Robert E. Cushman - "Thoughts on the University" (May 17, 1970)

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	(soft hymnal music)	0:04
	(choir singing)	0:10
-	If we say we have no sin,	2:55
	we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.	3:00
	Therefore, let us offer unto God,	3:07
	a prayer of confession.	3:10
	Let us pray.	3:13
	Eternal Father, who art not only all mighty,	3:16
	but all holy,	3:22
	we cannot praise Thy glorious name	3:25
	without remembering that we are sinners.	3:29
	Yet we want to forget that we are supposed to think	3:34
	Thy thoughts after Thee,	3:38
	that we ought to behave as members of my family,	3:42
	that we are looked upon by Thee, and by our fellows,	3:48
	as Thy representatives on Earth.	3:53
	We find the strain of living the Godly life too much.	3:58
	We're baffled and disappointed by the contrast	4:05
	between what we're meant to be and what we are.	4:09
	But we come back ashamed of our performance,	4:16
	yet aware that we are not ourselves,	4:23
	when we stay away from Thee.	4:27
	We ask in humble confidence for forgiveness,	4:31
	for more than forgiveness.	4:38
	On this Whit Sunday, we ask for Thy Spirit within us.	4:44
	That our own self-centered lives may be displaced	4:52
	by Thy presence to the end that we may behave	4:57
	like men and women whom thou has made Thy known,	5:01
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	5:07
	And hear these words of assurance	5:14
	from the New Testament that He is a God who forgives sin.	5:16
	Who is like unto God, who pardons iniquity	5:24
	and passes over transgression.	5:29
	He does not retain His anger forever	5:33
	because He delights in steadfast love.	5:37
	He will again have compassion upon us.	5:42
	He will tread our iniquities underfoot.	5:45
	He will cast all our sins in the depths of the sea.	5:49
	Jesus said, "Him who comes to me,	5:56
	I will not cast out."	6:01
	Our sins are forgiven for His sake.	6:06
	Therefore be of good courage.	6:11
	And so let us offer unto God,	6:16
	a unison prayer of Thanksgiving.	6:19
	For all the things for which we have never	6:26
	given You thanks oh Lord, we humbly bow our hearts.	6:29
	For common things of Earth,	6:35
	which sustain our bodies in health and strength,	6:37
	though we pay scant attention to them, we thank You.	6:41
	For far off things in the ages passed,	6:46
	or in lands distant from us,	6:50
	which enlarge our heritage and expand our horizons,	6:52
	we give You thanks.	6:57
	For invisible things of Heaven and Earth	7:00
	which sweeten life with beauty and grace,	7:03
	we express our thanks.	7:07
	For things of the Spirit,	7:09
	which disclose to us the beauty of Your holiness	7:11
	and sanctify the passing time with eternal meaning,	7:15
	we give You thanks.	7:20
	For things bought with a great price	7:22
	given to us without cost, by which we are deepened	7:25
	and heightened to the measure of Christ Our Lord,	7:30
	we give You thanks.	7:34
	Though there be no end to Your gifts,	7:36
	help us to remember them as they are revealed to us	7:39
	day by day.	7:43
	Amen.	7:46
	(soft hymnal music)	8:42
-	The scripture lesson is taken today	11:29
	from Isaiah 6:1-8,	11:32
	1 John 1:5-10.	11:37
	"In the year that King Uzziah died,	11:42
	I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up	11:45
	and His train filled the temple.	11:50
	Above Him stood the Seraphim.	11:52
	Each had six wings with two, He covered his face,	11:55
	and with two He covered his feet.	11:59
	And with two He flew.	12:01
	And one called to another and said,	12:04
	'Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.	12:07
	The whole world is full of His glory.'	12:11
	And the foundations of the thresholds shook	12:14
	at the voice of Him who called	12:17
	and the house was filled with smoke.	12:19
	And I said, 'Woe is me for I am lost,	12:22
	for I am a man of unclean lips	12:26
	and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.	12:29
	For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'	12:33
	Then flew one of the Seraphim to me	12:37
	having in his hand a burning coal	12:40
	which he had taken with tongs from the altar.	12:41
