The Baptism of Thomas Richard Hosto

I will begin these remarks by sincerely thanking Pastor Arnold and the congregation at Living Christ for the opportunity to baptize my third grandchild here in these familiar and friendly confines.

Prologue: Some History

            Almost nine months into our country’s participation in WWII, my mother and father found themselves at an Army installation in Little Rock, Arkansas named Camp Robinson, a long ways from their families back in Minnesota. They were not alone! They also had a newborn child less than a month old – me. They had both been raised as Episcopalians and so it was that in late September, 1942, my parents took me to Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock and there a young clergyman named Fordyce Eastburn initiated me into the Anglican branch of the Christian Church. This was a great gift the significance of which only later in my life did I begin to appreciate. That gift of course was Holy Baptism into the Body of Christ, and by that baptism, entrance also into the Church, an institution which I grew to love.

************************************ 

            Thomas Richard Hosto will reach the milestone of his first birthday in roughly three weeks time, on September 3^rd to be exact. Six days prior to his birthday, on August 29th, I will be seventy-one. During the course of my seventy- one years, society has changed a great deal. I don’t think that too many people are going to argue with me about that. There is one thing that hasn’t changed: the importance of Holy Baptism as an initiation into committed membership in the Church.

Holy Baptism 

There is one body and one Spirit . . .

                                One Lord, one faith, one baptism

                                One God and Father of all. . .

                                                                                    Ephesians 4:4

            Again I will make the statement that meaningful baptism is critical to the life of the Church and to the life of the individual. If we stopped baptizing, theoretically the church would cease to exist. It is the door through which one enters the life of the Church. Many churches place their baptismal fonts near their front door to forcefully make that point.

            The Church has high expectations of those it baptizes. That includes everyone sitting here. Baptism is not something we do because it is cute and seems like a nice idea.

           Almighty God through the agency of Jesus and the Holy Spirit placed the church in the world with very definite purposes in mind, one of which is the active confrontation of evil and falsehood. The Church needs committed people to attain its goals. That is why baptism involves promises. Hopefully, everyone was paying careful attention to the content of the baptismal promises which were made on Thomas’ behalf.

            We live in a society that has developed real skill in converting everything into something that serves the needs of the individual. It is relentless in its efforts to secularize the church. Why is this so? Modern society is obsessive in the promotion of individual autonomy and the rejection of all external objective authority. The existence of the Church as an objective authority in society sometimes seems to be an affront which society does not want to tolerate. Society therefore is always trying to bring the church down to its own level. In theology that’s called reductionism! One of the most difficult selling jobs in our society is convincing people to accept any authority for their lives other than their own needs and wants. That statement is a modern truism!

            Unfortunately, membership in the Church, i.e. becoming a Christian, cannot lend itself to self-serving purpose. The lives of the original followers of Jesus are instructive. Whatever preconceptions and illusions Peter and Andrew and John and James and the rest of the disciples might have had about the benefits which would follow their individual decisions to follow Jesus, were quickly dispelled when they watched their leader executed on a cross. Remember them arguing about who would be privileged to sit  at his right hand when He came into his kingdom? Jesus tried to warn them! That is what you heard about baptism in the Gospel reading from Luke. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” The point is that Christian witness and commitment is probably not always going to be an easy road to follow. As a matter of fact, it sometimes leads to the cross.

            By executing Jesus as a common criminal, society tried to bring Jesus down to a common level. Or so it thought! Following the resurrection, the eyes of his followers were opened to the realization of the victory (not defeat) of the suffering servant Jesus whose life of compassion and sacrificial service was able to triumph over apparent defeat and death. Selflessness had defeated the sin of self-centeredness, the sacred presence in life had defeated the fear and despair of secularity.

            I say all this to dispel the idea that Holy Baptism that Holy Baptism is simply a “fun” occasion in the life of the Church and the child’s family, a sort of “coming out” celebration. That’s what we see on the surface, but there are much deeper issues at play here. Baptism is the foundational sacrament of the church, the entrance rite in which we return again and again to the issue of deep personal commitment, the decision to follow Jesus and all that follows or should follow that decision.

“Remember us? Marriage in ’58, Baptisms in ’61 and ’64 . . . ?” 

            I am painfully aware after thirty-six years of parish ministry of the difficulty inherent in most attempts to stress the seriousness of the meaning of the sacraments of the church, many of which today have today been converted to life transition moments and occasions when people make cameo appearances in the church. One of my favorite cartoons shows a couple exiting a church following worship and saying to the clergyman at the door: “Remember us? Wedding in ’58, baptisms in ’61 and ’64. . . ?” That attitude is both amusing and painful because in too many instances it is all too true.

            The baptism of any individual is seen by the church as merely the beginning of a lifetime of active, ever deepening relationship and involvement in the church, the Body of Christ. When I think back on my life, the lives of my brother and sister, and the lives of my children in the church, my mind is flooded with irreplaceable memories. All those years in Sunday School learning the basic stories of Christianity, all those children’s Christmas pageants, all those Sundays of being acolytes, and most importantly, all the memories of those committed church people who gave so much to us while we were all growing up. Can you put a value on that kind of nurture and support? I don’t think so! When you live your life within the congregational life of a parish church, at a certain point the time arrives when it will be your turn to pick up the responsibilities that had previously been shouldered by those who went before you. The church is intended to be a generation to generation experience. When it isn’t, we are in trouble!

