Secret of Christian Unity-Stringfellow

8/13/2019 Secret of Christian Unity-Stringfellow

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September 13, I96I T H E C H R I S T I A N C E N T U R Y 1073

of apocalyptic language, this is the central truth in theChristian doctrine of the Coming of Christ.

Can the modern Christian believe this? Does notsuch a concept belong to the outmoded realm of firstcentury Jewish apocalyptic? Does not a modern world-view exclude such a possibility?

If so, then the entire structure of Christian theology

collapses, for the central doctrine of the Christianfaith, the Incarnation, embodies the same truth. Theheart of the Incarnation is this: that the pre-existentSon of God entered into human history to redeemmen. The Incarnation is a supernatural fact. God theSon has become man to make men sons of God. TheIncarnation means that God has not forsaken men norabandoned them to self-destruction. He has enteredinto humanity to do for us what we could not andcannot do for ourselves. It is significant that the New

The following article was presented originally as the clos

ing address at the North American Ecumenical Youth Assembly held August 16-23 on ^e campus of the University ofMichigan in Ann Arbor. In this instance we have decided,contrary to custom, to leave the text substantially in its speechmoldfor reasons which we feel will be obvious to the read-er. Mr. Stringjellow's remarks, though directed to the 2,000

young people from approximately 40 different communionswho participated in the assembly, are notably applicable tothe whole (or should we say the parts?) of American Protestantism.ED.

DURING this assembly I wrote the following letterto my two law partners in New York:

"I have been sitting here in my air-conditioned

room, sipping coffee and meditating about what to sayto these people. But for one or two intrusions, this is aprosaic, churchy meeting. The bunting and thetheatrics do not conceal the fact that the gospel istreated here with embarrassment and caution, as it isin most local congregations.

"The amenities are too comfortable, though I amnow accustomed to accepting them with a show ofgrace. The people are too cleanand they have allrecently eaten. The ecclesiastics speak too importantlyand do not seem to realize how few things really matter. I have lost count of the heresies that keep on being

praised."I am to have the last word in the assembly. It willbe an impossible time for rebuttaleven though I feel

Testament makes no theological use of the VirginBirth, and the efforts of some theologians to explainwhy Jesus could not have been the incarnate God-manapart from a human mother and a divine father reallyexplain nothing. The Virgin Birth stands as the signthat at this point God was doing something whichtranscends all historical analogy and explanation. God

has come into human experience.The Incarnation means essentially nothing less than

does the Parousia of Christ. Theologically, they arecut from the same cloth. They both stand for the factthat history cannot redeem itself. The power whichsaves man from himself and his sin does not comefrom man but from God; and the powers which willsave history from self-destruction do not arise out ofhistory but come from God. God who has spoken willspeak again. We await the final Word of God.

said that this meeting has 'all the potentialities ofPentecost/ That is true, of course, in principle, sincePentecost is the hidden truth of every moment inevery place for every man, but the characteristic ofthat truth is the imminent expectancy of the presenceof God in the place where at any time one happens tobe, and, so far as I can discern, hardly anyone expectsGod here.

"So they have planned to be a failure and haveproudly asked me to give a speech pointing to theirfailure as the last word of the program. It is all a bitmorbid: yet what is nearly as nice as the assurance ofrighteousness is the conviction of unrighteousness.

Perhaps I will fool them and withhold that satisfaction.Perhaps I will just quietly mention to them that thetriumph of the Word of God has already been accomplished by Godall by himselfand Christiansmerely have the pleasure of celebrating that event."

I

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because

God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the

world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and

deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been

made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew

God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,

but they became futile in their thinking and their senselessminds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became

fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for

i bli t l bi d i l

The Secret of Christian UnityGod is his own witness in this world: in that which seems

to our blindness good and worthy to be praised and in that

which to our blindness seems evil and possessed of death.

WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW


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io74 T H E C H R I S T I A N C E N T U R Y September 13, 1

sage from the Letter of Paul to the Romans in relation to this assembly and, more generally, in relationto the churches of American Protestantism can be putrather briefly:

(1) The secret of Christian unitythe unity whichthe churches long for as die Body of Christmust besought in and is only to be found in the world: in this

world, not in some make-believe world; in this worldas it is today, not in some nonexistent or not yetexistent world tomorrow; in thisworld as you or I orany man knows this world and encounters this world,in the world that we touch and smell and see andhear and in which we walk and sleep and work andfight and talk too much and buy and sell and lust andhate and watch and suffer and embrace and rejoiceand tremble and die; in thisworld, where Christ livesl

(2) That the secret of our unity as Christians isfound in the world indicts not only most of the actionof the several churches and of the councils of churches

which is fomented and continued in the name of ourdisunity, but also most of the action of the churchesand the councils of churches which is launched andmerchandised in the name of our better unity.

But at the same time, that the secret of our unity asChristians is disclosed in the world exposes the simplicity (not ease, but simplicity) of the Christian lifeand of the practice of the Christian life even now andeven amid the debilitation within the churches andthe disintegration among the churches.

