With the smell of tear gas still in my nostrils, I moved with my family from
Chicago to Stockbridge, MA, in September,1968. Within a year, I was more
embroiled in activism than since the early days of the 1960s
I was looking for a
dramatic ecumenical initiative. As part of the Presbyterian delegation to COCU
(The Consultation on Church Union), my ideas were present in in the proposals
that were being considered. Still, there were indications that the
white mainline church was gearing up for retreat from struggle. Renewal
Magazine had prodded churches to examine their financial commitments and
endowment strategies. There were few takers.
At a Consultation
meeting in Atlanta in 1969, I proposed that we give reparations to support
Black community development. I learned on the heels of this of the fissure
developing on the liberal side. This proposal coming from my lips was less than
welcome among newly minted Black Power advocates. I have never been a fan of what
I consider to be largely rhetorical radicalism. Soon after I made this
suggestion Jim Forman began a campaign for reparations aimed at the American
mainline churches. I began to organize a movement to support the Forman effort.
In specific terms, I proposed that denominations give reparations as part
of their move to unite at the local level.
The core of Jonathan's
Wake included Lew Wilkins who had become a close ally and friend since we met
my time in Geneva in 1966, Fred Lord, an insurance executive in Stockbridge,
Jim McGraw who was still running Renewal Magazine and Will Campbell of the
Committee of Southern Churchmen, perhaps my longest-term colleague over all
these years. Each brought indispensable help. We aimed at a National Council of
Churches assembly to be held in December 1969 at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Jim
and I had been schooled in the tactics of Yippie which uses humor and
imagination to create public presence. I named my effort Jonathan's Wake,
largely because Stockbridge has been where Jonathan Edward lived and worked, an
exile in his own day. By the time of the Detroit meeting, we had gained
national publicity as a confrontational force.
Once we gathered at the
Hotel Tuller, our answer to the NCC's lodging at the Ponchartrain, it became
clear that whatever my agenda was, it appealed less than the ideas of the
Berkeley Free (Submarine) Church, the largest force allied with us. They
were in Detroit to oppose the Vietnam war and skewer the complicity of
the churches in it. I could have little objection to that. But the actual
development of our confrontation became a melange of dramatic actions at Cobo
Hall combined with my sober reflections on ecumenism in various media reports.
We ended up forcing the Assembly to reject police intervention in
ecclesiastical disputes. This vote was immediately overturned by an
intervention from one William Thompson, a fellow Presbyterian also active in
COCU. He forced a two-thirds vote and we lost. At this point I made a dramatic
exit from Cobo Hall and ended up being consoled by a fellow Jonathan's Wake
participant who muttered, "I did not believe the truth about denominations
until now." This was proof that at least one person understood what I was
trying to do.
Jonathan's
Wake helped to spawn a number of further actions aimed at challenging the
retreat from social relevance. The years since have seen the mainline shrink
and what activism remains is largely visible in back and forth in the political
realm. I doubt the person-on-the-street could answer a specific question
assuming the existence of a Protestant mainline in the United States.
