Ronald Reagan vs College Students, 1967

Randall Stephens

"NEW HAVEN, Dec. 4 [1967]--Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who said he had never taught anything before except swimming and Sunday school, sat on a desk at Yale University today and conducted a class in American history." So reported the New York Times on the Gipper's visit to the ivy, where he was met with student protests and plenty of probing questions (December 6, 1967).

"Should homosexuals be barred from holding public office?" a senior from LA asked. The governor was surprised by the question. Rumors had been swirling that his administration had fired two staff members after their sexual preferences came to light. "It's a tragic

illness," said Reagan, after a pause. And, yes, he did think that homosexuality should remain illegal. Some students earlier had demanded that the school rescind its invitation to Reagan. The governor, who visited Yale as a Chubb fellow, gave his $500 honorarium to charity.

The confrontation between the 56-year-old governor and Yale students in 1967 speaks to the culture wars that roiled the decade and continue to reverberate to this day. In the video embedded here the students, with haircuts that make them look like clones of Rob from My Three Sons, square off with Reagan on poverty, race, and Vietnam.

The commemoration of the one-hundredth birthday of the 40th president brought with it the usual fanfare of radio specials, documentaries, guest editorials, and the like. The new HBO doc
Reagan, like PBS's American experience bio, spans the actor-turned-politician's career. (Watch the latter in full here.)

Lost in the telling, sometimes, is the scrappy, intensely ideological cold and cultural warrior from the 1960s and early 1970s. To correct that a bit, see the governor go at it with the somewhat nervous Yalies. Or, observe him lashing out against that "mess in Berkeley." (A clip from the HBO doc showing the governor dress down Berkeley administrators shows that pretty well.) The public memory version--rosy-cheeked, avuncular, sunny--overshadows that more fiery aspect of his personality and politics.

Americans remember their leaders as they choose. (The myths and legends are as stubborn as a Missouri mule.) But it is good to remind ourselves that the politicians and public figures we revere and/or study are rarely as one-dimensional as we'd sometimes think they are.

Turn out the lights . . . And Tomorrow starts: Happy New Year

In honor of the year just past, I'll quote Dandy Don Meredith (who died this past year).  Back when I was growing up and then going to college, Dandy Don would close every Monday Night Football telecast, which we would watch religiously to catch Howard and Don do their thing, with a verse from a Willie Nelson song:

Turn out the lights

The party's over

They say that

All good things must end

Call it tonight

The party's over

And tomorrow starts

The same old thing again

We have turned out the lights on 2010, for good or for ill, what was is over and done with, and now tomorrow starts.  Hopefully, though, we'll not do the same old thing again!  But in the spirit of Dandy Don, who always knew that next week, another game would be played, we look forward to a new year, hopeful for what it will bring, knowing that for good things to happen we'll have to commit ourselves to that end. 

As we we look forward to 2011, it might be worth pausing to consider some of the important historical moments that we will mark.

• The 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorized Version of the Bible, better known to most people as the King James Version.  It should be honored, not because it is the best or most reliable translation, which it isn't, but for the impact it has made on the English language.  (1611)
• Then there is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the nearly five year ordeal called the Civil War, a war that was sparked by the recognition that a nation could not remain united half free, half slave.  The beginning of the process started January 9th, when five states seceded, and shots were fired on a US Naval vessel supplying Fort Sumter. (1961)
• The 70th Anniversary of Pear Harbor, the attack on the Naval Base in Hawaii that finally drew the United States into World War II.  This number reminds us that the so-called Greatest Generation that made such a mark on American life is quickly fading into history.  The youngest sailors at Pearl would now be in their late 80s. (1941)
• We will observe the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps by John F. Kennedy (1961)
• The 25th Anniversary of the first public IPO of Microsoft, an event that marks the true beginning of the computer age as we know it as the general public (1986).
• This fall we will mark the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist event we know as 9-11.  I remember at the time making the statement that the world as we know it no longer exists.  I wonder if I was correct?  What difference has this event made on our lives?  Are things better or worse?  This will be an important conversation to undertake this coming year, especially as we move toward the creation of special observances of that day.  (2001) 

It is a New Year.  It offers opportunities to do new things.  What will we make of the year ahead?