	And he touched my mouth and said,	12:45
	'Behold, this has touched your lips.	12:47
	Your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven.'	12:50
	And I heard the voice of the Lord saying,	12:55
	'Whom shall I send and who will go with us?'	12:58
	Then I said, 'Here I am, send me.'"	13:01
	"The light shines in darkness,	13:09
	and the darkness has not overcome it.	13:11
	There was a man sent from God whose name was John.	13:14
	He came for testimony to bear witness to the light	13:17
	that all might believe through him.	13:21
	He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.	13:24
	The true light that enlightens every man	13:28
	was coming into the world.	13:30
	He was in the world and the world was made through Him	13:31
	yet the world knew Him not."	13:35
	(choir singing a hymnal song)	13:48
-	The Lord be with you.	14:21
-	And also with you.	14:23
-	Let us pray.	14:24
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession	14:31
	for all conditions of men.	14:33
	Loving and Holy Spirit of God,	14:38
	we pray that we and all men may increasingly work together.	14:42
	That Thy will may be done on the Earth.	14:48
	That the resources of the Earth may be gathered,	14:52
	distributed and used with unselfish motives	14:56
	and scientific skill for the benefit of all.	15:01
	That beauty may be given to our towns	15:07
	and left to our countryside.	15:11
	That children may be finally bred and finally trained	15:15
	that there may be open ways and peace and freedom	15:22
	from end to end of all the Earth.	15:30
	That all men may learn goodwill	15:35
	through keeping Thy company,	15:38
	through love for Jesus Christ, our Lord.	15:42
	And let us offer a prayer of intercession	15:48
	for national unity.	15:50
	Remember oh Lord the nation to which we belong	15:54
	that in righteousness and truth, we may be established.	15:58
	Extend for Thy mercy's sake, Thy blessing to this our land.	16:04
	That within this realm of different races,	16:10
	peace may rain and prosperity	16:15
	with love of right and justice.	16:20
	Help us better to understand and love those	16:25
	who are of a different race or color from ourselves.	16:28
	Remembering that we are all members of the one family.	16:34
	Overcome in us, any want of charity,	16:40
	any manner of prejudice.	16:45
	By Thy more abounding goodness and loving kindness,	16:48
	may our agreements be greater than our differences	16:53
	and may our unity in Thee	16:58
	sanctify all our natural diversities of opinion.	17:00
	Grant that there may be open ways and peace and freedom	17:06
	from end to end of the nation.	17:11
	And let us offer a prayer of supplication	17:18
	for all who worship with us in these chapel services.	17:23
	Almighty God whose house this is,	17:28
	we ask Thy blessing for many people as we come toward	17:32
	the last Lord's Day of another regular academic year.	17:38
	On those who with diligence and preparation have led us	17:45
	in the ministry of the word, spoken and preached,	17:48
	on those who have led us in the ministry of music	17:54
	our choir, our director, our organist, our calender.	17:58
	All of whom have helped us make a joyful noise unto Thee.	18:06
	On those who have guided us in the ministry of the liturgy,	18:13
	bringing out of their treasures prayers,	18:19
	old and new, corporate and individual,	18:21
	to comfort and to shock, but always to glorify Thee.	18:27
	On those who have occupied the pews,	18:36
	the ministry of the pew,	18:39
	and have made our worship corporate,	18:42
	by prayer and praise and listening.	18:46
	From the university community, from the town,	18:52
	from far places, strangers in our midst,	18:58
	who are well known to Thee,	19:03
	and those who have carried out the ministry of service,	19:07
	ushers and collectors, chapel guides and chapel monitors	19:11
	and chapel hostesses,	19:18
	secretaries and janitors and maids	19:21
	whose work is so necessary for our wellbeing and Thy glory.	19:25
	Bless them all oh Lord.	19:32
	Bless them, everyone	19:35
	that has offered a special prayer of supplication	19:40
	on this Whit Sunday,	19:43
	send we beseech Thee all Mighty God Thy Holy Spirit	19:45
