow believes that the Negro is totally free is sitting there in the ghetto is poor merely because he is lazy etc. etc.. This same person is very very concerned lest negroes move into neighborhoods bringing

their kids in to play with his kids for fear that these outside social conditions will somehow overcome their child's free will and turn him into kind of a control man. It isn't a consistent argument. It's merely that it's a pernicious one. Now finally for some reason I got a great many questions asking me what I propose that the churches might do in the way of action to work on these very Here's an example. We sense the more religiously committed appear to be the more prejudice could you suggest how the churches might deal with this dilemma. I suppose that anyone who comes into a gathering like this and points to ills can expect to be held responsible for making some concrete suggestions. Let me put it this way. And in doing bring in something that the john newman was talking about a few minutes ago studies of the clergy when they asked them for example what they do about

their various moral concerns in society problems of war when they're concerned about civil rights justice and all of these things a number of studies have been done asking ministers what kinds of actions they've taken in there. One of the alternatives is always have they prayed about it and how much and what you find is that ministers are very likely to report that they prayed about problems of prejudice is much much less likely to say that they've ever spoken out publicly to their congregation on this topic in any direct terms rather than preaching a sermon on Brotherhood without mentioning who your brother might be. Now I think I'm not here certainly to challenge the efficacy of prayer. I don't want to get into the notions of. Religious notions of whether prayers are answered I think this social scientists it doesn't really matter very much because it's it's very obvious that this has

important effects on the person who is writing. But I am concerned about a tendency to pray and not accompany prayer with any action. And it strikes me that here is the dilemma of the church it reflects the dilemma of the church. It's not that these ministers lack the character to speak out because it's not that simple. There's a tension in society it seems to me between the church's moral mission as religious witness and its role as a formal organisation that has to build buildings and has to have members and has to get funds if it's to survive. Now given what I said earlier today that the majority of people in the churches object to the church speaking out and playing this role in prejudice and that the vast majority of people in the churches tend to hold these prejudices. We've heard Father Hesburgh tell us this morning about the problems with the.

Mississippi clergy saying well if we spoke out we'd be run out of the state. As a matter of fact anyone who's been reading the press at all in the last few years recognizes that for example after the Proposition 14 campaign in California it was very reliably reported that the Biskup alien church lost a lot of money in terms of people withholding their normal pledges their normal contributions to the church because of the role that spoken at the church and spoken out very forcefully in opposition to Proposition 14. Similar things are being reported from across the country. Ministers are driven out of parishes especially in Protestant groups where the where the where the congregation themselves are the direct employer of the pastor and may remove him without having to make recourse to higher higher authority. So it's not entirely a simple matter for the churches to speak out because in fact they do risk some funds they do risk something about the the

organizational integrity of the church from a strictly fundraisers point of view one would say let's probably not rock the boat too much because we won't get the windows that we want and windows are after all real thing. I think that the church is going to come back to this problem in a few. It's going to have to take some real organizational risks. It's going to have to risk losing some members it's going to have to put risk perhaps. The size and quality of buildings that can always be built. Now I think of course the sociologist as I read the signs that strikes me the churches are becoming more and more to a willingness to take these kinds of risks. But I think unless they're willing to risk a good deal more than they have so far that the problem isn't very much they can do about it. Like to close this by remarking on something that we found in our questionnaire. Christians were asked items like

love thy neighbor means we should treat all races the same. 95 98 percent of the members of every denomination said absolutely true and about vests much further down in the same page of the questionnaire about half of them said they would move if Negroes moved into their neighborhood. One concludes from this perhaps that they're afraid if Negroes move into their neighborhoods and become neighbors then that they'll have to love them. Now it strikes me that there is this tremendous slippage between a certain kind of moral cliché and applying these in concrete instances and that this is one of the problems that the sets the church and I suggest then that the sermons that deal with things like loving thy neighbor and doctrines of brotherhood in the teachings of the New Testament that stay at that abstract level of of them or more purely Biblical language and when the pastor does not go on and point

out in very definite concrete ways what this means for these parishioners in this community his father as Bruce said. So I don't know that these sermons really do very much good anyway. Ah. During the talk on or a mention of predestination I was reminded of a remark of what was the difference between Scotch Presbyterians and American Presbyterians. If you can stand a religious joke the Scotch Presbyterians think that all Catholics are predestined to go to hell. And American Presbyterians think they going to get there on their own merits. The only one lady in the audience wants to know if you can get the ideas that were expressed here this morning and I think these are going to be published as was mentioned by Dr. Glocks So I would

simply repeat that. This is one that takes me at my own word and nails me to the wall. Has the University of Notre Dame joined in Project equality of the National Catholic Conference for interracial justice which pledges participating institutions to deal only with the Equal Opportunity contractors for goods and services. So far not. And I think mainly again without being trying to duck this problem of knowing precisely how to apply this across the board and how to get these lists operative. I think this can be looked in time and I assume when it does we will be with this project. However I can say one thing more there's another project that is sponsored by a Jewish group which we are working with for putting some in Dollmann money in an integrated housing. I believe we're probably the only large university doing that. It's not an enormous amount of money but it happens to be the only money we

have in real estate in our government investment. Here's a question is will more difficult Negroes have been steadily concluding that integration of churches Negro and white of the same the nomination is no longer desirable because of this integration extends only as far as the church service and they must go back to their segregated lives so the Negro church remains the only place one can find the base from which Negroes can fight for first class citizenship in all of society. Is this good or is this a phase in the search for justice. If I can put forth my own prejudice in the matter. It seems to me that ultimately we've got to work for an integrated America and I mean integrated across the board in all of the aspects of American life. I realize this runs counter to some great difficulties and some great feelings that run strong in the opposite direction. But it seemed to me that whether we create enclaves for

