Potter and Dyck trade slashing repartee in their office and seem as far removed from the medieval scholastics as the atomic bomb is from the cross bow, but they are faced with a special problem. "Theologians working in urban affairs and civil rights can justify their work on the grounds that the Bible says 'God so loved the world'--which means the whole world, everyone, not just good little Christians,'" Potter says. "But we have to work against Biblical injunctions like 'Be fruitful and multiply.'"
Their job, as he sees it, is to relate population control to the "Love Thy Neighbor" precept by showing people that "they aren't doing their neighbors a favor by cluttering up the earth."
Like most of the other world-oriented theologians, Dyck and Potter have had training in sociology and ethics. This double-barreled education allows them to conduct scientific analyses as rigorous as those done by secular scientists. "We can't suppose that the Bible gives us any special source of knowledge that no one else can tap," Dyck says. "We have to know what we are talking about."
Potter is especially impressed with his colleagues' can-do attitude. "We can't just sit back and say it's God's will that there is a flood in the Middle West," he says. "We have the technology to handle things like that and we have to use it. Throwing up our hands in despair won't get us anywhere."
One man who follows the can-do philosophy is Harvey Cox, who claims to be the only member of the University faculty living in Roxbury. His chief interest--ruling passion would be closer to the truth--is civil rights. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Massachusetts branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and directs a group of Divinity School students working in the South End.
Bible-Thumpers and Jews
Cox attributes the success of the School's projects to its students. The student body includes "everything from Bible-thumping Baptists to Unitarians, not to mention Roman and Eastern Catholics, atheists, and a number of Jews." About half of them are studying for the ministry, but the majority of the others will teach religion in colleges and seminaries.
"It used to be that someone studying for the Protestant ministry would practically never meet a Catholic," Cox says. "But now, with the diverse body and field-work program, we are giving the students the same kind of on-the-job training that medical students get.
"The result of all this," Cox continues, "is a new image of the ministry. Five years ago when you thought of a minister you thought of a bland, unexciting man somewhat removed from the stress of real life. Today's image is more robust; it is the image of a man who wants to lead people in the application of ideals in the secular world, not merely to preside over a religious establishment."
New Kind of Priest
Cox predicts the swing to field work will continue and that the Bachelor of Divinity will be revised to include more of it. He expects that eventually Catholics studying for the priesthood will receive some instruction in a non-denominational divinity school like Harvard's. "I don't think we will be training priests here for a while," he says, "But I think that the Church is leaning in the direction of a broader education."
Dr. James L. Adams, chairman of the Christian ethics department, is also concerned with ending segregation. But Adams views the racial and religious conflicts as examples of the more general problem of separation and alienation. To illustrate the point, he tells a story about two graduate students who found themselves seated next to each other at dinner. "My field is mathematics, what's yours?" one asked. "New Testament," the other replied. At that point the conversation ended.
Segregation of classes, of disciplines, of neighborhoods--these are, according to Adams, the things that mark an ailing society. "Churches almost inevitably participate in these segregations," he says. "The local congrega-