[Oe List ...] How It All Began

[Karen Snyder]

Do you remember the email Ed Feldmanis sent last week quoting Frank Knutson, who challenged us to be reflecting about "How it all began” in terms of the life of the Institutes?  

Aimee Hilliard sent these words by Frank about his perspective some time ago.  Enjoy!


HOW IT ALL BEGAN
REFLECTIONS ON THE ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE
BY
FRANK V. HILLIARD 
 
 
One could say there were two beginnings, both of which started with the Army - Notre Dame game of 1946.  The game is ranked 7th on the all time great games of college football, but in my opinion it should be ranked first.  It is ranked 7thpurely because of bias for offensive, rather than defensive, football. The game was the last game of the season and was held at Yankee Stadium.  Both teams were undefeated with Army having a 25 game win streak and two national championships the two previous years.  There were four current and future Heisman trophy winners on the field that day.  At quarterback Notre Dame had Johnnie Lujack who became famous as a star for the Chicago Bears.  Notre Dame also had an end named Leon Hart who won the Heisman his senior year and is the only lineman in the 20th century to win the Heisman. Army had Doc Blanchard and Felix Davis, both of whom won the Heisman and are the only tandem backfield to win the Heisman.  They had not lost a game in their storied career at Army.  Blanchard was called Mr. Inside and Davis was called Mr. Outside.  Davis had a rushing average of 8.26 yards per carry which still remains an NCAA record. Upon graduation from West Point both Blanchard and Davis, the two most celebrated athletes of their day, were assigned to serve out their army career in San Antonio.
 
Here the story begins.  Jack Lewis, a former head cheerleader at the University of Texas, was a  Presbyterian minister serving as chaplain at the University.  He got the idea of asking Blanchard and Davis to come to Austin to be introduced at halftime of the U.T.  intramural championship football game.  To his surprise, they accepted.  Lewis planned to give a speech at halftime to what he thought would be three or four hundred people.  When word got around that Blanchard and Davis were coming, over 5,000 people showed up.  Lewis said later, that he realized he didn’t have anything meaningful to say to the students at halftime.  After brooding about this, he asked his board if he could have a year’s sabbatical…to see what was happening in the Church. 
 
Of course, a Presbyterian minister would go back to his roots in Scotland.  There, Lewis became enamored of a group of ministers and laypeople who were working together rebuilding an old abbey on the island of Iona.  They had formed covenanting groups throughout Scotland doing theological studies and prayer.  They became known as the Iona Community. “Lewis also became fascinated with the residential style of religious instruction at Cambridge and Oxford. He began formulating a plan incorporating both the dedication of the Iona group and the insights of Cambridge and Oxford. He would establish a student community alongside the University of Texas where students would commit themselves for a year of Christian living and study while continuing their regular courses at the University of Texas. With contributions raised from churches and with a small grant from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., he purchased an old motel located a block from the campus. He formed a board of directors, put up a sign, and began recruiting students to join in the experiment.”  Thus the first beginning.
 
Lewis soon realized that he needed a professional teacher and director of curriculum .  To get funding for this phase of the project, he went to the Danforth Foundation to ask for $10,000.  Lewis presented his plan to create a residential program in which students would study theological education part time while they attended the University. According to stories Lewis later told, he was interrupted in making his request, by the Director of the Foundation, saying, that this was a tremendous idea and would $40,000 be enough. ($40,000 was a lot of money in the 1950’s.)  
 
With this grant, Lewis hired Joe Mathews to the new post. Thus the second beginning:  a story of Joe Mathews and the corporate ministry  which articulated their audacious task as “Renewing the Church for the sake of Renewing Society.”
 
Here I interject my own story.  I had graduated from Perkins Theological Seminary, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where Joseph W.  Mathews had been my professor.  I was in a deep struggle. I did not want to leave the ministry as a vocation but felt that I could not be effective as a pastor in a local congregation.  One day, as I was especially down, I remembered Joe saying that he had had some hard times in his life.  So I decided to telephone him in Austin. I told him my quandary and I asked him, what had helped him in hard times in his life.  He said, “The Church of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.” I said, “Oh, Joe, don’t give me that kind of bull.” Joe responded, “If you feel that way, why don’t you come to Austin and we will talk about it.”  The very next day, I drove to Austin where I saw a group of clergy and laity working together and teaching a theology that was relevant to everyday life in a fashion that thrilled me. As Bonhoeffer said,  the power of a corporate group is greater than the sum total of it’s individual parts.  Consciously or unconsciously I realized this. Joe offered for me to become an intern.  I immediately said, YES.    I tell my story because this is a story of many of those who became a part of the faculty because they realized the power of working corporately with Joe Mathews as our leader, a man we all deeply respected. The facts are that I witnessed us growing from a small group of families, both clergy and laity in Austin, Texas  to a faculty of over 2,000 with Chicago as our headquarters and located in some 55 cities in the US and over 35 nations in the world.
 
Oh, the Army vs Notre Dame game?  With the two greatest offensive teams of the decade playing for the national championship, it ended in a nothing to nothing tie. The radio announcer, Stern, kept saying, “I am glad that I am not on the field today.  I’ve never seen hitting this hard.”  A nothing to nothing tie, now isn’t that the greatest game ever!?! 


 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20231216/93678f2c/attachment.htm>