If youif any man todaywould be a Christian, inspite of the disorder of the churches, if any man todaywould be a Christian and admit and bear the burdens

of that disorder, he must live in this world, for whichChrist died; he must live in this world, in which Christlives.He must live in this world not for his own sake,and not for the sake of the churches, and not for God'ssake, but for the sake of the world. That is to say, hemust live in this world, where Christ lives: he mustlive in this world in Christ.

II

But consider, then, this assembly, and consider thechurches of American Protestantism.

One trouble with the North American Ecumenical

Youth Assembly is that it is not ecumenical. It is afragmentand a small oneof the Body of Christ, or,to preserve the figure, it is one of the extremities ofthe Body of Christ. It does not encompass anywherenear the wholeness of the church; it does not manifestthe integrity and holiness of the Body of Christ in theworld.

Yet even this fragmenteven this arm of the Bodyis broken into many pieces, and, like any arm that isfractured, its shape and appearance are distorted: itdoesn't look quite like an arm any more, and it cannotfunction as an arm. It is immobilized. It is not only

useless to the work of the Body but also useless inserving the rest of the Body. And so long as the armis broken it takes more nourishment from and away

are severed or which are diseased, and the preoccution of each part of the Body with its own pain methat the world, for which this Body is the servantforgotten, ignored and left wanting.

In short, the trouble with this assembly is that inot ecumenical; but if it has an ecumenical concernit cares for the wholeness of the Body of Christ, it m

first confront and confess the fact that the sicknbrokenness and disunity of the churches today havemost utterly immobilized both the service of churches to Christ and the mission of the churchthe world.

Ill

There is a boya narcotics addictin east Harlwhom I have defended sometimes in the courts. are friends and talk a lot. Sometimes we talk abhow he might break his habit. There is a clergymin the neighborhood, too, with whom the boy of

talks, and the minister has spent a great deal of titrying to help the boy. But the bind is that the minter and I are ourselves so deeply divided as Christiand consequently our understanding of and counto this boy are so radically divergentthat the cheffect of these relationships upon the boy is to fatighim. Our disunity destroys our witness. And, insense, our disunity provokes more suffering for world than for the churches.

When I arrived in Ann Arbor, I walked from place of registration to the University of MichigUnion, and on the way passed one of the local Prot

tant congregations. Adjacent to the entrance of parking lot of the church is a sign which reads: STRICTED AREA: CHURCH OFFICIALS AND CHURCH BU

NESSONLY. That is the motto of American Protestaism.

I have a friend in New York, a Jesuit priest, wevery now and then offers prayers at mass with specintention for my work in east Harlem. Occasionallyand I have a meal together, and much of our cversation is curiously redundant. I relate to him sohorror about the Protestant churches, as I obsethem and participate in their lives. Then he respon"Oh yes! That's just the way it is in Rome," and t

me the latest Roman Catholic horror stories. I wreturn to New York from this assembly with a whnew batch of horror stories to share with him.

The churches of American Protestantism today athe apparatus of cooperation among the churchesAmerican Protestantism, that is, the National Counof Churches, the Protestant Council of the City New York, and the other state and local councils, by and large caught up in internal maintenance,constructing and preserving a cumbersome, sserving, complacent, officious, self-indulgent ecclesogy which is increasingly inept in recognizing, mu

less coping responsibly with, the ecumenical issue, awhich grows more and more inflexible and rigunable to discern, much less respond to, the pressu

d i ti f th it f th B d f Ch


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September 13, 1961 THE CH RI ST IA N CENTUR Y 1075

Catholicism and, even more important, from theworld.

The American churches continue to berate theirdifferences anddivisions, bu tthey have not yetdistinguished between flagellation andconfession.AndProtestants in America have much to confess:

In America, theReformation principle of dissentand the integrityof the relationship between God anda man was transmuted into a radical individualismwhich spawned someof thevery heresies which nowassault Protestants andother Christians in Americawho confessanecumenical concern.

And let Protestants openly admit,at last, that whilemost of American Protestantism wasindulging thisradical individualism and sectarianism, it was theOrthodox and Roman churches, and, wonderfullyironic, the younger churches overseas, which, whateverelse can be said about any of them, nurtured theremembranceofthe onenessof the churchofChrist.

For more than a century and ahalf, Protestantismnurtured, on the other hand,anotion ofautonomousand personal religiosity which grotesquely divided,separated andsegregated thechurch andwhichin-cubated the stifling ethos in the United States in whichChristians find themselves today. From the radicalindividualism of American Protestantism came thedoctrine that religion has to do only with religion, notwith life.

IV

This American idea about religionaccommodat

ing asitmay seem for a pluralistic societyis openlyhostiletothe biblical descriptionof the church as theBody of Christ living in themidst of theworldonbehalf of the whole world. The biblical imageof thechurch is,to besure, that of astranger in the world,despised by the nations. But the biblical imageofthechurch is never one of an innocuous, isolationistreligious society cutofffrom the actual affairs ofmenin the world.

