Says Church Fears Real World
Diocesan Press Service. February 7, 1964 [XVIII-6]
The Church fears the "real world"--the world of racial injustice and deprivation, the world of the unemployed and the pockets of poverty in which they live--and thus "the Church which belongs to the world' to serve the world withdraws from the world," an Episcopal priest charged in Washington Jan. 25.
The Rev. C. Kilmer Myers, director of the interdenominational Urban Training Center for Christian Mission, Chicago, Ill., urged churchmen to help eradicate the Church's puritanical image of "anti-sex, anti-liquor" and become more worldly by leading "the true Church in battle against the apostate Church which shuns, ignores, hates, fears, flees the world."
He claimed that the Church "becomes what she is only when she is worldly, when she is caught up in the life of the world, when she is dirtied by the world, and loves it with the same everlasting love of the Christ who is her essential being. "
These words were heard by a capacity congregation at the National Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul where Fr. Myers preached the sermon at the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Suffragan Bishop of Washington.
Bishop Moore, former dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, Ind., was consecrated by Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger. Bishop Lichtenberger was assisted by the Rt. Rev. William F. Creighton, Bishop of Washington, and the Rt. Rev. Frederick J. Warnecke, Bishop of Bethlehem.
The world of the poor is "invisible to the affluent Church" which "knows little of the grey world of the unemployed. . .", Fr. Myers claimed. He added that this is so because expressways and zoning laws "fence off the growing mass of men, women and children who are without food, jobs and human rights. "
Deploring the extent of domestic poverty, Fr. Myers said that the Church adds "these American invisible poor to the countless millions of the hungry and unclothed of the nation. We contrast their plight with that of the Christians in this land, " but when the Church attempts to understand the poverty-ridden masses, "we look at those things, those objects, those goals, held important by the typical parish. . .and then we see how much the Church is in the world."
While money means power in American culture--and the Church has "nurtured many who themselves are worldly in terms of the possession of wealth"--the Church's worldliness in this aspect, he said, does not give her much influence in making vital decisions in mass society.
"The Church--in terms of the Gospel it represents and celebrates--has little, if anything, to do with the social decisions made even by Christians who possess power, " the former vicar of Trinity Church's Chapel of the Intercession, New York City, said.
Here, he pointed out that "decisions relating to factory placement, real estate policies, the tax structure, the relationship between the business community and the political structure are worldly decisions" and the Church does not participate in nor judge decisions reached.
"In the areas of life that matter, the areas that affect men and movements, the Church is not worldly," he said. "If we have power, we don't use it--at least we don't know how to use it."
Turning directly to Washington's new 43-year-old Suffragan Bishop, Fr. Myers advised him to "be a bishop in this world. Stay out of the cathedral so that when you return from the streets of the city of man you may bring men joyfully into the house of God."