 

The Parish Church 

            I read the statement years ago by Bishop Richard Emrich of the Diocese of Michigan (1948-1973), that the parish church is the most important unit in the organization of the church. Certainly, most of us because of our experience would attest to the truth of that observation. The parish church is where we were baptized, the place where we have worshiped Sunday after Sunday, the place where we obtained an ongoing Christian education including confirmation, and the place where we enjoy Christian fellowship. Most importantly, it is the place where we have been given the gift of faith. During my thirty-six year of active parish ministry, I reiterated over and over again my belief in the great importance of the parish church in the common life of American society. The strength of parish churches depends upon the process which begins today with this baptism. It is the process of Christian development. This morning is only the first step.

            In 2007, a year before I retired, St. Barnabas’ celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. As a part of that, the North County Journal – when there still was a North County Journal – sent a reporter out to talk with me and a few parishioners to obtain information for the story about this milestone. It was published on July 11^th of that year. One of the parishioners the writer talked with was Joe Reagan who at the time was 92 years old. Joe told the reporter that he had been a member of the congregation from the beginning, and that, “It’s been the best thing in my life to belong as a member.” What a testimony to the importance of the parish church!

Conclusion

            The future of the Church will depend on its ability to develop a membership who take seriously their commitment to follow the example of Jesus and who see their lives of discipleship as a life long struggle to reflect on the meaning of their lives in the light of this commitment.  As we heard in the Gospel, there is no guarantee that the Christian life is going to be easy. Each of us is caught between the attractive pursuits and assumptions of our modern, materialistic society, and the Spirit beckoning us to ignore most of that which is largely illusion anyway and choose lives of true discipleship. The choice is put daily to each one of us. Choose wisely because both your life and the common life of the Church is at stake!

 

Postscript 

 In 1968, I went to Berkeley, California for my first year of seminary at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Shortly after I arrived, I happened to be looking at a list of faculty members and one name jumped out at me. Fordyce Eastburn, the individual who had baptized me back in 1942 in Little Rock. The first chance I got, I introduced myself and told him of our connection. I was crushed when he didn’t remember me. 

In July of 2008, Liz and I attended a family reunion in Little Rock. On Sunday, July 13, I officiated at a Service of Holy Communion in the chapel at Trinity Cathedral. Following the service, Liz took my picture standing at the font where I had been baptized almost 66 years previously.

 

 

           

 

George The Cat

          Monday, July 8^th, 2013, was a sad day! We were forced by painful circumstances to make the decision to put our cat George to sleep. We had taken him to the vet the previous Friday because he had been losing weight and was displaying a problem in his mouth. Dr. Klotz looked at him and asked us to bring him back on Monday morning. They would then anesthetize him in order to be able to thoroughly examine his mouth. She thought that it was either an abscessed tooth or a tumor. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the latter and there was no hope for him. He couldn’t eat and he was in pain. He had already lost about 30% of his body weight and was literally skin and bones, a shadow of his former self. George had been in our home for over sixteen years and it was a difficult decision to have to make. Liz and I both cried! People talk about pets being a part of the family; George was all that and more.  

            George arrived in our home in 1997 as an abandoned kitten picked up on the street by our son Robert. Some roofers had found this little cat and were talking about killing it. (What kind of people are we turning out in this society?) Robert told them that they certainly were not going to kill the kitten, and put him in his truck and brought him home at the end of the day. That began his life in cat paradise where his every need was looked after. As a kitten, he had been separated from his mother way too early and there was some question whether he would survive. At the time we had two dogs and one of them assumed the role of George’s mother. After that, we always told people that George thought of himself as a dog, not a cat. He didn’t purr and really didn’t meow. He made a growling sound in his throat when he wanted attention. Robert named him “George” after the country music singer George Strait.

            George grew up to be the toughest cat in the neighborhood. He was very territorial and wouldn’t tolerate any other cats who happened to wander into what he considered to be his space. George vigorously chased them away. I don’t think that he lost many fights. In his youth, he was a very large cat and he could handle himself. In his early years, he would often be outside all night. He would always appear at our front door in the morning and come in to eat and then take a nap. Cats are nocturnal creatures and George was true to form.

            Cats are also strange and unique. Until you have lived with one or two, it is almost impossible to understand what that statement means. No self respecting cat would ever go to obedience school. They all have an uncanny ability to manipulate their living situations to their preferences. More often than not, it is their human owners who end up being trained to do things their way. They seem to be so calculating and intelligent. Just look deeply into the seemingly bottomless pools of a cat’s eyes! George for most of his life was aloof and standoffish. He didn’t like to be petted. And yet, he could be affectionate when it suited him. It was almost as if he was doing a favor when he allowed someone to touch him.

            In my experience, no two cats are the same. Each one has its own unique personality. It’s amazing how different they can be. Just like people. That is another pitfall to living with cats. You start thinking of them almost as people, your children. We had taken to calling George “our little boy” who some days was good and some days was bad, and we talked to him on that level.

            George was old for a cat. The average feline life expectancy is twelve years. George was over sixteen. In human terms, that would translate to eighty plus years. In his later years, George had slowed down quite a bit. However, one thing didn’t change! He always liked to be outside. He would go out and sit in our garage, often in a chair, and  watch the neighborhood. In the summer, he enjoyed lying on the warm cement absorbing the heat. At night he used to lie under one of our vehicles. I would go out and call his name. He would slowly saunter up to me; I would pick him up and carry him inside. The next morning at 5:30 am, he would be waiting at my bedroom door for me to let him outside and his daily routine would begin all over again. And I guess mine would too.

