BOOKS

...It is especially unfortunate because it happens in the middle of a good point...

...Drane envisions a dialogue between the disaffected and the institutional church which could be fruitful...

...Paul noted clearly) to be perplexed, but not (as he noted equally clearly) to be perplexed unto despair...

...Father Jensen and I then entered into private correspondence concerning the series---discussing the approach, the format, writers that might be used...

...The reader is left hoping that Hamilton will expand on his well-laid political-historical foundation and draw up more detailed blackpower blueprints to guide the on-going struggle for full equality...

...In the middle, and probably as wrong as the other viewpoints, is fhe attitude that the church is more or less all right as it is...

...there have been attempts since the beginning, anyway, to resolve the tension...

...He agreed...

...Yet both these laws put the burden on the disenfranchised black to prove actual discrimination before Southern Courts would grant his registration petition...

...It may also be the source of everything interesting in Christian history...

...Remember The Greening of America...

...Johnson was a judge sensitive to the subtleties of discriminatory acts such as registration slow-downs and the application of double standards in reviewing white and black literacy tests...

...Unless they do, they will be the poorer and society as well...

...Here, spontaneity may be counterproductive and trickery downright foolish...

...Johnson struck down overly-stringent registration standards even when they were applied across the board if the effect was to freeze the white dominated status-quo...

...We need to recognize-issues of quality aside--that most interviews belong to art rather than objective journalism and that most interviewers share with fellow artists full responsibility for what they express...

...DANIEL MORRISSEY is the editor of the Georgetown Law Weekly...

...In the last letter I received, Father Jensen emphasized the confidential nature of our correspondence, admonishing me not to allude publicly to anything in his letters, either directly or indirectly...

...After pointing out the virtues of "worldly theology," for example, he is able to write, "What the impulse was that led theologians to ask, 'How little must I believe in order to be considered Christian?' is hard to discern...

...He paused then said that I must not know about the latest letter to me...

...Join the universal strul~lo for human dignity--throulh education, skilled trades, agriculture, engineering, business, urban plannin|, medicine & other fields of community development...

...There were, however, a third group of Southern judges who, although segregationist in outlook, held a deeper respect for the rule of law and the constitutional mandate for universal suffrage...

...This letter reached me five days after it had been released to the news media, after it had been reported in news services and its contents discussed in secular and religious newspapers across the country...

...A mind is a terrible thing to waste...

...Marty knows that new approaches are needed...

...Brown writes of the frontiers-ecumenical, cultural, technological, and social--to which the church should go, and some of his observations will disturb traditionalists...

...What impresses me most is that all four books contain a kind of hopefulness, and it isn't at all naive...

...Martin Marty's The Fire We Can Light looks at the apparently quiet world of the churches during the '70s, contrasts it with the ferment of the '60s, and makes a few predictions and suggestions...

...In addition, Hamilton describes further obstacles to suffrage, the physical and economic intimidation of potential black voters...

...One or two years...

...But Brian has, at least, inspired us to contemplate a journalistic mode that demands searching review----~cause it is no less widespread than problematic...

...The author postulates that the struggle for human rights must give greater attention to solutions that link political and economic concerns, but unfortunately Hamilton's guidelines on this point are sketchy and peripheral to his jurisprudential theme...

...Instead, they offer thumbnail sketches, putting us for a privileged moment in the company of men we wish we knew...

...This implication of raw truth is fundamentally specious, because the character of the interviewee is brought ~to us only through the character (interests, sympathies, alertness) of his interlocutor...

...Nor is it defensive...

...to reveal the higher faculties, conversation must be clothed in knowledge...

...Marty is able to qualify his generalizations without invalidating them, something which makes him unique among journalist/prophets, and brings to his work a nice combination of good will and skepticism...

...It is about youth culture, something which will probably be the subject of next year's nostalgia binge...

...Brown sees the need for a renewed sense of mission...

...That such matters are barely suggested in Brian's book makes it unsatisfying...

...the wisdom-seeking interviewer should know as much as possible about his interlocutor, for knowledge, like wealth, comes only to those who already possess some...

...Those qualities will, unless corrected, shatter whatever is honestly radical in the movement...

...One thing strikes me about all of these books: they recognize that the church is not at all a self-evident good...

...And on both sides...

...Paul, after all, had to warn some early Christians away from incest, and St...

...I considered the correspondence confidential...

...It isn't just that this is a gratuitous slam...

...In the late '50s, before the nation's conscience was aroused by marches, church-bombings and southern firehoses, only compromise civil rights legislation was politically feasible...

...Some would ask whether the churches should have stock portfolios at all, not only whether they should examine them...