	into our hearts, that He may direct and rule us	19:49
	according to Thy will,	19:53
	comfort us in all our affections,	19:56
	defend us from error and lead us into truth	20:00
	through Jesus Christ our Lord,	20:06
	who with Thee and the same Holy Spirit	20:08
	liveth and reignth one God, we're old without Him.	20:12
	And now as our savior Christ has taught us	20:18
	we humbly pray together saying	20:21
	our Father who art in Heaven,	20:25
	hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come,	20:28
	Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.	20:32
	Give us this day our daily bread	20:37
	and forgive us our trespasses	20:40
	as we forgive those who trespass against us	20:43
	and lead us not into temptation,	20:46
	but deliver us from evil for Thine is the kingdom,	20:49
	and the power, and the glory, forever.	20:53
	Amen.	20:58
-	Provide you with the scriptural	21:39
	basis of what I undertake to say this morning.	21:46
	I read from Philippians 4: 8-9.	21:50
	"Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true,	22:01
	whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just,	22:06
	whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,	22:13
	whatsoever things are of good report.	22:21
	If there be any virtue and if there be any praise,	22:25
	think on these things.	22:30
	And the things which ye both learned and received	22:34
	and heard and saw in me,	22:37
	these do.	22:41
	And the God of peace shall be with you."	22:46
	If I mistake not the nation is deeply troubled, these days.	22:58
	Some universities are in partial disarray,	23:07
	many seas with unrest,	23:12
	academic life is disturbed,	23:16
	studies are in jeopardy,	23:20
	students are aroused and profoundly stirred,	23:24
	teachers are disquieted,	23:30
	administrators alternate between hope and despair.	23:34
	The fact is that Cambodia touched off	23:41
	the smoldering pile of young adult resentment.	23:44
	To our day protracted war that had already amassed	23:50
	appalling records for debauchery, atrocity and futility.	23:55
	The pattern of turbulence and of closed universities	24:04
	of Southern Europe may in fact, lie ahead of us.	24:08
	Mass education adds to the problem by geometric progression.	24:14
	Not only does it provide arenas for massive ferment,	24:23
	but mass education itself is potentially a reservoir	24:28
	of vast political power for ill or for good.	24:34
	In the face of these realities,	24:42
	it is perhaps already too late.	24:44
	Too late in the day, to hope for a constructive answer	24:47
	to the question, what is the role	24:51
	of the university in today's society?	24:54
	In some ways, the events of the past three years	24:59
	make the answer at all too apparent.	25:02
	For the New Left, the decision has already been made.	25:06
	It holds that the university is a cheap instrument	25:12
	for social revolution.	25:16
	It is just this,	25:20
	that a stooped conservative reactionaries perceive.	25:23
	And it is this which many teachers and scholars	25:29
	pursuing their researchers, with time honored	25:32
	a non-judgemental objectivity have been slow to take in.	25:36
	All decent people inside and outside the universities	25:45
	are aghast over the desperate events at Kent State.	25:49
	And now, at Jackson state.	25:54
	They are also, I believe, bewildered and shocked	25:58
	by recent calculated student indecencies	26:03
	at Princeton in March.	26:07
	These plainly violated standards of academic process	26:10
	and scholarly restraint.	26:14
	Ordinary people do not comprehend	26:17
	disruption of the university	26:21
	when disruption is planned and then justified	26:24
	as an instrument of social protest.	26:28
	They have not up till now, understood that the university	26:32
	is, at all the chief instrument of societal change.	26:37
	They are perhaps still thinking of the university	26:45
	in the manner of John Henry Newman's idea of it.	26:49
	Namely as the place of liberal learning,	26:54
	where knowledge as he said,	26:58
	is capable of being its own inn.	27:00
	Knowledge is capable of being its own inn.	27:05
	In his "Idea of a University," Newman spoke	27:10