            For the last several years, George would jump up and sit on my lap when ever I would sit down on the couch to watch television. He would look up at me imploringly as if to say, “Why don’t you scratch my ears?” George loved to have his head stroked! Another one of his favorite tricks was to jump up on the dining room table and lie down next to my laptop. Liz would ask from another room what I was doing and I would respond, “George and I are working on the computer.” George knew that he was my cat and he liked to be wherever I was. Not too long ago, my daughter Bethany brought her dog Molly over to our house and I took Molly for a walk. After we had started going down the sidewalk, I looked back and there was George following along. He went for the whole walk.

            Why do we invest so much of ourselves in our relationships with our pets when we know it’s probably going to end with a painful but necessary decision like the one we just had to make? I don’t know the answer. I'm sure it has something to do with mutual needs, theirs and ours. Goodbye George! We are sure going to miss you!

 

                                                                              Richard B. Tudor

 

Digging In The Past

 

 

. . . a queer craving to visit the past and give the modern world the slip.

Siegfried Sassoon

 

            I have been reading a memoir by William Manchester titled Goodbye Darkness.  He had struggling for some time with strange nightmares related to his World War II experiences. It had gotten so bad that it felt as if darkness had a stranglehold on his life. He wanted to dispel it. In 1978 he decided to revisit the islands in the Pacific Ocean (New Guinea, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Iwo Jima) on which he fought against the Japanese as a young marine in the 1940’s He called his trip “digging in the past.” It was intended to be therapeutic and cathartic. It became an exercise in facing personal demons. All of us bear wounds from the past. Perhaps we must retreat there to find healing, to lift the darkness from our lives.

            There are any number of other reasons to want to revisit one’s past. Memories are compelling! Nostalgia is a powerful emotion! Sometimes we search for meaning (completeness) in what Manchester calls, “the unconsummated past.” From my personal perspective, we return to our pasts seeking redemption and reconciliation. Whatever the reason, I am fascinated by the process of digging in the past. You never know what or who you might find. The ultimate goal is self!

***********************************

 

            On June 21, 2013, my wife Liz and I drove down to Hot Springs, Arkansas to get away and celebrate our 39^th wedding anniversary. We met up with two distant cousins of mine, Chuck and Clay Fitzhugh and their wives Becky and Debbie. The trip brought to mind my first visit to Hot Springs twenty years ago and my introduction to relatives I didn’t know existed.

In 1993, my uncle Thomas Tudor who was the family genealogist contacted me and said that now that I was living in St. Louis, I should acquaint myself with a branch of our family living in Arkansas. The existence of this “branch of our family” was news to me. Uncle Tom said that these people constituted the Bruce side of our family. That rang a bell! I knew that the Bruce name was important to us. My father’s full name was Robert Bruce Tudor. My brother Tom also has Bruce as his middle name. I was aware that somewhere in our past, we Tudors did claim a connection with Robert the Bruce and his descendents. When my father was in England during WWII, he visited Dunfermline Abbey in Scotland where Robert the Bruce is buried. My uncle Tom went on to say that these Arkansas relatives were in the habit of having family reunions every few years. Tom had contacted their family genealogist and had asked that I be invited to the next gathering. It didn’t take long for that to happen. In late May, I received a lengthy letter from Edward Bruce Fitzhugh which laid out the relationship between our families. I was extremely interested to discover in his letter that his family belonged to the Episcopal Church and that their lineage included a number of Episcopal priests. As a matter of fact, his brother William Fitzhugh was a retired priest in the Diocese of Arkansas. William had referenced me in the Episcopal Church Clerical Directory and had given his brother my particulars. Edward closed his letter by inviting me to their next family reunion to be held at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas on July 23-24 that summer. I was intrigued. Instant family!

            I made reservations at the Arlington and, on July 23, my sons Robert and Thomas and I drove down to Hot Springs. For some reason, Liz and the girls didn’t go. Driving through Little Rock was interesting for me because I had been born there in the St. Vincent Infirmary on August 29, 1942 while my father was stationed at Camp Robinson during World War II. In 1943, the army transferred my father to an installation near Indio, California where my brother Tom was born on November 20. Little Rock was my birth place but that fact certainly carried no sense of home town. I had no memories of Little Rock or Arkansas because I had never been back. Still, I have always had a Little Rock connection in my mind. Now, I had come back.

            Walking into the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs was quite an experience. The lobby was large and looked like a ball room. Very elegant! The lobby bar was on your right as you entered and it had then (and still has today) a very art deco appearing backdrop. The hotel was built in 1924 and the building replaced an earlier structure from the 1890’s which had burned down. Needless to say, the Arlington is a grand tradition in Hot Springs. There is a suite on the fourth floor which is named for Al Capone who used to vacation there. The hotel is located across the street from Hot Springs National Park. A short distance from the hotel down the street are ten bath houses which are relics from the old days when “taking the waters” in Hot Springs was a very popular thing to do. The bath houses have all been restored by the park service. Going to Hot Springs is definitely a step back into the past. That is obviously intentional!

            Once the boys and I entered the hotel and checked in, we very quickly discovered that the Bruce-Carvill-Fitzhugh family reunion was headquartering in the Apollo Room on the seventh floor.  I went down there and discovered about twenty people sitting around renewing acquaintances and looking at pictures. Very soon, I found myself visiting with Herman Charles “Bo” Carvill who was the driving force behind these reunions. He was the organizer. I met William “Billy” Fitzhugh the retired Episcopal priest and we talked a bit about the Rev. Caleb Alexander Bruce who had started several parishes in Arkansas and had for a time been rector of St. Paul’s, Alton, Illinois. Later, I sat down with Edward Fitzhugh and we discussed the Bruce-Tudor family connections. Edward had put together a very informative if somewhat complicated two page family tree and gave me a copy.