Celebrating 400 Years of the King James Bible -- Sightings

In 1611 a new English translation of the Bible appeared.  It carried the authorization of the British monarch, King James 1.  James I was the son of the infamous Mary, Queen of Scots, the rival of Queen Elizabeth, and who had been raised Presbyterian.  When he became king of both Scotland and England at the death of Elizabeth there was great hope that he would side with those in the English church that wanted to abolish episcopacy, a party that came to be known as Puritans.  He was unsympathetic to the anti-episcopacy crowd, but he was willing to support the translation of a new bible, and so four hundred years ago one of the most influential books in the English language was published.  Over the next year we will likely have conversations about this version of the Bible and its influence.  I'm not of the view that we should use it as a primary translation (the English is majestic, but not current), nor follow the textual tradition (as does the New King James Version) as it is a deficient tradition.  That said, we should affirm its importance on a literary and even spiritual level.  More will be forthcoming as time goes by, but here I'd like to let Martin Marty have his say.

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Sightings 11/29/2010

Celebrating 400 Years of the King James Bible

- Martin E. Marty

Thanksgiving weekend gave those who live off or for the media an excuse to slow down, turn off some signals, and settle back to football, turkey, and family—or to shop. For those who keep the Christian calendar, yesterday was also a significant change-of-pace day, since it was the beginning of a new church year. Readers of Sightings who are distant from Christian observances cannot have escaped the carols and wreaths which resound and decorate public spaces. Looking for ways to celebrate the season and anticipate 2011, we were aided by an editorial from the Observer in the UK.

Here’s the deal: 2011 is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, an event that merits observance far beyond the circles of librarians, antiquarians, and classicists. Anyone who keeps files on the fate of the KJV in the twentieth century and ever since will find many controversies to pass on the way to the book and its cultural import. Thus I have files, books, and personal recall of the way defenders of the King James edition fought off new translations. The Revised Standard Version, backed by the National Council of Churches, was scorned as “Stalin’s Bible” because it seemed to some to slight the virgin birth of Jesus. Burnings of the Bible at mid-century, when the Revised Standard Version appeared, drew attention just as the planned burning of the Qur’an recently did.

Expect debates all anniversary year over whether the authorizer of the KJV, King James I, was homosexual, bisexual, or falsely pointed to as “different” in his time as in ours. When fundamentalists have a slip of tongue or memory and speak of him as the “Saint James Bible,” selective readers of the evidence will pounce and proclaim him as a homosexual saint. This is a second distraction on the way to the celebration.

And there is much to celebrate, as the Observer editorial makes clear. More than any other writing, including the plays of Shakespeare, KJV did so much to formalize written English and do so with majesty. The Observer: “as well as selling an estimated 1bn copies since 1611,” it went into our literary bloodstream. Shakespeare needed 31,000 words to bless that bloodstream, while the KJV needed only 12,000.

Among the 12,000 words that the translating committee of King James adopted from the Hebrew and Greek were “long-suffering,” “scapegoat” and “peacemaker.” We might need all three as the antagonists line up on both sides of “Stalin’s Bible” and the sexually-complex battles mentioned above. Those who mourn the loss of the Version’s hegemony will side with Raymond Chandler, who said that the Bible was “a lesson in how not to write for the movies.” It was a lesson in how to write for elites and masses alike.

Although “secular, multicultural Britain” will celebrate the quartercentenary, Robert McCrum sounds rueful: “Some 450,000 people each month do google searches for King + James+ Bible, of which fewer than 10% originated in the UK.” The Observer editorialist looked west across the Atlantic and observed how the KJV was used by Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama. Theodore Roosevelt declared that “the King James Bible is a Magna Carta for the poor and oppressed: the most democratic book in the world.” One hopes that controversies of the sort I mentioned here will bring this Bible to front pages and prime time.