It ismore than some queer irony orpoetic justicethat this desperate and lonely and unloving religiosityreturns to haunt Protestants who claim some ecumenical concern,as it hashaunted this assembly in the

presence inAnn Arbor of the so-called InternationalChristian Youth of Carl Mclntire and his patrons; itisacall toustoforbear torecite our differences longenough, fora change, to confess our sin and the sin ofour fathers.

But this mutation ofthe Reformation, this American persuasion that religion has to do only withreligion and not with the world, is deeply imbedded inthe mentalityof theAmerican people.It is notjustthe view of extremists, opportunists, fanatics, paranoids or presidential candidates, bu t of responsibleintellectualssecularists and humanists.

Yet thebitter ironyof theProtestant churchesi ithis country today is that massesofsolid, respectably,moderate folk who are members and leaders an


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1076 T H E C H R I S T I A N C E N T U R Y September 13, 1

churches from the worldthe superstition that thegospel is isolated from ordinary, everyday lifeis thesame thing as estrangement from Christ. Where thechurches do not care for the world, they do not reallycare for Christ.

I know a clergyman who was coerced into leavinghis work in New York city not long ago because hisecclesiastical superiors informed him his ministry wasbecoming "too specialized." He cared for the worldand he spent his time in the world. The only time hecould be found on the church premises was when hewas presiding at a service of worship. The rest of thetime he was in the street, or in a home, or in a bar, orin the neighborhood political club, or at the precinctpolice station, or in a candy store, or in some otherplace where people are. But he was told that he spenttoo much time with people, especially with some whowere junkies or prostitutes or poor or otherwise"undesirable." That is the extent of the estrangement

of the churches from the worldand from Christ.

VI

The secret of Christian unity, which is revealed inthe care of the Christian for the world, is the presenceof the Word of God already in the common life of theworld. And Christians must enter that life fully andunequivocally to know the Word of God.

We saw at this assembly Break Them in Pieces, asordid play about four aimless, weak, average people.Fred Myers, the author of the play, maintains that theplay has no message but is just a glimpse of four lives.

The play is a report, not a sermon. Yet hidden in theshallow, offensive, frivolous lives of the play's peopleis the very Word of God which Christians celebrate.The Word is hidden in the play (as the Word is hidden in the life of the world), hidden, I suppose, evenfrom those whose action portrays the Word of God,even from the people of the drama. But to those whohave eyes to discern and ears to hear, the Word of Godis present, seen and heard, and may then be exposedfor all to know. The "message," the Word hidden inthe absent message of this play, is that the reconciliation of men involves the risk of death, that he whowould find his life must lose it. In a curious, anticipa

tory way that Word is to be found in the trivial, arrogant episodes of this play.

For the sake of Christian unity, the churches needthe world, because the Word of God is present in theworld anyway and already. Christians and the churchescan, therefore, be and become immersed in the life ofthe world to the extremity of giving up our own livesfor the world's sake. And for the "ecumenical movement" this is of enormous practicality; in giving ourlives to the world, we Christians will learn of unity:we will discover how to give our lives to each other.

The secret of unity is that the Word of God is pres

ent already in the ordinary, passing, besetting, profane,petty, heroic, wretched, baffling, foolish, wonderfulaffairs of men in the world. The reconciliation of God

d th ld i J Ch i t th t i Ch i t

The churchthe One Great Church for whChristians pray, and which a Christian represents enowas the Body of Christ in the world has, shaand manifests that same radical integrity. And all ware in Christ, each member of his Body in the woknows and lives in the same integrity in his relatiships with any creature in his own personal, specand concrete history. Existentially and empiricathe reconciliation of the world with God in JeChrist establishes the Christian in unity withboth Gand the whole world.

VII

The singular life of the Christian, then, is sacramtal (and this is no spooky, high-church word)thata recall and a representation and an enactment ancommunication of that actual given unity with bGod and the world, whether in the gathering of worshiping congregation now and then or whether

the dispersion of the members within the daily lifethe world.

The unity which is the gift of Christthe ecumecal unityis no mere institutional reconstitutionofthe present churches; rather, it is the Body of Chliving in the world in the unity between God and world wrought in Christ and the Body of Christ livin the world as the unity of God and the worldChrist.

God is not a captive in churchthank God! Godhis own witness in this world: in every time and plain that which seems to our blindness good and worto be praised and in that which seems to our blindnevil and possessed of death. In his Word the wowas made, and in all the world his Word resides, athere is no excuse for those who do not honor himGod.

The Parable According to

Those Who Fled

SPARROWS muttering in flightsReduce our nestless days and nights

To twitterings beneath the heights.Where shall we fall from here to die?

Bird pursued by Heaven's Hound,Beneath the TV steeples found,Can you chip the asphalt ground?How shall we fall from here to die?

In alleys of colossal shadeThe white men play at black-charadeAnd truths said color-fast now fade,Why shall we fall from here to die?

Bird of our Lord, storybooked,Upon whose plight our Lord has looked,As our Lord with nails was hooked,As you, sparrow, have been rooked,Is not now our poor goose cooked?


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Secret of Christian Unity-Stringfellow