Jews or Protestants or Negroes or whites or Spanish speaking Americans or whatever we're not creating what was the ideal of this particular country was founded upon. I don't I don't know that that there's any easy way of creating one nation out of all of our differences. But it seems to me that ultimately if there is one single strong ideal that flows through this country and it is made a rather unique country in the whole world it's the idea of equality of opportunity for everyone and everyone does get an equal chance. And I think all we've been talking about today is is that prejudice cuts a person off from that equal chance because of our belief that he is inferior and we don't give him the chance to do it. What we expect to get ourselves the chance to do. I would hope that there is no part of American life whether it's where we live or where we recreate or. Kinds of groups social cultural or otherwise we belong to the kinds of places in which we go to school. They are not open to

everyone. I think to the extent that this is not true America has not lived up to the Constitution the Bill of Rights and all of the ideals that surround its foundation. I think we have an enormous problem to make this come true. I think we do a lot of white washing over our difficulties. I think the report of the president's commission on civil disorder or so-called Right Commission put its finger right on the reason that this equality of opportunity does not exist today especially for Negroes and it says it's because of white racism because of what white racism creates in the way of living conditions and job opportunities and educational opportunities or what it doesn't allow to be created because of this deep prejudice that's called white racism. You could put it the other way around and call it the impression of white superiority that white people get so easily almost by birth. All of this is true then I think that's the that's the sad thing we've got to work at. I think we can have all

sorts of of distractions along the way. I think there can be other social motions in other directions I'm not afraid of black power which gives black people pride in being black people anymore and I'm against Jewish people being proud of being Jews or Protestants being proud of being Protestants or English being proud of being English or whatever I think it's almost pathologically not to be a little bit proud of what you are. Either way you aren't very much. But the point I am getting at is that I do to make this an exclusive this thick thing and to set up nations within nations and and divisions within the nations that lead this country from being one nation with equality of opportunity and justice for everyone is I think a little less than what we started out to do and I hope we don't do less than what we started out to do. The only reason that. I feel great. Satisfaction in. Being with you this morning and being with a group this size which is obviously this interested because I've been listening for so patiently

and so graciously for so long is the fact that if enough people are interested we can do something about this and I think I'm sure we can. But I would want to do it in a false way that would create two Americas. I think we've seen enough of apartheid in a different land. I think it's the last thing in the world we need here. I would hope that somehow with everybody having pride in what he is and what he stands for and whatever good is in him or her that from here we can we can work towards the kind of country where indeed everyone starts out even now we're not all going to end up even and that doesn't bother me because life isn't like that. But I think at least we must start out even. And I think we must take pride in the fact of starting out even we are verging towards a unity and that the very heart of that unity is at least a unity of friendship where we each accept each other for what we are worth and we try to stand with each other towards a better America. Now that sounds like flag waving your patriotic or something else but I have to be corny enough to believe it. Thank you very much.

Professor Newman wishes to make one brief comment from a legal point of view. Then the doctor glop has a he has an administrative announcement and then we will be adjourned. I don't know how legal this is but I did want to respond a bit to Dr of Friedman's analysis and perhaps right at the something that most of the stock did in his approach and that is this. It seems to me that the view of the. New Testament as. Fundamentally anti-Semitic Rast son to exclusively literary approach to the document. And while it is not

itself a fundamentalist approach that goes back to a fundamentalist approach that supposes you can find texts in the Bible which will prove your point. The problem with the fundamentalist approach has always been that there are called attacks and I don't suppose a single idea in the New Testament of the all testament that you can't find a counter to in some other part of the Scriptures. And one way of looking at that is to say well these just contradict each other. The other way which I think is the way of people who understand religious sentiment in the motion and religious thought is the sleeve that they use I think is often our intention and often they are subordinate themes and major themes. And while this will could. And havoc if the subordinate themes become dominant. None the less. The

documents to be taken not a line by line word by word but as a whole intention and the imbalance and running through the New Testament and controlling the expressions which could be used in a distorted way to support and I Semitism running through what is the basic doctrine of the law of love for every human person. And I think that it is fundamentally a doctrine of love that emerges if you don't approach to cause millions who want to marry away. And that relates somewhat to. The stock's analysis because to me that he took. These what he called official pronouncements documents as nobody stood off by themselves and some kind of literary vacuum. And what you did was look at the documents he only looked at the people over here. All of these documents have any meaning for anybody it's not because they are written down somewhere and you can look them up in the library.

But it's because they live in the lives of individual people live in their minds. And those people the people of the time their culture. You don't have a whole lot of questions the slamming from heaven the people that you know you don't have a book often and I strike vacuum. You have people living in Roman society owning slaves. You have Christians living in the south and only you have people living in rightful gaggles and only in a place like Chicago with all the pride and ambition that they brought with them from Europe. And in each case there's no such thing as a pure Christian doctrine to be applied. It's how these ideas live in the minds of these individuals. And a really funny picture a very false picture has arrived that if you start comparing abstract doctrines with the lives of these people.

These people. Taking up a 5000 ideas from a culture and the question ideas are only one of them. And it's the there's always a tension again and a balance between the ideas I pick up from the world and live in their cultures their own media environments and the dominant Christian ideas and it is only when there is mastery in their own lots by the Christian idea of love that you don't get the kind of personal response that mainly you do in the milieu right. And perhaps all of them an extinction of the most of your own prejudices.