Albert Cook Outler - "Fit to be Free" (October 16, 1955)

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	(choir singing indistinctly)	0:01
	♪ Amen ♪	1:11
-	Heavenly father, giver of all good things	1:19
	who has taught us that it is more blessed to give	1:23
	than to receive.	1:26
	We dedicate these offerings to the service of thy church,	1:28
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	1:33
	(knocking)	1:38
	(shuffling)	1:44
-	And some of you will know how heartwarming it is to me	2:15
	to revisit this,	2:19
	one of the great collegiate churches in America	2:23
	standing here in the heart of this university	2:25
	where we have so many fond memories and good friends.	2:31
	When I came in the chapel this morning	2:36
	I went to get a report from two of my favorite statues	2:38
	Eruditio on that side and Religio on that side	2:43
	and was much encouraged by what they had to say.	2:47
	They found out that everybody's	2:52
	rather elated over yesterday, but that even more important	2:54
	that as you managed to fulfill one or another	3:01
	of the assignments they give you	3:06
	they still have a full budget	3:08
	of unfinished business to supply.	3:11
	It's a great thing to be here in this university	3:15
	and in these times.	3:19
	My text is the 13th verse of the fifth chapter	3:23
	of St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians.	3:27
	"For you have been called to freedom my brothers,	3:32
	only make sure that your freedom is not an excuse	3:36
	for self-indulgence,	3:41
	instead be eager in love to serve one another."	3:43
	An interesting thing happened in Dallas three weeks ago,	3:53
	President Willis Tate of SMU delivered a speech	3:57
	which made big headlines in the Texas papers.	4:00
	It was I thought a moderate but forthright statement	4:05
	of the meaning of academic freedom and of freedom	4:09
	in a free society and a defense university	4:14
	gets some of its critics.	4:17
	It may seem strange to you all	4:21
	but there are people in our part of the world	4:23
	who think a university ought to stay quiet in its corner,	4:25
	save for its football team	4:30
	or else come forth only as the sanctifier of the status quo.	4:32
	We've been criticized, imagine it	4:38
	for having communist books in our libraries	4:40
	for having visiting lecturer	4:43
	who come under the dire suspicion of being controversial	4:45
	for having a desegregated divinity school	4:52
	and now a law school and presently a graduate school,	4:55
	for holding labor seminars and management institutions,	4:59
	for sponsoring a freedom agenda project	5:03
	and other such things.	5:06
	In reply President Tate said	5:09
	what any good educator would say pointed out	5:11
	that the good university is by very nature	5:13
	of forum and the laboratory where ideas and projects	5:17
	are examined and tested and where truth is served best	5:21
	by being considered conscientiously.	5:26
	Free universities he said are not a luxury	5:30
	in a free society, they are a necessity	5:33
	and there are risks we run, but they are well worth taking.	5:37
	Now the interesting thing is that such a speech made news,	5:44
	made the headlines and gave a great lift of heart	5:50
	to the whole university community.	5:56
	Do you see, freedom is in one sense a commonplace thing	6:00
	that we take for granted,	6:05
	in another sense it is a miracle that has to happen	6:10
	over and over again.	6:14
	It is an inalienable right as we all learned	6:17
	in the fourth grade, but it is a right that must be renewed	6:20
	from generation to generation, from crisis to crisis	6:25
	for freedom is not only a right, it is also an obligation.	6:30
	The first part of freedom so to say is freedom from,	6:36
	from external compulsion, from arbitrary demands	6:42
	and restrictions, from tyranny in its many masks	6:47
	but there's always a second part to freedom.	6:53
	This is freedom for,	6:57
	freedom to think but to think cogently, critically,	7:01
	constructively, freedom to speak,	7:08
	to speak carefully, responsibly,	7:12
	freedom to worship reverently, honestly,	7:16
	freedom for a self-directed life	7:22
	which freely seeks and shares the responsibilities	7:25
	of such a life.	7:29
	America was born with a thirst for liberty.	7:32
	Personal liberties for the common man,	7:37
	political liberty within the frame of the common welfare,	7:40
	economic liberty to seek and to enjoy the fruits	7:44
	of enterprise and good fortune,	7:48
	religious liberty to worship God according to Conscious.	7:50
	Thus when a theological student at Andover in 1832	7:56
	with the exquisitely prosaic name of Sam Smith	8:01
	sat down to compose a patriotic hymn,	8:07
	they have it somewhat in disuse in our theological schools	8:11