 

A Brief Genealogy

 

            It seems that our common ancestor is an individual named Dr. Barwick Bruce who in the early 1800’s was living in Bridgetown, Barbados. He and his wife Amabel Walrond Bruce had seven children. In 1806, Dr. Bruce, his wife, and their two youngest children, Nathaniel French Bruce and Mary Dalrymple Bruce, immigrated to Hartford, Connecticut. These two children, Nathaniel and Mary, are the key to the connection between the Bruce-Carcill- Fitzhugh people living in Arkansas and my family, the Tudors. Nathaniel received a medical degree from Dartmouth in 1813 but apparently never practiced. After his graduation from Dartmouth, he married Sarah Benton in 1814. He then studied for the Episcopal ministry and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1817. He and Sarah had ten children; the two oldest being Sarah and Caleb. Caleb Alexander Bruce followed in the footsteps of his father and became an Episcopal Clergyman. He married Mary Sortore in 1838. They had three children among which were Sarah Elizabeth Bruce and Mary Amabel Bruce. These two women married brothers. Sarah married Edward Julian Carvill and Mary, Herman Carvill in 1883. The latter couple, Herman and Mary, had six daughters and one son, Herman Charles Carvill. It was these six sisters and their descendents who were the focus of the first family reunion in the 1970’s.  They married men with the surnames of Fitzhugh, Douglas, Howell, Trice, Wilson, and Cherry.

            By the time I came on the scene, all six sisters were deceased and the reunions were being carried forward by their children and grandchildren. “Bo” Carvill who organized many of the gatherings including the one in 1993 was the son of Herman Charles Carvill, the brother of the six sisters.

            The connection between the Tudor family and this Arkansas branch of the Bruce family took place when Mary Dalrymple Bruce, sister of Nathaniel French Bruce, married William Watson Tudor on September 1, 1824 in Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. William Watson Tudor was my great-great-grandfather. William represented the sixth generation of Tudors in America, the first being Owen Tudor who came to the colonies in c.1636. I am the 10^th generation., my children and grandchildren the 11^th and 12^th.

            I was not the first member of my family to spend time in Hot Springs. After I had been there for a day or so, I called my father and asked him what he knew about the very large and old hospital which sits up on a bluff across from the hotel and above the bath houses. He knew it very well. It had been called the Army-Navy Hospital in the 1940’s and my father had even spent some time working there during his time at Camp Robinson in Little Rock, thirty miles away.. That interested me. I decided to walk up there and see if I could take a look around. I discovered from a sign near the front door that the hospital was now owned by the State of Arkansas and was being used as a drug rehabilitation center. I walked in and went up to the front desk and made my request. I told them that my father had been a army doctor who had worked there briefly in the early years of WWII and that I would like to see the hospital. The young woman looked at me as if she had never heard of WWII and said that there was no one there to give me a tour. So much for that idea!

            The 1993 reunion concluded with a banquet which began with bagpipe music. Remember that these are people who are deeply conscious of their Scottish heritage. At one point in the evening the boys and I were introduced by Bo Carvill and he gave an explanation of our relationship to their side of the family. On Sunday morning, The Rev. William Fitzhugh celebrated the Eucharist in the Apollo Room. This was also part of the tradition.

            Since 1993, we have attended several of these family gatherings. Sadly but understandably, the numbers of attendees have been dwindling. Edward and William Fitzhugh are both deceased as is “Bo” Carvill who died in 2008. The last official reunion was held in Little Rock because “Bo” wouldn’t travel anymore but unfortunately, he had died earlier in the year. We met at the home of Eldridge and Sarra Douglas. We listened to a very informative presentation by Charles Witsell, an architect in Little Rock, who is a descendent of Alexandria Carvill Wilson. The 2008 gathering was put together by Francis Bruce Carvill Cox who lives in Texas.

One can quickly see the many difficulties involved in continuing the wonderful and meaningful practice of family reunions. People get older and they are no longer able to travel. People die. Families become spread out all over the country. The younger members of the family lose touch with the family history and no longer have an interest in perpetuating family tradition. People are busy! It goes on and on! In an effort to preserve some semblance of the tradition, on June 21-23, three couples met at the Arlington in Little Rock to remember the past and celebrate it. There were still plenty of family ghosts (“Bo”, Edward, William) in the Apollo Room along with the faint echo of bagpipes. And I could still glance at the old hospital up on the hill and see, in my mind’s eye, a young Army doctor named Robert Bruce Tudor confidently walking in the door in 1942. It’s all part of digging in the past.

           

Epilogue: Childhood Memories



 

Remember Who You Are

 

During the past few months, I have been involved in a project which is one that everyone should undertake.  It is the process of writing about one’s life and reflecting on it. The three essays which I have put together on this subject focus on a decade of my childhood. The general title is: “Growing up in Bismarck, North Dakota in the 1950’s.” What has emerged is understandably not an impersonal history.

During the writing process, I happened to read a quote by a French filmmaker named Jean Renoir: “The only things important in life are the things you remember.” When I read that statement, my first impulse was to agree with it. It seemed obvious and logical! Our memories selectively choose the events in our lives that are important and stand out. It discards those that are mundane, i.e. ordinary and meaningless. However, looking back at my impressions of life in the 1950’s and considering feedback received from others; I have had to reconsider the ability of memory to retain a clear image of many things that are important. I have instead been led to the conclusion that we – both individually and collectively – over the years,  as we have been swept along by the relentless development of popular culture, for some reason have forgotten and discarded much that is important. I would describe this as a cultural amnesia.