References

Robert McCrum, “How the King James Bible Shaped the English Language,” The Observer, November 21, 2010.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at http://www.illuminos.com./

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Editor’s Note: Last week’s column referred to Dale S. Wright’s book as The Six Imperfections. The title of the book is The Six Perfections.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Lincoln and November 19, 1863… 1864… and 1865

Heather Cox Richardson

Seven score and seven years ago Abraham Lincoln brought forth on this continent a new sentiment, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Civil War historians know the Gettysburg Address so well that writing about it seems almost trite. We lecture about it; we teach it in discussion groups; we know it by heart.

It is hardly innovative to note that this famous speech marked a turning point in the meaning of the Civil War. With his masterful invocation of the Declaration of Independence, President Lincoln redefined the conflict. No longer would it be a fight solely to prevent the dismembering of the Union; from 1863 forward, it would be a struggle to guarantee that everyone born in America would have equal access to education, economic opportunity, and the law.
Lincoln’s declaration was truly a rededication of America. This, as much as anything, earned Lincoln a dominant place in the American pantheon. His words spoke directly to the true meaning of modern America.

But this belief in equality in America has never gone uncontested. It seems that Lincoln could have been speaking to the present when he warned at Gettysburg that the living must defend the legacy of the dead: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

A year to the day after delivering the Gettysburg Address, on November 19, 1864, President Lincoln offered another epigram about America.

Among the blizzard of correspondence that crossed his desk that day was a brief note the President jotted to General William S. Rosecrans. In it, Lincoln stayed the execution of Confederate Major Enoch O. Wolf, convicted of murdering Major James Wilson and six members of the cavalry of the 3rd Missouri State Militia.

The President freely admitted he did not know anything of the circumstances of the case, and that the decision about Wolf’s future was in Rosecrans’s hands. He had suspended the sentence because he wanted to make sure Rosecrans understood that the general’s own inclinations were unimportant, and that he must do only what was best for the nation. “I wish you to do nothing merely for revenge,” Lincoln wrote, “but that what you may do, shall be solely done with reference to the security of the future.”

After 1863, Lincoln turned his masterful political skills solely toward securing equality for all Americans. As he counseled Rosecrans to do, he lost himself in his vision for the nation. Lincoln took hit after political hit, deflected opponents’ wrath with wry stories, and tried to find middle ground with his enemies. As he indicated to Rosecrans, he had only one goal: to make the American dream accessible to all Americans.

In the end, Lincoln was unable to blunt the hatred of the men who saw his defense of equality as an assault on civilization. By November 19, 1865, the President was dead. But he left behind him a new vision of America, and a charge to those born after the night that he, too, died for it: “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

King George II & III, Colonial News, and a Royal Autopsy

Randall Stephens

On October 25, 1760 George III became King of Great Britain. News traveled slow, of course, and New Englanders didn't know about George II's (b. 1683) death or their new monarch for weeks.

Just how slow did people and information cross the Atlantic? In 1750 the school master and organist Gottlieb Mittelberger made the voyage from England to Philadelphia. He later wrote: "When the ships have for the last time weighed their anchors near the city of Kaupp [Cowes] in Old England, the real misery begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless they have good wind, must often sail 8, 9, 10 to 12 weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But even with the best wind the voyage lasts 7 weeks."* Sailing technology had greatly improved in the 18th century. Still, slow transatlantic journeys and poor roads hindered the speed of information for decades. (See the map showing travel times circa. 1800.)

So, finally, in late December Bostonians read of the King's demise in the Boston Post: "Saturday arrived here Capt Partridge in about 6 weeks from London by whom we have the melancholly News of the Death of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent Monarch, GEORGE the Second, King of Great Britain . . . Defender of the Faith . . . . GEORGE the Third was proclaimed KING. . ." ("Partridge; Weeks; London; News; Death; Monarch; George," Boston Post-Boy, December 29, 1760, 2.)