...The nascent civil rights legislation passed by the Congress in 1957 authorized the Attorney General to seek court orders requiring registration of persons who had been disqualified by voting officials on the grounds of race...

...He understands and sympathizes with its anti-establishment stance, and is at the same time bothered by its extreme fundamentalism, oversimplifications, and lack of theologym or rather its lack of an acknowledged theology...

...One theologian told me, when it was over, 'I learned that 'modern man' or 'secular man' was simply the person in whose presence I was embarrassed to admit that I was a clergyman.' . . . A footnote to the worldly theology deserves to be recorded . . . it was almost always designed for the young and healthy, the middle-class and mobile . . . . Most of the human race never was and remains a long way from becoming free on the terms of Western academic models...

...Southern laws which provided for stringent literacy tests and irregular registration hours seemed fair on their face...

...He told the press of this...

...Personally, I expect them to be part of the Establishment long before anything so drastic develops...

...But I doubt that artifice should go as far as Plimpton himself let it go when he permitted Hemingway both to frame and answer questions...

...It is, anyway, good to see it in more than one place at a time...

...Drane doesn't say anything new about youth culture in general...

...He asked me if I had any comment on Father Jensen's letter to me...

...This traditional, but patently illegal method of maintaining white political control posed the greatest threat to black voting rights, but was the least susceptible to courtroom proof...

...But by what fiat...

...Monologizing poses no threat to propositional interviews...

...Andrew Greeley's The New Agenda is, like most of Greeley's writing, occasionally irritating, occasionally excellent, and never boring...

...Even an intellectual interview should leave some chink for the unexpected, so that beriefs the subject had not realized may suddenly shine through...

...He seeks not so much a shallow superficial harmony in which everything is integrated in some artificial 'new synthesis.' He seeks, rather to listen to the Spirit wherever the Spirit may speak...

...But if someone were interested in a fresh and exciting overview of much of the best contemporary Christian thought he couldn't find a better place to begin...

...Even though the egregious public laws which Southern States once used to keep blacks from the polls such as the grandfather clauses and the white primary had been declared unconstitutional, more subtle, but no less effective legal methods of discrimination were in full force in the late '50s...

...NewYork, N.Y...

...Give now to the United Negro College Fund...

...Credit) Inquire: Oliva Blanchette, Director BOSTON COLLEGE Chestnut Hill, MHs...

...Was it ever any good...

...Judge Frank Johnson of Alabama serves as Hamilton's model of "Judicial Aggressiveness...

...If the note of celebration is lacking in the life of the church, "then the weight of human need and anguish will be a crushing burden that can only destroy those who dare to face that burden with sensitivity...

...When Greeley says, for instance, that "Whitehead and his disciples have opened important paths for exploration by Catholic theologians once these latter worthies stop trying to find relevance and validation on picket lines," you can see why some people don't like him...

...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 McCarthy (Cont...

...It exists in the world for the sake of the world...

...He realizes that such things as the massive evangelical "Jesus meeting" in Dallas and Key '73 are the probable future of the movement, and he regrets it...

...Father Jensen submitted a tentative list of articles...

...Like most serious writing about youth it is frequently too serious...

...I hope it will be expanded some day...

...It may have varied from person to person...

...His original concept was to counter those writers in our paper on articles they had written...

...A profile, in which the reporter has substantial contact with his subject and then arranges his findings, obviously intends an interpretation (Brian's failure to distinguish between profiling and interviewing is one of the primary causes of his own sorry performance as investigator of the latter mode...

...Frontiers /or the Church Today is loving and extremely critical...

...But a good part of the book deals specifically with the Jesus people, and Drane offers one of the most balanced and sensitive views of this movement...

...But the wide discretion vested in white officials served one well-known purpose, to frustrate black attempts to vote...

...Christians have every right (as St...

...But the book is liberal in a deeper and almost forgotten sense: it is uncompromisingly humane, open-minded, charitable and critical at once...

...All would, in varying degrees, accept the thrust of something said by Hendrickus Berkhof, and quoted by Robert McAfee Brown: "I believe that God is so humble that he decided to dwell in institutions...

...If ideas are what an interviewer desires, his method must differ sharply from that of an interviewer seeking the trapped confession...

...Information: Bruce Muzzle, ACTION, OCP Box P-5, Washing...

...Coming in the context of an exchange of letters he had warned PEACE CORPS & VISTA NEED YOUI Volunteer your skills & experience in developing nations avnrsoas and U.S...

...Now my school is running out of money...

...biguity of their revelations, and of the deep mystery of human interaction they cannot help but display...

...Professor Hamilton's study examines the initial stage of this processthe enactment of the Voting Rights Laws of 1957 and 1960 and their enforcement in the Southern Federal Courts...