            A great deal of comment about my reflections has come from contemporaries who are apparently as nostalgic as I am about the foundational values of life in the 1950’s as compared with the superficial quality of life today.  Many of them frequent a Facebook page aptly titled: “I grew up in Bismarck.” They  wistfully talk as if they have lost something that was extremely valuable. At least when they look back on those years, they feel that way. A friend of mine, after he had read my first reflection on the early years (1949-1953), said to me, “I didn’t want it to end.” The real question that has emerged for me from my writing project is this: why have we forgotten so much that apparently was so important and why have we accepted so little in exchange? That’s a good question and one that is not so easily answered.
 

            The title of this epilogue is “Remember Who You Are.” Years ago I heard a sermon with the same title. Bishop Richard Grein who preached it began his remarks by telling a story from his childhood. He and a few of his friends including one named Bill used to go out on Friday and Saturday nights and drive around and do whatever happened to present itself. We all remember those kinds of nights. They would go over to Bill’s house to pick him up, stop in front, and honk the horn. Bill would come running out followed by his mother and, as he was climbing into the car, she would call out to him, “Now Bill, remember who you are.” What did she mean by that? She certainly wasn’t afraid that Bill would forget his name and where he lived. She was talking about his sense of self, the place where his integrity resided. She knew – as most mothers in the 1950’s also knew – that if he would remember who he was, the beliefs and values and manners that he had been taught, appropriate behavior would follow. He would not do something that would shame his family. Bishop Grein in his sermon went on to point out that, “the way we address the world in terms of values, relationships, and ethical behavior is in great measure a product of this awareness of self which we call identity.”

            I believe that all of us who grew up in Bismarck in the 1950’s share a certain identity given by that experience. We came to expect a non-violent community that didn’t have armed guards in schools and grocery stories. We couldn’t imagine such a world.  We expected a civil society where one rarely heard any profanity in public. It was also a society where we learned values and ethics in school and in church and in families. We didn’t look to television or movies or music videos to form our character and beliefs. It was a society in which most people only bought things they could afford because they were suspicious and even fearful of debt. Like It, Charge It! (JCPenney) It was not a particularly materialistic world. In stark contrast to today’s situation, the public schools we attended were places of discipline. That was the world in which we lived, a world created, formed, and maintained by our parents who seemed to clearly understand what it meant to be adults. That "understanding" has become blurred today. Importantly, it was a world in which people were taught that they were responsible for their actions, a responsibility that led to accountability. It was a world of security, certainty, and community.
 

            Today we find ourselves living in a much different world. Why did we and so many other people allow that other world to fade away? Of course, it is people through the choices they make which creates the world (culture) in which we live. The world of the 1950’s with its fixed ideas about morality met its demise in the mid-1960’s when new ideas about the relativity of personal choice began to gain popularity. The triumph of this viewpoint is called post-modernism. It means no absolutes. In the church, as this viewpoint gained a foothold, it was quickly discovered that the most difficult thing to do was to get people to accept any authority other than their own needs and wants. Simply stated, in the fifties there were accepted, and respected centers of authority (education, religion, government); in the sixties, the center of authority shifted to the individual. Personal autonomy became the focus. Have it your way! (Burger King) The message was that nobody should be able to tell anyone else how to behave. The writer Thomas Wolfe famously has characterized the people who came of age in the 1970’s as “The Me Generation.” He hit the nail right on the head.   

            The question then again needs to be asked. Why did so many people just stand around passively and allow so much that was decent and important in American society to fade away? That is difficult to answer! Human nature has much to do with it. People go along to get along. They choose the path of least resistance. They don’t want to make any waves. We have all heard the clichés.

 

It’s to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved!

 

               Mr. Fezziwig 

                                             1951 Screenplay of a "Christmas Carol” by

   Charles Dickens

 

            Perhaps the best way to illustrate what I am talking about would be to look at an example from 19^th century English literature. Most people are familiar with the short novel “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. In this wonderful story, Dickens is actually speaking out against recent changes in English society. The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, driving these changes. Business is flourishing, but the labor of people is being replaced by machines. Mr. Fezziwig is a businessman of the old school. He is content with things the way they are. He has a fatherly concern for his employees. He is old fashioned. The new “vested interests” want to buy him out and they make him a handsome offer. He turns them down by saying that money isn’t everything.. Their representative Mr. Jorkins is exasperated and presses him by saying, “Well, if it isn’t for money that one spends one’s life building up a business, then what is it for?” Mr. Fezziwig responds with the above mentioned quote. “It’s to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved.”  We need more people with the sensibilities of Mr. Fezziwig in society and fewer like Mr. Jorkins, although I know that the reverse is the reality.

The Loss of Innocence

            As I have reflected on the differences between the American society of the 1950’s and the “post modern” society of today, one of my favorite vantage points for doing that is through the topic of the loss of innocence in American society. By the phrase “the loss of innocence,” I mean the modern tendency to push young children into adult roles and situations which they have neither the experience or the emotional maturity to handle. Sexuality is the obvious one. Here are a couple of stories which illustrate my point.