The British American loyalty to King and Country sometimes gets lost in our popular view of colonials as patriots in the making. But as Brendan McConville writes in his The King's Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776, "British North Americans championed their British king with emotional intensity in print, during public political rites, and in private conversation" (9).

Yet, before Americans pulled out the bunting and uncorked bottles to celebrate their new King, they had a bit of morbid curiosity to satisfy. How did George II die?

Fortunately, newspaper editors, keen to print what the people wanted, had the scoop on the Royal Autopsy. The Boston Post relayed the news from London: "In obedience to the order transmitted to us by the Right Hon. Vice-Chamberlain, We the under-signed have this day opened and examined the body of his Majesty . . ." They found "all parts contained in a natural and healthy state, except only the surface of each kidney there were some hydrides, or watery bladders, which however, we determined could not have been at this time of any material consequence." The regal heart, though, did not look so well. Among other abnormalities, they observed "a rupture in the right venticle." ("London, November 4," Boston Post-Boy, December 29, 1760, 2.) (For what passed as medicine in that day, see the amusing film The Madness of King George. The physicians in the movie are a hoot!)

Certainly, the 18th century is culturally distant from us today. This past is definitely a foreign country. Today, we travel at breakneck speeds and communicate across space and time with ease. Still, reading newspaper accounts like the above, makes the celebrity mongering of today and news as infotainment seem not entirely new.

An Anniversary Not To Be Celebrated?

On October 7th, just a few days back, the United States marked the ninth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan.  Just weeks after the attacks of 9-11, the US began dropping bombs in Afghanistan, and in a wink, the US and its allies, which included the Northern Alliance, had driven Al Qaeda and the Taliban out of power.  The invasion was launched as retaliation for the earlier attacks, and with the assumption that it was needed to remove the strategic foundation for Al Qaeda.  But, while the Taliban was driven from power, the country was never secured, and before long we were involved in another war in Iraq.  The latter is winding down, but the war in Afghanistan continues unabated.

Now, at the time I didn't think that this invasion was warranted, but I understood the rationale.  The invasion of Iraq made no sense, but now nine years later, where are we?  What have we accomplished?  The years of focus on Iraq has meant that the Afghanistan war is nowhere close to a conclusion.  Besides history demonstrates that no invading force has held it for long -- not Alexander, not the British, and surely not the Soviets.  What makes us think things would be different this time? 

But, ultimately my point isn't to debate the reasons for the invasion or even the current battle plans.  It is simply to remember that it has been nine years.  Back then I was pastor of the church in Santa Barbara.  I'm in my second pastorate since then.  My son, who was in elementary school then is now in college.  So, maybe the question is -- what is it we're up to?

And as I ask the question I'm reminded of the tenor of the conversation in today's bible lecture by Ron Allen -- we talked about the new age breaking in on the old one.  The old age, which is full of violence has dug in its heels, but the new age is with us anyway.  The question then that is posed to me concerns the way in which I will participate with God in bringing the new age, the new realm of God into fruition?  And, how that impacts the way I look at Afghanistan and other places of American military involvement?

Remembering September 11 -- Nine Years Later

It has been nine years since the tragic events of 9-11.  Most of us, who can remember back to that day, have memories and thoughts.  Life may be very different for some of us as a result of the attacks.  Perhaps we have become better people, or maybe not.   The rancor that fills the streets of America today suggest that not only have most Americans not moved on, but there is a lot of anger as well as grief still brewing in our midst.

I was asked by a reporter from the Detroit Free Press to share my thoughts as a Pastor on the events of that day.  At the time I was Pastor of First Christian Church of Santa Barbara, CA and President of the Greater Santa Barbara Clergy Association.  My memories of that day are fused with the service of remembrance that we put together for the Sunday evening following 9-11.

As I remember that day, and the service that followed, I need to also stop and remember my good friend and colleague, Rev. LLoyd Saatjian.  LLoyd passed away in the last year or so, but he was a key person in making sure that this service happened.  He called me just as I was walking into my office that Tuesday morning and said -- "what should we do?"  From that question came an offer to use his church to host what would be an overflow service.  As I remember that day, and those who died, I must remember those close to me who helped me make the journey.