	that might be revived if it could be done well,	8:16
	he spoke naturally of our sweet land of liberty,	8:20
	of sweet freedom saw and of freedom's holy life.	8:26
	For freedom is a holy thing.	8:34
	It is not merely a good thing	8:38
	for those who can win or keep it.	8:39
	It is the life and breath of a whole and healthy	8:42
	and humane society.	8:48
	And freedom is constantly in danger.	8:52
	The cause of freedom is in perpetual risk.	8:56
	Great irony isn't it that after a full century	9:02
	of what Professor HI Fisher called the liberal experiment	9:05
	the cause of liberty in the mid 20th century	9:10
	has been and still is in mortal danger.	9:13
	There are the open enemies of freedom.	9:19
	The totalitarians of various sorts, foreign and domestic,	9:22
	the communists and the fascists and the patriots	9:28
	with bloodshot eyes who see disloyalty	9:32
	in nonconformity and treason in descent.	9:35
	Now it is a fine old American custom	9:40
	to denounce one's opponents,	9:43
	political or theological or otherwise as skulls and horse	9:45
	and fools and natives.	9:52
	And for a man to take Umbridge at such that	9:55
	simply shows that he is too thin skinned for public life.	9:58
	But we have come to a day when it becomes fearfully easy	10:04
	to raise the hue and cry of treason and apostasy	10:08
	and requiring the accused to prove that he is innocent.	10:13
	But freedom has its covert enemies as well.	10:20
	And they are nearer home than we sometimes realize.	10:23
	David Riesman has called our attention	10:29
	to the prevalence in our society	10:33
	of what he calls other directed behavior.	10:35
	Now, most of us would resent any open infringement	10:39
	on our freedom of choice.	10:44
	Yet most of us are readily and happily seduced	10:48
	by the fads and the fashions of our set	10:53
	of our peer groups and our favorite TV shows.	10:57
	And my daughter uses the lipstick and nail polish	11:02
	that is advertised on the $64,000 question	11:08
	and takes a rather dim view of a minister father	11:12
	who prefers Vivaldi to jazz.	11:15
	Proud Texas men are meekly adopting the Ivy League look.	11:21
	(audience laughing)	11:27
	Which may be the last major cultural contribution	11:30
	of the Northeast to American culture.	11:33
	And my 12 year old son having recently recovered	11:36
	from the David Crockett binge	11:41
	now goes marching around the house,	11:44
	yelling Vaughn Monroe's latest evaluation	11:47
	of something about black denim trousers and motorcycle boots	11:50
	and a horse high jacket with an eagle on the back.	11:55
	And he wants a hopped up sickle.	12:00
	Now all of this, I can happily endure as indeed I must.	12:05
	If there were not so many other kinds	12:10
	of critical, unexamined, unfree behavior among people	12:13
	who have or are about to get a printed parchment	12:22
	certifying that they are liberally educated	12:26
	and have earned their citizenship in the company	12:30
	of thoughtful and responsible men and women.	12:33
	For most of the mindless antics of our time are performed	12:38
	by college graduates.	12:42
	You see, this is the devastating indictment	12:46
	of higher education in America	12:48
	that as the proportion of college graduates rises steadily	12:51
	in our population, the level of political sanity,	12:54
	of racial justice and civic responsibility in our society	12:57
	barely holds its own, if that.	13:02
	Freedom from tyranny does not automatically generate	13:07
	freedom to or for responsible living.	13:12
	I suppose that in your religious emphasis weeks here,	13:18
	you have one of the usual seminars or workshops	13:21
	on courtship and merit.	13:25
	As I remember at this year we're being brought	13:29
	to a high level of scientific precision in these parts,	13:32
	even back in the old days when I was around.	13:34
	And it may be that you have heard of a title	13:38
	now much in favor for such group.	13:40
	Maybe you use the title,	13:42
	it runs in the form of a question, are you fit to be tied?	13:44
	This is an important question for collegiate people	13:51
	who are usually eager to answer, oh yes but definitely,	13:57
	but it also has an opposite number which is equally urgent,	14:05
	both for collegians and for the rest of us,	14:09
	are you fit to be loose?	14:14
	Can society honestly hope that your experience and training	14:18
	in a great university like this will provide you	14:23
	with the habits and the temple of responsible and critical	14:29
	and intelligent freedom?	14:36
	Can we feel confident that you are here acquiring the power	14:40
	of self direction and the wisdom to guide the power	14:46
	you are gaining or are colleges and universities	14:52
	training a generation of youngsters really fit to be free,	14:56
	really ready to add to the strength and substance	15:01