        In the year 2000, at a local suburban high school, a girl went into labor in the parking lot. When the word got around the school, seven boys came into the office to inquire if it was their girl friend. A mother who happened to be in the office on some errand, overhearing what was going on, piped up and inquired if it was her daughter, who was apparently attending high school pregnant. My reaction to reading this was to think - what is going on here? Also in the year 2000, Time magazine sent a team of reporters to the St. Louis area to write a story which was going to focus on the subject: “A Week in the Life of a High School.” The school they chose to profile was Webster Groves High School. This article has to be read to be believed! Some of the students have their own apartments because their divorced parents are too busy playing boy friend/girl friend.  An incident is reported in the article in which a young female student goes home and tells her mother that she has had her first sexual experience. The mother’s reaction was “to be excited for her.” Here is the loss of innocence enthusiastically assented to by a person who should have known better. I can guarantee that that certainly would not have been my mother’s reaction if my sister had come home in the early 1960’s with that announcement.

            I don’t know how many girls became pregnant during the class of 1960’s four years at BHS. I can only remember hearing about one. The subject wasn’t talked about much. Our four years in high school were many things, but “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” they were not.
 

Conclusion

 

“Those who cannot remember the past

                              are condemned to repeat it.                                           

                     George Santayana

            1863 - 1952

 

            Both the world and American society have undergone enormous changes since the class of 1960 walked out of Bismarck High School for the last time fifty plus years ago. In many cases, the change has been so dramatic that it is difficult to clearly remember what it was like to live day to day in the 1950’s. Was it really possible to function without cel phones and e-mail and Ipads and Ipods? How did we ever do it?
 

            I suspect that there will be many people who will read my reflections about growing up in Bismarck in the 1950’s who will object to my negative characterization of post-modern society in contrast to the society of the 50’s. So be it! I still laugh when people talk about all the progress that has been made. Technologically, Yes! Socially, in many areas, a loud, emphatic No! In my mind much that has happened has been a movement from system and order to chaos.

If people are really interested in a deeper discussion of these issues, they should find and read a book by Allen Ehrenhalt with the title, The Lost City: Discovering the Forgotten Virtues of Community in the Chicago of the 1950’s. One can also read an article titled “Learning From The Fifties” by Mr. Ehrenhalt which appeared in the 1995 Summer edition of The Wilson Quarterly. For a good comprehensive study of the decade of the 1950’s, read David Halberstam’s The Fifties. From my experience and reading, I have concluded that the pivotal year in the dramatic change of America was 1968. For a discussion of that thesis, read The Year The Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 In America by Jules Witcover. Interestingly, 1968 is the year that statistics about church attendance began a steady downward spiral, a trend which continues to this day.

A Reflection: The History of Thought

          In a book entitled THE SHAPING OF MODERN THOUGHT, the author Crane Brinton introduces his work with the following statement:

“This is a book about the world-views of men in our Western  
  tradition, the ideas they have held and still hold on the Big Questions
 - cosmological questions, which ask whether the universe makes
sense in terms of human  capacity to comprehend and, if so, what kind
 of sense; theological and metaphysical questions, which ask further
questions about purpose and design of the universe, and about man’s
place in it; and ethical and aesthetic questions, which ask whether
what we do and what we want to do make sense, ask what we really
mean by good and bad, by beautiful and ugly. The recorded answers
to these and similar questions - that is, most of our Western
philosophy, art, literature, theology [my addition], and in some senses,
 natural  sciences - fill millions of volumes.”

 

My point in this paper is that there is an important history of thought (ideas) which has shaped the culture in which we live, and that it has also been the medium in which Western Christianity has grown and flourished.  It is my thesis that it is critically important for the student of systematic theology to have at least a basic grasp of the history of thought. Let me put it this way: it seems to me to be important for people to have in their minds an elementary cartography (map) of Western intellectual history.

Why is this important?  Look at the times in which we are living!  In my own lifetime, I have observed an enormous shift from a strong sense of community in the 50’s to the highly individualistic and materialistic society of the 80’s and 90’s, a trend of increasing self-absorption which has continued into the 21^st century.  This shift has dramatically affected society in general and the church in particular.  American society has moved from a strong sense of the sacred to being highly secular.  A noted contemporary theologian named Douglas John Hall states flatly that, in North America, we are witnessing, what he calls: “the end of Christendom.”  It would be difficult to argue with his observation because the evidence is everywhere.  As a simple, obvious example, consider what has happened to the Christian Sabbath.  In fifty years I have seen Sunday evolve from a day of almost complete business inactivity (a day of rest) to just another day of business as usual (Sunday morning soccer leagues).  Church attendance patterns today are appalling! How do we account for these changes?  Could we find reasons for these dramatic changes in the history of thought?  I think so!  If we are to understand why we are where we are today, it is critical that we understand the history of thought which has led up to this moment. 

Since I have introduced the subject of shifts in thought, let me say at this point that it will be my contention in this brief reflective paper that enormous developments in Western culture have been preceded by dramatic shifts in the history of thought. In other words, there is a causal relationship between lived history and the history of thought!  In this paper I will mention two such moments.  My concluding emphasis will be on the Enlightenment which stirred to life c.1500 C.E and reached its height in the 18^th century. To trace these fluctuations, we need to begin at the beginning of Western Culture? 