To read my thoughts and reflections on 9-11-- in an edited somewhat piece, because I sent a much longer piece than what could be used by the Free Press -- you can click here. 

I would invite you, the reader, to share your thoughts. 

An Anniversary Reflection on Ordination to Representative Ministry

June 9, 1985, Ordination participants

It was twenty-five years ago today that hands were laid upon me in a service of ordination at Temple City Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) [June 9, 1985]. Among those participating in that service were members of the Temple City church, it’s interim pastor, Tom Toler, the Regional Minister Charles Mallotte, a local Lutheran pastor, Margaret Duttera, and Ed Linberg, who offered the sermon. Ed had started out as supervisor of my internship, but was called part way through to another ministry. Tom finished out the year (though John Hull and I carried for a few months a lions share of the load – both of us serving as Assistant Pastors). This action of ordination took place a day after I received my M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary. It was an important event in my life, perhaps more important than I realized at the time. Twenty-five years ago I had in mind a ministry in the academic world – teaching church history – not serving as the pastor of a local congregation. Yet, for the past twelve years I have served as the pastor of three local congregations.

As I consider my ordination on this anniversary day, I thought I might reflect a bit upon what it means for me and for the church at large. For, if as I believe, we are all, as baptized Christians, all priests of God called to engage in the ministry of God, with Jesus as our high priest, then pastoral ministry might best be defined as representative ministry. The pastor could be seen as the bearer of the call to ministry that all Christians participate in. Standing in the pulpit or at the table, the pastor is not only a representative of God (as one who inspired by the Spirit speaks for God) but also as the representative of the people, sharing a message in word and sacrament that emerges from within the community itself.

By thinking of pastoral ministry as representative ministry, we start with the premise that all ministry is important. No Christian is by virtue of their office holier than any other. There maybe a difference in roles and even charism, but not importance to the health of the body. The calling of the pastoral leadership is not to do ministry for God’s people but to equip and encourage the congregation in its ministries (Eph. 4:11-13). The goal of pastoral ministry is to help God’s people reach maturity in Spirit, and that maturity leads to acts of service – the good works prepared for us by God.

Our ordination to ministry occurs in our baptisms, an act of grace that sets us apart for service to Jesus Christ. Ordination, on the other hand, orders the lives of some for specific areas of service. It is the public recognition that some from among the body are called to representative ministry of preaching, teaching, sacrament, and pastoral care. Although God calls people to this ministry, the church has the responsibility to affirm this call and publicly confer on this person the authority of this office.

In ordaining a candidate the church also promises to hold the ordinand accountable to this calling. Although there are no double standards in Christian ministry, the church should expect that the ones upon whom they confer this title of pastor will hold themselves to the highest standards of behavior, that they will seek to understand the faith in such a way that they may might teach and equip others (making it imperative that those called to ordained ministry pursue some form of education/training such as the traditional M.Div. programs). Having had hands laid upon them, ordained pastors (my preferred title) stand as representatives of the church they serve and lead By extending the hands of ordination on candidates, the church declares to the broader church and the community at large, that this woman or man has been found to have the requisite gifts and calling to serve the church at large as pastors and teachers.

Though many clergy claim to have felt God's leading, God's call on their lives, without the discerning affirmation of the church that sense of calling may be little more than a delusion. The church is charged with discerning both gifts and calling, and then supporting those called and gifted to fulfill this calling. I stand here today the product of a community of communities who saw in me gifts and encouraged their development and usage. Thanks be to God!

150 Years Ago

Randall Stephens

The Chicago Tribune marks an interesting anniversary. It was 150 years ago on May 18, 1860, that the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for its national ticket. "From the perspective of 150 years," writes Richard Norton Smith, "it seems providential that Republicans should hold their 1860 convention in Chicago; that they should pass over their young party's most prominent figures, choosing instead a one-term congressman and unsuccessful Senate candidate who would go on to set the standard for presidential leadership." Lincoln, the rail splitter, took on a mythical air to supporters, a monstrous "black republican" aspect to his many critics.