	of a democratic society?	15:06
	Now it is basically wrong to ask of a university	15:10
	that it should brand its students with a common tag	15:14
	that it should arrange or rearrange their prejudices	15:18
	to a party line, glib with similar chivalrous and cliches.	15:21
	Our zeal for the truth is badly misguided	15:29
	when we coerced men into agreement or turned back over	15:32
	and enraged on those who stubbornly resist the true faith	15:38
	as we dispense it.	15:43
	One of the mortal dangers in these days is just this demand	15:46
	that all men in the name of some holy cause or other	15:50
	should suspend and stifle their critical judgements	15:55
	their frank curiosity about both sides	15:58
	of a controversial issue, their impulse to speak up	16:01
	and speak out against the wrong they are given to see.	16:04
	And by the light and conscience they have to judge between	16:08
	the right and the wrong.	16:12
	But if educated dogs and educated men	16:15
	are to exercise their right to freedom more boldly,	16:18
	and our community has been our shame.	16:23
	We must also ask ourselves if our skills and judgment,	16:27
	our learning and wisdom are rooted in	16:32
	a moral and religious understanding of existence	16:37
	which will support us in this courage and determination	16:41
	to breathe free.	16:46
	Are we whose holy life is freedom	16:49
	fit to have and to enjoy the blessings of liberty?	16:55
	Who then is fit to be free?	17:02
	We should have to start negatively.	17:07
	In the first place, it is increasingly clear	17:09
	that the clever predator, whether in wolf	17:12
	or sheep's clothing is not fit to be free.	17:17
	We're learning this the hard way aren't we?	17:24
	Just as if Plato's Republic had never been written	17:26
	and just as if the fate of the bully boys from Julius Caesar	17:29
	to Nicki Takusha had not been told in a thousand ways	17:33
	yet there are still those among us, often BMOC	17:40
	and chain swingers who still believe that justice	17:46
	is nothing more, nor less than the advantage of the stronger	17:51
	or the more clever.	17:56
	Thus (indistinct) thus Machiavelli, thus Hitler and Stalin	17:59
	and Mao Tse-tung and all the sawdust Caesars	18:05
	in politics and business and the military	18:08
	and the army, the Navy, the church and the state.	18:12
	It is an ancient lie but a perennially plausible one,	18:17
	even more plausible now that the modern creditor,	18:20
	the Madison Avenue man has the immense and available power	18:23
	of mass communication and propaganda accessible.	18:28
	But any man whose concern is chiefly his own advancement	18:33
	may acquire some of the trappings of education	18:37
	and learn some devilishly useful things about sheep sharing	18:41
	but he will never be an educated man.	18:46
	And if education serves mainly to increase the scope	18:50
	and cleverness of aggressive living,	18:54
	then education will have served to open the floodgate	18:57
	to barbarism.	19:01
	The educated pillager is not fit to be free	19:03
	for his freedom is a menace to freedom itself.	19:07
	Second, it is painfully clear that the cultivated parasite	19:12
	is not fit to be free.	19:15
	Though it is thought commonplace	19:17
	that each generation has to learn it for itself.	19:19
	Education and technology have given us a broader base	19:23
	of economic prosperity than any generation in human history.	19:26
	And yet there are all too many among us	19:30
	who are more concerned to live richly	19:33
	off the good things supplied by a rich country	19:35
	than to find good causes worth discipline, devotion,	19:39
	and sacrificial living.	19:43
	Now you would think me stuffy if I invaded	19:47
	against suburbia Americana with its flashy cars	19:49
	and social callousness and country club universities,	19:55
	its smartly groomed and feather headed cyber rights,	19:59
	its suspicion of eggheads and its boy scout Christianity.	20:03
	And so I will refrain for I too live in a suburb	20:09
	of a very fashionable city and my children are clamoring	20:13
	for a new car and their unanimous choice	20:16
	is bright red and cream.	20:19
	A nation can afford, a nation like ours	20:24
	can afford a small fraction of high fashioned drones	20:26
	and drifters, but not many.	20:30
	And these must be offset by a larger number	20:33
	of gifted and trained and privileged men and women	20:36
	eager to give more to the world than they take from it.	20:41
	The sophisticated parasite is not really fit to be free	20:46
	for his freedom saps the substance of freedom	20:49
	in our society and in our world.	20:52
	In the third place the uncultivated specialist or technician	20:55
	is not really fit to be free.	21:01
	A technological society must have technicians	21:05