...In one of its forms, then, the interview contains the thrill of a detective story...

...Hamilton also shows how the success of the '57-'60 "'Judicial Approach" depended on the predilection of the presiding judge...

...The book as a whole reflects Greeley's belief that not only the church but the individual must "listen critically to the insights of the modern world" as well as the wisdom of the past...

...Johnson would not hesitate to register applicants himself when inveterate prejudice was shown, and he set himself as a watch-dog over the practices of local boards...

...He points out, for example, that pacifism is so much a part of the gospel and of early Christian tradition that the burden of proof is on those Christians who reject it...

...It becomes apparent that enfranchisement is hardly a panacea for the economic ills of an oppressed people...

...The Christian must "be critical about his own symbols (especially about the most recent interpretations of them) and also about the fantastic array of insights that the various modern symbol systems convey to him...

...On a milder level, it is a method for packaging wisdom--conveniently, because everyone finds it easier to express ideas before a sympathetic, guiding witness than to organize them into discursive prose...

...ton, D.C...

...02167 Commonweal: 197...

...so does Greeley...

...Often the Justice Department would "train these judges" to recognize surreptitious methods of discrimination...

...Frontiers for the Church Todag ROBERT McAFEE BROWN Ox/ord U. Press, $5.95 The Fire We Can Light MARTIN E. MARTY Doubleday, $5.95 The New Agenda ANDREW M. GREELEY Doubleday, $6.95 A New American Reformation JAMES F. DRANE Philosophical Library, $7.50 JOHN GARVEY The tension between the church as it is and the church as the gospel indicates itshould be, has been a problem ever since Pentecost...

...Unless we are all, men and women, to become simply economic units, it behooves women to find new ways of maintaining their networks, and of learning economic and political leadership...

...Judge Ben C. Dawkins of Louisiana exemplifies Hamilton's school of "Judicial Gradualism"--those conservative but honest judges who would order blacks registered when they had made a case of discrimination...

...Hamilton juxtaposes Johnson's willing execution of the new laws with the open hostility evinced by Judge Harold Cox, whom Hamilton uses as a paradigm of "Judicial Resistance...

...as The Paris Review series makes clear, in such cases, the transcript may even be reworked until speech attains the luster of writing...

...20525...

...he simply refuses to separate the world of prayer and worship from the work that needs to be done...

...Cox, as presiding judge, took delight in delaying voter suits and frustrating them with procedural technicalities...

...such visionaries as Abigail Adams and the Grimke sisters...

...In his reflections on the need for liturgical celebration Brown writes that we live in a world "about which we can and we must say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.' . . . To he sure, we have covered up that glory and that presence with demonic skill, so that for many-perhaps even for most today---earth seems to be a hell rather than a heaven...

...Some may have been a bit insecure about their profession...

...It is a "narrow view of man" and anti-intellectualism which he fears...

...When an interview approaches a character sketch, its significance is the interviewee's manner rather than the substance of his response...

...I said I did not, that our correspondence was confidential...

...Our correspondence continued...

...Here are four books which all begin 26 April 1974:194 with the assumption that the institutional church is alive and not very well, as usual...

...Shortly after receiving the last letter, I received a call from a newspaperman in Washington...

...JOHN OARVEV is an editor with Templegate and edits a hi-weekly education newsletter, University Today...

...Hamilton could have used Judge Cox's background to expand on the political nature of federal judgeships: Cox was the college roommate of Senator James Eastland, the powerful chairman of the Judiciary Committee who had expressed vehement hostility to all civil rights bills...

...Currently some right-wing fundamentalists r e j e c t "churchianity"--all you need, they say, is to "believe on the Lord" and the rest is folly...

...Hamilton's book also serves as a provocative monograph on the relationship between law and social change...

...I told him he was free to choose this approach but since our readers would quite possibly side with our own writers, it seemed to me the best opportunity for the CBA was to be found in a positive approach...

...However, an interview normally transpires in a far more limited time and is usually offered to us a literal, hence unarranged (albeit often abbreviated) version of the actual encounter...

...that the free pulpit is dependent on Presbyterianism...

...Marty touches virtually all of the significant social and religious trends of America's immediate past--it is a virtuoso performance which is better for not seeming to he--and the last chapter, which has to do with "a search for the core of Christian experience and tradition," is full of exciting hints...

...He does not reduce Christianity to the "social gospel...

...This sense of church, if it becomes general, could be the most significant modern religious event...

...The ongoing work is worth the time, if not one's final hour...

...Rather Hamilton strongly hints that economic independence is almost a precondition to political freedom...

...However, Johnson wanted the local officials to become reconciled to black voting and he skillfully avoided what would have been an odious intervention by federal referees...