This from Life and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1860):

LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE OF MESSRS. LINCOLN AND HAMLIN.

The following is the correspondence between the officers of the Republican National Convention and the candidates thereof for President and Vice-President:

Chicago, May 18, 1860.

To the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois:

Sir:—The representatives of the Republican party of the United States, assembled in convention at Chicago, have, this day, by a unanimous vote, selected you as the Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States, to be supported at the next election ; and the undersigned were appointed a committee of the convention to apprize you of this nomination, and respectfully to request that you will accept it. A declaration of the principles and sentiments adopted by the convention, accompanies this communication.

In the performance of this agreeable duty, we take leave to add our confident assurance that the nomination of the Chicago convention will be ratified by the suffrages of the people.

We have the honor to be, with great respect and regard, your friends and fellow-citizens . . .

Sir:—I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprized in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention, for that purpose.

The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies your letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or disregard it, in any part.

Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention; to the rights of all the States and territories, and people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.

Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

Abraham Lincoln

Mount St. Helens -- 30 years later

Mt. St. Helens today

On May 18th -- erupting

Each year I stop to observe May 18th.  On this day, thirty years ago now (a Sunday morning in the spring of 1980), a relatively small Cascade range volcano exploded, sending mud down the rivers, knocking over forests, and sending ash across the country.  On this day, we have Mt. St. Helens Day, a day to remember the destructive and creative forces of the earth! 

One of the reasons I remember this was that this happened shortly before I graduated from college.  This year, my observance is a reminder that both the eruption and my graduation from what is now Northwest Christian University occurred 30 years ago.  How time flies!   

Just a few memories.  I must say, I never paid much attention to the mountain prior to that day.  Visiting Portland I always focused on the grandeur of Mount Hood to the East of the city.  Mount St. Helens was to the north of the city, and shorter in stature.  But after that day, with the top blown off, we paid attention. In the weeks that followed I was in Portland on several occasions and observed the ash that covered the city.  I also took a drive up into Washington, closer to the mountain, to visit a close friend in Kelso, Washington.  She lived down the street from the Toutle River.  We walked down to see the massive embankment of mud and ash that had been formed along the river.  It was quite a sight, something that remains memorable to this day!  So, join me in remembering those 57 who died and the Mountain that changed its identity and shape. 

Remembering Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- 65 years after martyrdom

It was sixty-five years ago today that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg Concentration Camp.  His execution, together with other conspirators in the attempted assassination of Hitler, including Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Hans Oster, came as the Soviets were bearing down on the region.  It would be just three weeks after this that Berlin would fall. 

Bonhoeffer's legacy is powerful, in large part due to the fact that he did die at the hands of such a brutal regime.  He died because of his resistance to his own nation's leaders.  Despite his own pacifism, he chose to enter into this conspiracy because he believed Hitler's continued rule was the greater evil.  He was clear, however, that such an act was not a Christian one. 

I recently read an excellent book on Bonhoeffer's involvement in the resistance, not just to Hitler, but to the legacy of generations of Prusso-German History.  My review appears in the most recent issue of the Christian Century, but unfortunately it can't be accessed on-line.  The book is authored by John A. Moses, a historian of Germany, and is entitled The Reluctant Revolutionary:  Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Collision with Prusso-German History, (New York:  Berghahn Books, 2009). 

One of the observations that Moses makes about Bonhoeffer's legacy is that he was considered by many in his country to be a traitor.  Many in the German church weren't ready to let go of their "Lutheran-Hegelian" vision of the German state, an ideology that Bonhoeffer had systematically dismantled.  The first observances of his execution were held not in Germany, but in England.  It would not be until the mid-1950s that the first Bonhoeffer conferences began to occur in Germany.  