	and we need more and better ones than we have.	21:08
	We need more engineers, more scientists	21:11
	more professional and business experts.	21:14
	And we need them more highly trained	21:17
	capable of manning the frontiers of their respective fields	21:19
	and pushing them back.	21:23
	But the specialist who is not also trained to think,	21:26
	to judge and to act wisely in the broad human issues of life	21:29
	with the resources of arts and letters of philosophy	21:34
	and religion is still a highly specialized barbarian.	21:38
	He can do his own job but he cannot be a whole person	21:45
	fully responsive to and responsible for the basic values	21:49
	of a sane society.	21:54
	The uneducated expert is not fit to be free	21:56
	for he will not be able to judge wisely	21:59
	of the goals and uses of his freedom.	22:02
	Who then is fit to be free if the predator,	22:07
	the parasite, the merely learned, the merely brave are not?	22:10
	Now here I wish I had a really dramatic answer,	22:16
	but I haven't.	22:20
	My only claim part is that it's true.	22:22
	Only the good are fit to be free.	22:26
	Well, before your tension sags	22:32
	in the face of this dread bare anti climax.	22:34
	Let me rush on to say what I mean by goodness	22:38
	and where I believe its source to lie.	22:42
	By the good man fit to be free I do not mean the nice,	22:46
	the sweet, the unoffended.	22:51
	I do not mean the fellow who accepts the canons	22:54
	of respectability and calls that Christianity.	22:56
	I do not mean the pious, the utopian, the sentimentalist,	23:00
	the duke for fair promises and false hope	23:04
	will sucker who is bait for the predator	23:09
	and host to the parasite.	23:12
	The good man fit to be free is a man who has come	23:15
	to love the truth and to live by it	23:20
	who has learned to know the world he lives in	23:23
	through the disciplines of the sciences	23:27
	and to know himself and his fellows	23:30
	by the wisdom of the humanities.	23:32
	He is a person who has acquired something	23:36
	of the gift of detachment and disinterestedness	23:39
	in estimating his own concerns and commitments.	23:42
	He is a man who has some constant vital devotion	23:46
	to a cause greater and higher and more worthy than himself.	23:50
	He is a man who's learning has loosed him	23:57
	or is in the process of losing him from his prejudices.	24:00
	And his habits of prejudgment	24:05
	and his imitated or borrowed notions brought from home	24:08
	and custom in society.	24:12
	He is a man whose courage lifts him above the fear	24:15
	of the crowd and compels him to a creative maladjustment	24:18
	in our society.	24:23
	He is a man whose intelligence is the instrument of his love	24:26
	whose love and faith are grounded in his confidence	24:30
	and trust in the power of the truth and the good.	24:33
	The good man belongs to a family, to a class, to a race,	24:39
	to a land and to a nation.	24:43
	And he loves and serves them all.	24:45
	But he knows that each of these is a lesser value	24:47
	that must be brought to and submitted to the judgment	24:52
	of the truth and righteousness that stands above each one	24:58
	and binds them all into the greater good.	25:03
	The good man is one who's morality does not flow	25:07
	from the fear of the law or the ploddage of his neighbors	25:10
	but comes from a steady assurance	25:17
	in the right and a deep love of it beyond mere calculation.	25:20
	I have here described the good man.	25:26
	It is also a description of an educated man.	25:29
	And this is what education is for,	25:32
	to furnish the nation and the nations	25:35
	with men and women of this spirit	25:37
	and this heart and this mind	25:39
	for they will be free and they will be fit to be free.	25:41
	For with them, freedom will be a living thing	25:45
	which begets freedom for others and binds free men	25:48
	to the good.	25:53
	Now where shall we turn to seek and find such goodness?	25:56
	In our own hearts, in our own width and will and wisdom.	26:00
	in the power we have to make out of ourselves	26:07
	what we desire to be?	26:11
	I don't suppose it would be irreverent to say	26:16
	are you kidding?	26:18
	Where then shall we look for the source of freedom	26:21
	for we cannot find it in ourselves.	26:28
	And here, the Christian gospel has a word,	26:32
	a word of judgment, a word of repent, a word of hope.	26:34
	It tells us that our freedom is a gift from God,	26:42
	is a project of God's creative and redemptive endeavor	26:49
	in his world.	26:53
	It tells us of God's holy imperative that his children	26:55
	love each other mutually and himself supremely.	26:59
	It tells us that freedom is finite and always coils back	27:03
	upon itself in futility and sin unless we use it freely	27:08