...he believes that denominational structures should recognize and transcend the fact that they exist provisionally, not as ends in themselves: "It can no longer be seriously argued that the message of justification by faith would disappear without Lutheranism...

...But his summaries of recent religious thought and his references are valuable in themselves...

...Father Jensen had released the contents of a letter to me to the news media, in it he had broken the agreement we had been trying to reach...

...However, most interviews contain neither surprising revelations nor interesting ideas...

...This is realistic enough, though Drane believes that the seeds of something better are there, and he calls for a dialogue between radical young Christians and the churches...

...This is typical: after expressing his sympathy with the realization some Jesus people have, that to be a Christian one must reject accepted ways, Drane quotes some of the fears Jesus people have of persecution and then observes, "A young person can develop a strong enough case of paranoia so that respectful opposition comes across as persecution . . . . Perhaps there will be some form of persecution visited upon the Jesus people...

...The Bench and the Ballot: Southern Federal Judges and Black Voters CHARLES V. HAMILTON Oxford U. Press, $7.95 DANIEL MORRISSEY At a time of widespread political malaise, when it's hard to believe that American government has ever effected any real social progress, it's refreshing to read a book like The Bench and the Ballot...

...Brown's message is that the church has been sent...

...OOOOOO OOO CORRESPONDENCE (Continued ]rom page 179) This offer was accepted...

...One powerful, potential ally the disenfranchised black could have in the 26 April 1974:196 tedious litigation necessary to demonstrate actual discrimination was the federal government, specifically the Justice Department...

...Having framed the questions and psychologically affected the talk, he has set up the parameters of its meaning...

...Since depth rather than fact is what he is after, editing is also more warranted in this than in the previous sort of interviewing-where, as Gay Talese remarks, joining quotations together falsely turns the subject into a monologist...

...Paraphrasing Frost, Robert McAfee Brown says that his book is an expression of his "lover's quarrel" with the church and--just as important--with the world...

...With its appearance of unmediated drama, however, the form offers manifold opportunities for disguised and thus dangerous tendentiousness, even when the interviewer merely records what was said...

...The admonition was not necessary...

...Although, as Harrison Salisbury reports, while discussing his interviews with Russian bureaucrats, there is often a threat of actual blood or, in the "free world," of injunctions and lawsuits...

...The 1960 Act strengthened the federal government's hand by empowering the courts to name voting referees who could register blacks in those cases where discrimination had been proven...

...Insofar as the authors deal with tradition they recognize it as a living and flexible medium, a language, not something given once and closed forever...

...Institute in Marxi,t Thought June 24-July 12, 1974 "Socialism & Latin America" (Grad...

...He died last month at the ege of 38...

...Spurred by federal legislation, real improvement has been made in expanding black political rights in the South...

...This isn't to say that Greeley does nothing original here...

...10022 Commonweal: 195 should move, and he does so...

...it isn't even a good gratuitous slam...

...Unbuttoned, we are all beasts...

...On the other hand he must also listen to his own past and listen to the wisdom of the present...

...he refuses to budget the Spirit's time and energies . . . . " A New American Reformation is in some ways outdated...

...Expenses paid-medical, travel, vacation, living...

...Hamilton aptly contrasts the Eisenhower Administration's lukewarm leadership with the vigorous professionalism of the Kennedy civil rights specialists like John Doar...

...but we should know that they are more his manger and his cross than his temple...

...Francis of Assisi received the gospel from a corrupt church...

...We are naive when we take the latter as a sort of anonymous machine for the production of questions or--to change the metaphor--as a headlight in which the subject is indelibly caught...

...And not everyone will agree with his liberalism...

...55 E. 52nd St...

...To read interviews properly is to have a sense of doubleness of their content, of the am0 0 0 0 0 00.00 REVIEWERS CHARLES THOMAS SAMUELS, a previous contributor to these pages, was a member of the English Department of Williams College...

...In addition to providing a history of Southern voting rights litigation in the early '60s, Hamilton also describes concrete instances of economic reprisals taken against voting blacks by powerful agricultural and financial interests...

...or that an ordered liturgy is uniquely co-extensive with Episcopalianism...

...To say, as Drane does, that "young people generally are calling for a renaissance of all the right values" is humorless and much too earnest...

...Like Brown and Marry he is eager to point out some areas into which the church Photographed by Maureen Lambray "My mother is scrubbing floors so ! can tiecome a doctor...

...At the left is a radical puritanism which, seeing the church's involvement with the world's corrupt powers, will have nothing to do with the church...

...Hence, we are not getting hard facts or assertions but rather a subtle and diffused interplay between two halves of a human event...

...There are spots where the book is too glib and relies pretty heavily on trendy jargon...