 It is generally agreed that Greek thought is the foundation of European culture and society.  When we say “Greek thought” we are talking roughly about the fifth century B.C. (The age of Pericles (495-429 BC), the golden age of classical Greece.  The observation has been made that we had in Athens from c 480 to 380 B.C.E., “the most civilized society that has ever existed.” (The Greeks, H.D.F. Kitto, p. 96)  Both Plato and Aristotle lived within that time frame. The Greek mind in general was characterized by a sense of the wholeness of things and a firm belief in reason.  The Greeks looked through the external aspects of nature (the world of the senses) to an assumed reality and unity underneath.  They held the conviction that the universe is a logical whole.  For them, the universe was ruled by law and therefore based on reason. It was rational, simple, and knowable.  This is one reason why Greek thought is foundational to Western culture. The thought of Plato dominated Western thinking from Augustine to c.1000 AD. Then, gradually, the metaphysics of Aristotle - woven in the 13^th century by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologia into the masterful scholastic synthesis of faith and reason - were dominant until the Enlightenment. The Greek emphasis on reason and order would powerfully re-emerge in the Enlightenment and shape the modern society we know today.

            The history of thought is an enormous subject.  What I am attempting to encourage is for students of theology to gain a basic grasp of the major influences.  One often encounters statements in theology books about subjects like the Neo-platonic influence evident in Augustine’s Confessions.  If a student is not familiar with the fact that, fundamental to Platonism & the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, is the idea of the distinction between the changing, imperfect, and ultimately unknowable world of the senses, and the unchanging, perfect, and knowable higher spiritual world of reality (Forms or Ideas), one finds oneself at a distinct disadvantage.

The major characteristic of the classical mind was secularism.  The issue for the Greeks was the achievement of well being in the world. What must I do to be happy? They believed that human beings had the intellectual and moral capabilities to solve this problem by their own efforts. Most of us are aware that the Romans controlled the civilized West from c 100 B.C. to 450 A.D.  However, Greek philosophy was still dominant because the Romans were soldiers, administrators, and engineers, not philosophers. In the late classical period (c 4^th century A.D.., one of these major shifts in thought, mentioned earlier, was beginning to take seed.

  In the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries, obvious signs of the decay of the Roman Empire had appeared.  A sense of helplessness and world-weariness had infected society.  People’s interests turned to religion and otherworldliness.  This could be seen in Stoicism, a philosophy which emerged in the Roman Empire c. 300 A.D. This “otherworldly” trend had a strong representative in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.)  The seeds for the medieval period had been sown.  A movement from secular to sacred concerns had begun. In a vast empire that was going to pieces, it was natural for people to turn to belief in a personal Deity strong and benevolent enough to guide their affairs.  Christianity was made for success in such a world. The medieval world - a period of about 1000 years following the collapse of the Roman Empire - was the time of the hegemony (dominance) of the Christian Church. Christianity had the transcendent message the ancient world was hungry to hear! 

The second important issue which I would put before you is a brief discussion of the importance of the Enlightenment, mentioned earlier in my discussion of some aspects of Greek thought.  The Enlightenment is the name given to the development in Western thought which created what we know as the modern world.  I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of an understanding of Enlightenment thought.  It created the world in which we live and its influence on Christianity has been profound.

As good a date as any to pinpoint the movement from the forms of the ancient, medieval world to the modern world would be 1500 C.E. The change in world history after this date is without precedent.  It marks the beginning of the explosion of European culture. 

 

At the end of the fifteenth century, the great Age of Exploration began

for Western man.  Between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries,
 explorersadventurers, administrators, soldiers, and emigrants moved
out physicallyacross the seas to the Americas, to Australia, into
Africa.  Meanwhile scientists, inventors, and engineers set out on a
 intellectual  form of exploration, and investigated the heavens, the
motions of the planets, the measurement of time, the laws governing
repetitive events.  The geographical New World as well as the
mechanical New World of mathematics, astronomy, physics, and
technology became accessible to exploration.  In a sense, not

only the Americas but the whole planet became a New World. 

                                                   Lewis Mumford, The Megamachine

 

Columbus sails west in 1492, which is more or less the official date for the opening of the New World.  Magellan sails around the world in 1522.  As Mumford indicates, Europeans were hungry for new ideas and new worlds to explore.  By the end of the 18^th century, they had laid claim to half the world’s land surface. There was an explosion in other areas also.  Humanism was emerging!  Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) were both living and painting in the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries.  There was a rediscovery of classical Greek idealism and Michelangelo’s David still stands in Florence as a visible symbol of the greatness of that rebirth.  Change was everywhere.  The Renaissance and the Reformation were two major indicators of the cataclysm which would shake the “old world” and transform it to what we now call modernity. 

The intellectual revolution which began in roughly 1500 was really quite remarkable. There was no denying the sheer power of the changes which were emerging.  They were so powerful that people were discarding ideas which had dominated society and human thought for1000 years. Humanity was shaking off the inertia of the Middle Ages and nowhere was this more evident than in the life of the mind and the authority to which it paid allegiance. The modern period of Western culture differs from the medieval in countless ways, but the two most important are the diminishing authority of the Church and the increasing authority of science (scientific method).  This shift in authority is the key concept when we talk about the difference between the old and new worlds (old and new thought).  In the medieval world, the Church had hegemony.  In the modern world, the locus of authority moved to the reasoned perceptions of individuals.  I would emphasize at this moment in the story that, while the Renaissance and the Reformation were in many respects attempts to recapture the purity of the past - the Golden age of Classical Greece and the simpler period of the early Church - the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on the ability of reason to master all knowledge, was deeply committed to a philosophy of progress and to the future. 