	and faithfully in the service of righteousness.	27:15
	The gospel calls us to an honest look at our sins,	27:21
	our shortcomings, and our insufficiency.	27:25
	And calls us to see the manifold signs and words	27:31
	of demonstration, of the extravagant love	27:38
	and goodness of God, who in Christ Jesus	27:41
	reveals his love and is reconciling us to himself.	27:44
	It is the Christian gospel, which invites us to a fellowship	27:52
	of men depending on God, rather than themselves	27:57
	for the light and the grace and the leading	28:05
	to build a good society in which men can be free	28:10
	and freely good.	28:13
	Thus, the gospel stirs in our hearts,	28:16
	the inner impulses of spontaneous gratitude to God	28:19
	whose grace is the power of our goodness,	28:24
	whose service is our perfect freedom.	28:29
	For inner freedom and true moralities spring up together.	28:33
	And they spring from the hall but they are called out	28:36
	by our response in faith to God,	28:40
	the God who meets us in Jesus Christ	28:44
	whose grace is our salvation,	28:47
	whose righteous and loving will is the structure	28:50
	of our freedom.	28:54
	Here in your college days, you have a great privilege	28:56
	and an opportunity to find your own stance in life	29:00
	to discover life's vital center, to learn to distinguish	29:03
	between the true and the false norms of freedom.	29:08
	Are you finding here these inner impulses	29:12
	to be a good person springing up from within	29:17
	so that your standards of self discipline, freedom	29:22
	come not from your peer groups,	29:25
	but from your inner conscience and intelligence	29:28
	and humble faith,	29:34
	are you discovering that the courage to be free	29:37
	is the courage to be good?	29:43
	And the courage to be good is the courage to be free	29:47
	for our courage comes from God who in Jesus Christ	29:53
	sets us free from the law and claims us for the life	30:00
	of righteousness.	30:06
	Are you fit to be free?	30:09
	Your answer to this must depend on your own response	30:12
	to the rich privileges and opportunities which you have	30:16
	in these days and in this place	30:19
	for here you can develop every dawning insight	30:22
	into this mystery and wonder of Christian freedom.	30:26
	Here within and beyond the educational process itself.	30:30
	You can come to know that truth is in order to goodness	30:34
	that only goodness fits a man	30:42
	for fully free and human living.	30:45
	And you can come to know the meaning and the promise	30:49
	that we shall know the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.	30:52
	And this truth shall make us free, not for ourselves alone	30:58
	cause that's not true freedom,	31:06
	but free among and for our fellows and all God's children,	31:08
	all God's children since it is his manifest goodwill	31:18
	that all men shall come to know and to love him.	31:23
	And in this knowledge and love be blessed forever more.	31:30
	But you've been called to freedom my brothers,	31:38
	only be sure not to let your freedom be an excuse	31:43
	for self indulge instead be willing in love	31:47
	to serve one another for the whole moral law	31:54
	is summed up in one word.	31:58
	You shall love your neighbor, that is any man	32:00
	in need of what you can offer as yourself.	32:03
	Let us pray.	32:09
	Almighty God in knowledge of whom standards our eternal life	32:17
	who services our perfect freedom,	32:20
	call us ever and again to face up to the meaning	32:24
	of thy gift of freedom to us	32:27
	and thy claim upon our wills freely to love and serve thee	32:29
	and thy kingdom not only with our lips, but in our lives.	32:34
	And these great days of crisis, decision and opportunity	32:39
	give us the courage and the--	32:43

-	Feelings about the efficacy of blind faith.	0:03
	It is not an easy thing to take up once again	0:07
	the sins that we have cast so prematurely upon Jesus.	0:10
	But if the struggle seems impossible,	0:16
	if the going seems beyond our strength,	0:19
	we can remember that while it was written,	0:24
	"I was sent only to the lost sheep	0:26
	of the household of Israel."	0:28
	It has also been written,	0:31
	"God, from these stones,	0:34
	can raise up children unto Abraham."	0:38
	Let us pray.	0:44

Item Info

Title:

Albert Cook Outler - "Fit to be Free" (October 16, 1955)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4xp7046p

Date:

October 16, 1955

Speaker:

Outler, Albert C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0012
ref5247_63o
uachapelsermaud
duke:627920
dcrau002066
ark:/87924/r4xp7046p
66f4031a-c87d-4c9d-af97-dae8b55e9c9b

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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In Copyright

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