Moses notes the difficulties that confronted the legacy of Bonhoeffer, due in large part to the German people not being ready to face the realities of an ideology that had given room for such a monstrous regime:

Clearly, Bonhoeffer was far too revolutionary a figure because his theology, as it developed, overthrew centuries of endemic anti-Judaism and simultaneously also challenged the accepted understanding of the sacrosanct status and function of the head of state as n authority answerable only to God for his decisions. . . . As Bonhoeffer eloquently phrased it, there were not two spheres, a sacred and a secular, where the secular authority exerted power int he world uncontrolled by any moral law; there was only one sphere in which everything was subject to the sovereignty of God.  Bonhoeffer had, in short, disposed of a centuries-old doctrine that justified princely absolutism and had reached its most grotesque form under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler (Moses, Reluctant Revolutionary, p. 234).       

Because Bonhoeffer died so young, before he had the chance to fully develop his ideas, many different people have tried to interpret him and claim him as one of their own.  We must, honor him, by allowing him to be himself -- as John Moses puts it:  He was a "reluctant revolutionary."  He was a product of the German classes, and had sensibilities that were rooted in that upbringing.  And yet, he was willing to step outside that context and question ages old views of the German state and of the Christian relationship to Judaism.  Few among his peers were as willing to take the risk as was he.  For that we give thanks.

The Moon Landing at 40

Randall Stephens

With the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission just around the corner--the landing was on July 20--it's a good time to reflect on what that meant and still means. In 1969/70, some rhapsodized about the power of human innovation and the horizon of exploration. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, playwright Arthur Miller wrote in the July 21 edition of the New York Times:

There are two schools of thought about the moon landing. One heralds it as the start of a new Age of Discovery like the period that began in 1492. The other regards it as a distraction from social problems. Few, though, feel anything but pride in the men who step over the astral frontier; even the crabbers are secretly envious of them.

I think it's a great thing for all of us. After the moon we undoubtedly will put men on other planets further and further away from Earth. The climax, which I doubt anyone alive will witness, will come when a scientific expedition finally lands on 125th Street or the North Side of Waterbury, Connecticut.

On the run in Algiers, Eldridge Cleaver, Information Minister of the Black Panther party, unleashed a torrent of criticism. On July 20 he told New York Times reporters that the moon landing program was a "misuse of public funds." Cleaver didn't see "what benefit mankind will have from two astronauts landing on the moon while people are being murdered in Vietnam," and starving in the U.S. Politicians like Nixon, "number one pig," were to blame

Others, like Norman Mailer--razor-tongue gonzo journalist, premature curmudgeon, and egomaniac--used the moon landing to rant against America's banal technophilia. He wrote in Of a Fire on the Moon: "Armstrong and Aldrin were to do an EVA that night. EVA stood for Extra Vehicle Activity, and that was presumably a way to describe the most curious steps ever taken. It is one thing to murder the language of Shakespeare - another to be unaware how rich was the

victim. Future murders stood in the shadow of the acronyms. It was as if on the largest stage ever created, before an audience of half the earth, a man of modest appearance would walk to the centre, smile tentatively at the footlights, and read a page from a data card. The audience would groan and Beckett and Warhol give their sweet smiles."*

Now to the present... In the Guardian Christopher Riley has written "The Moon Walkers: Twelve Men Who Have Visited Another World." Maybe his piece indicates that the landing is no longer a sounding board for politics?

The 12 members of the most exclusive club in human history had many things in common.

All came from a highly technical background and all but one studied aeronautical or astronautical engineering. Growing up, many had been Boy Scouts and even more were active members of their University fraternities. They all went on to study for further degrees – many at military test pilot schools – and almost all of them saw active service in cold war skies, often flying nuclear weapons behind enemy lines.

Popular Mechanics features a collection of essays on all things 40th-anniversary-moon-landing related. Highlights include: "Is America's Space Administration Over the Hill? Next-Gen NASA"; "Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 Alums Reflect 40 Years Later at MIT Conference"; and "Exploring the Moon: Apollo 11, The Untold Story."

For an excellent documentary on the moon landing and space race, see Race to the Moon (PBS, 2005).