	of university education as a comprehensive view of truth	27:15
	in all its branches.	27:20
	This liberal education he taught	27:23
	in genders the philosophic temper,	27:25
	it instills a habit of mind serene and compose,	27:30
	which fosters, as he said, throughout life	27:35
	the personal attributes of freedom, equitableness, calmness,	27:39
	moderation and wisdom.	27:45
	For such conceptions of university education,	27:49
	the platform of the New Left is on the face of it,	27:53
	unintelligible.	27:58
	From the Newman perspective, that of the 19th century,	28:00
	the eloquent defense of Princeton graduate student,	28:05
	Michael Teitelman, on behalf of his fellows,	28:10
	charged with disruption and insubordination	28:14
	must seem incredible and outrageous.	28:17
	He says this,	28:21
	"This is a political trial.	28:25
	And that's what we want everyone to understand.	28:29
	We are not on trial here.	28:33
	What's on trial is the ruling class.	28:36
	It's racism and imperialism.	28:40
	We have said that the real explanation of all that we do	28:43
	in this trial is to be found in the unhuman unfree,	28:47
	repressive social reality about us.	28:52
	We do not deny that we organized the demonstration	28:56
	against Mr. Hickle.	28:59
	We explained why we did so	29:02
	and why we thought he had right to do so.	29:04
	It is not necessary here	29:09
	to enlarge upon the bill of particulars	29:12
	with which Mr. Teitelman indicts the established orders	29:14
	of society, including the university."	29:18
	It suffices to observe two or three things.	29:22
	The first is, that by asserting the political character	29:27
	of the hearing for students charged	29:32
	with violating the university code,	29:34
	Mr. Teitelman means to exempt the defendants	29:38
	from the standards appertaining to their membership	29:41
	in the university community.	29:45
	He does so on grounds of the rightness	29:49
	of their political views.	29:53
	Secondly,	29:57
	and behind this is the premise	30:00
	that the really sufficient reason	30:02
	for continuing university membership,	30:05
	is political enlightenment in liberating social action.	30:08
	Thirdly,	30:15
	that disruption of university practice	30:17
	and academic protocol is nonsensurable	30:19
	if it is politically justifiable.	30:23
	The end justifies the means.	30:27
	Our ends are right.	30:30
	Therefore our behavior, however obnoxious, is justified.	30:32
	But beyond these, is the underlying premise	30:39
	about the nature of the university that justifies	30:43
	this logic of expediency with immunity.	30:47
	It is that the university is at least a staging for	30:51
	perhaps even an instrument of social revolution.	30:57
	Certainly the New Left is not about using the university	31:01
	as such under the guidance of ends taken to be	31:06
	as Teitelman says right.	31:10
	So right indeed.	31:13
	So valid, is the end in view.	31:15
	That even means which denature the university	31:20
	are not deterrents to the apostles of social reform	31:24
	urged on as they are	31:29
	by what they believe to be a justifiable revulsion.	31:32
	Where the oppressive established orders.	31:37
	Both inside and outside the university.	31:40
	The agony of the present day university then,	31:49
	is something like this,	31:52
	it is caught in the pincers of a societal revolution	31:55
	surrounding it.	31:59
	While at the same time,	32:01
	the university is itself disturbed	32:03
	and disrupted from within,	32:05
	by morally defensible outrage against maladies without.	32:09
	It is caught in the middle between societal inaction	32:16
	on the one side, and leftist reaction within.	32:20
	Meanwhile, often as at Princeton,	32:26
	the leftist reactors within, claim all the immunities	32:28
	of the academy while exhibiting the behavior of fanatics.	32:35
	The resulting internal conflict is insupportable.	32:41
	But of all civilized institutions,	32:46
	the university committed as it is	32:48
	to rational inquiry, persuasion	32:52
	and the honor code of the gentlemen.	32:56
	Is most vulnerable to disorder.	32:59
	The discipline of the university is	33:03