The first serious eruption of science was the theory advanced by Copernicus in 1543 that the earth revolved around the sun, not the opposite as was being espoused by the Church (Ptolemy & Aristotle).  Thus began the long battle between science and dogma. The opening philosophical salvo in the battle could be said to have come out of the mouth of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) who, in his search for certainly began with his famous dictum: “I think therefore I am.”   Notice the shift of the locus of knowledge; the reasoned perceptions of the individual thinker.  The two greatest figures of the Enlightenment were Englishmen: Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and John Locke (1632-1704).   Newton perfected calculus and accomplished a mathematical formulation of the relations of the planets and the law of gravity.  His work enabled people to see the physical world as a unified mechanical system which human beings could not only understand but could manipulate to their benefit (Remember the Greeks).  Newton was the father of modern physics.  In his mind, modern science was born.   

                        Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night:

                        God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.

                                                                                                Alexander Pope

Incidentally, if one would like to see a local monument to the triumph of the Enlightenment, make a visit to Shaw’s Garden (The Missouri Botanical Gardens).  Henry Shaw was born in 1800 right at the peak of confidence about Enlightenment discoveries and abilities.  These gardens are symbolic of Shaw’s confidence in the ability of human beings to understand, manage, and enjoy nature.  There is a bust of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) there, the individual who developed the system for the classification of plants.  There is a small obelisk near there and inscribed on the base is the following: “IN HONOR OF AMERICAN SCIENCE.” In a small building in the gardens there is a classical statue titled The Victory of Science.  Inscribed on the base of the statue are these lines:  “Ignorance is the curse of God” and “Knowledge is the wings wherewith we fly to heaven.”  That in my mind says it all.  What a wonderful Neo-Platonic, enlightenment statement!

Locke took the same critical method which Newton had used and applied it to the study of human nature and the mind.  Newton had observed that there were laws which governed nature; Locke believed that the same principles could be applied to understand human nature. In other words, nature was reasonable and thereby revealed its unity.  Once reason became dominant in human nature (released from the tyranny of the church and superstition), then true happiness could become a reality in the nature of human beings. 

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) made a reasoned enlightenment statement when he wrote The Declaration of Independence (from old world authorities: Monarchs, the Church):  “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights by their Creator, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  The American Revolution is a perfect example of the triumph of Enlightenment thought because it involved the overthrow of old, established authority and upheld ideas promoting the rights of individuals.

The dictum of the Enlightenment was that the individual should be critical of all authority until that authority has been tested by reasoned experience (scientific method). Emancipation from the authority of the Church led to the growth of individualism.  Modern philosophy is both individualistic and subjective.  I would observe that the modern problem today with which the Church is faced is getting people to accept any authority for their lives other than their own needs and wants.

The ultimatum to subject every authority to the lens of “critical reason” continues today.  This is what is called “The Enlightenment Project.”   The historical-critical study of the Bible begun in the 19^th century by German scholars and which continues today is a manifestation of Enlightenment thought. The major shift which began in the 16^th century moving society from sacred to secular concerns continues. We see this in church attendance and membership figures.  What began in c.1500 was the destruction of Christendom.  Today that process is almost complete.

Before concluding, I should point out that Enlightenment confidence about progress and human ability to manage the future was dealt a serious blow in 1914 with the beginning of WWI.  The 19^th century was relatively free of war (in Europe) and it was also a time which saw the rise of a large, prosperous middle class in both Europe and the United States.   There was so much confidence in Europe about the accomplishments of human beings that many believed and preached that the Kingdom of God had become a reality on earth.  The guns of August in 1914 shattered that illusion.  WWI merely set the stage for WWII.  Out of the horrors of the first half of the 20^th century grew the existential philosophies of despair seen particularly in the literary work of the French philosophers, Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre.  Now in the 21^st century, we hear considerable discussion about Post-modernism, the phrase used by many to describe the current age.  There is a great deal which could be said about this development, but a simple definition would be that Post-modernism means a rejection of objective truth, no absolutes. All linkages have been dissolved.  No culture is dominant.  No immaculate perceptions! Subjective perceptions are everything.  Do we wonder why people today are so self-centered? Consider what all this means for the Church!

Hopefully, this brief reflection has convinced you wherever your interests might lie of the necessity of acquiring a basic understanding of the history of thought in Western culture.  From the Classical Greece of 2500 years ago to the present time, human beings have struggled to find basic principles to help them to understand the universe and their place in it.  They have struggled with cosmology: the form, harmony, and order of things.  (Cosmos is the opposite of chaos.)  In theology, we attempt to do the same thing.  We struggle with cosmology by crafting statements about what we believe the true reality of the universe to be - God centered! - in order to bring clarity, consistency, and system to our beliefs.

I will leave you with these observations: the ancient world found an end to anarchy (chaos) in the Roman Empire; the medieval world found an end to societal anarchy in the Church; the modern world has looked to reason and the autonomy of the individual (the Enlightenment) to lead it to the end of the intellectual darkness of the medieval period.  How successful has the Enlightenment project been? 

 

            At the beginning of the modern period the Thomistic synthesis was

            challenged by the new scientific methodology, along with a number

            of other developments which together comprise what we call the

            Renaissance and Reformation – just as, much earlier, the Greek 
            view succumbed under the impact of Christianity.  While few people

            today would be wholly satisfied with a simple return to either
            Thomas or to the Greeks, it would be absurd to ignore them. The  
            great modern problem, is how to do for modern man what Thomas
            did for medieval man; but to do this requires a study of history; and
            once again we have  evidence of the contemporary utility of
            historical study.

                                                            W. T. Jones

                                                            A History of Western Philosophy