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My surprise at being selected for this honor is surpassed only by my appreciation for Harvard Divinity School, which gave me a sturdy theological foundation that has undergirded 44 years of ordained ministry. My tenure at HDS was
1958-1961: the end of what Time magazine called the "get-along generation" and the beginning of a significant shift in American culture. Neibuhr fused revelation and reason. Tillich convinced us we were cosmically accepted. While Adams taught us Middle principles, Lehman contextualized with the
"Ethics of the Manger." Two young New Testament scholars breathed new life into
biblical research: Stendhal and
Koester. Buttrick taught us how to write crisp and terse sermons and how to administer Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. Samuel Miller cared for our souls and taught us to pray. Wright and Cross brought life to the Pentateuch and Prophets.
Those were great years to be at HDS. We were in a cocoon with the world shut out. Kennedy's election stirred a nation to a new service-oriented patriotism. But it didn't last. A young Harvard psychology professor named Timothy Leary posted an announcement on the HDS bulletin board asking for volunteers to be part of an experiment with mind-expanding drugs. The call for Freedom Riders pushed us into the cauldron of civil rights. Vietnam caused a snag in our national fabric that turned into a violent rip. Assassinations plundered our hope. My graduating friends and I found ourselves prepared to serve a church and a culture where the old was dying and the new was in birth pangs—birth pangs that continue to this day.
New words context our ministry: postmodern, globalization, culture wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, WMD, always with the spin more influential than facts in shaping opinions. Going into ministry today—any kind of ministry (ordained or lay)—is to enter a fear-filled culture and a fragmented church.
Hunches and premonitions about the future are as far as I can go: First, I believe it is time again to talk of God. We in ministry cannot let sleazy televangelists and secular sensation-driven novelists do our theology for us.
The sacredness of creation and the meaning of cosmic design are at the heart of any discourse about and belief in divine reality.
Second, when the sacred is pushed to the edge of secular culture, it will find
re-entry in new ways—often sensational, absurd, and fictionalized. As Bishop of Dallas, I received many calls telling me that their Sunday school class was studying
The Da Vinci Code, and they wanted to know where in the Bible it says that Jesus' wife was Mary Magdalene.
Third, the church is in a time of moving in opposite directions. Suburban mega churches and large urban congregations, both with a market mentality and media savvy, are producing islands of Christian corporations with CEO pastors. Moving the other direction are the medium to small congregations, hanging on and often declining, many without clergy. Frankly, I believe if the church is to discover renewed faithfulness, it will come from the smaller, more intimate congregations through their clergy and lay leadership, studying scripture, engaging in missional discipleship and seeking ways to express the hope of the gospel in a fear-driven society.
What I know about the present is that ecumenical and interfaith mission and witness are no longer a luxury but a necessity. The world is a lit fuse of violence, hatred, and potential global destructiveness. We cannot wait for religious bodies to sort out our differences before we pray, act, and commune together. I am part of a hopeful sign of this reality in Christian Churches Together, a new convergence of Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, Pentecostal, African American, and mainstream churches entering a new covenant in order to begin listening to each other and responding in strength and unity to poverty and AIDS. When the house is on fire, you do not ask whose house has the purest water.
Ministry is not a popular profession to enter. But a committed and less cynical clergy, transcending denominations, is being formed to give leadership to what may be the only institution that can bring left and right to a common table. An institution whose liturgies and life together transcend red states and blue states. An institution that embodies the possibility of a theological response to the core issues of our time—response to an eroding environment, war that could usher in Armageddon, and the ethics of creating life and taking life. Faith is the only adequate response to fear. The light of faith still persists, and the darkness has not overcome it. Nor will it, for faith is the essence of our humanness.
Thank you.
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