	and remain mainly, self discipline.	33:07
	When the university however,	33:12
	becomes the focus of infectious ills	33:13
	of the environing society, it is the first casualty	33:16
	of the prevailing cultural disorder.	33:21
	Liberal education is incompatible with the illiberal spirit.	33:24
	When the latter waxes the former wins.	33:32
	But this special vulnerability is not all	33:38
	that imperils the university.	33:41
	In addition, by its very nature,	33:45
	the university tends to invite however unintentionally,	33:48
	the disorders with which it is presently surely afflicted.	33:53
	For the university is as the medieval school man understood,	33:59
	a microcosm of the world.	34:04
	It is a microcosm of the surrounding culture.	34:07
	In so far as there is reasonable working harmony	34:11
	between the ends or goals of a society	34:14
	and its institutional support of them	34:18
	there is stability.	34:22
	In such a case, there is also stability enough	34:24
	for the peculiar role and function of the university.	34:27
	When the contrary prevails,	34:32
	that is when there is contrariety between new emerging goals	34:34
	and the institutional vehicles for their realization.	34:40
	Then the resulting ferment and strife	34:45
	in the surrounding culture	34:47
	first comes to articulate consciousness in the university,	34:50
	as the microcosm of the macrocosm.	34:55
	To be more explicit.	35:00
	It is the nature of the academy	35:04
	from the time of Plato,	35:07
	that it should proceed on the Socratic premise	35:10
	that the unexamined life is not worth living.	35:13
	And that therefore, the purpose of the academy	35:17
	is just exactly to examine life as it is being lived	35:20
	to the end of its progressive betterment.	35:24
	In a sense, the academy has always stood then	35:28
	in the role of critic of the established	35:32
	or prevailing culture.	35:34
	That is why, the gown and the town	35:37
	have frequently experienced some measure of estrangement	35:41
	and some need of reconciliation.	35:45
	But in times of vast cultural revision,	35:50
	when the nicest of history moves toward	35:54
	the renovation of cultural forms	35:57
	in the interest of squaring the practices of society	35:59
	with a larger human good.	36:03
	This need, frequently has its initial acknowledgement	36:07
	in the university.	36:12
	Here, the inequality or contrariety	36:15
	between the things that are,	36:18
	and the things that ought to be,	36:21
	comes first to disquieting awareness.	36:24
	And in our time of immense societal distortion,	36:28
	stubbornly resistant it seems,	36:32
	to humane solutions by way of present modes of political	36:35
	and institutional response,	36:39
	the university tends to become	36:42
	the home of radical solutions to societal ills.	36:44
	All this obtained while the ailing society is laggard,	36:50
	either frankly to acknowledge its sickness	36:55
	or to seek a cure.	36:59
	So, the university spawns social activists,	37:04
	students and faculty with varying degrees	37:10
	of revolutionary commitment.	37:14
	Among these,	37:17
	the most zealous like those at Princeton lately,	37:19
	are not above turning the academy	37:23
	into an instrument of social revolution.	37:25
	Even disrupting the educational process itself	37:30
	in the interest of radical renovation of the political order	37:33
	and its economic phase.	37:37
	Their strength lamentably,	37:40
	is that they have too good a case against society.	37:44
	But at the same time,	37:50
	they denature the function of the academy	37:52
	by using it as a political tool.	37:55
	So it has come to pass	37:59
	that the currently ascendant idea of the university	38:02
	is that of the New Left.	38:06
	They hold that the university	38:08
	is properly an agent of societal change,	38:10
	at times they act and speak	38:14
	as if the university should become the church.	38:16
	It cannot be denied that in some part	38:21
	they represent a rebirth of conscience	38:23
	of which the church should always be the promoter.	38:25
	But prompted by great righteous indignation,	38:30
	these apostles of social reform	38:33
	have their residents in the academy.	38:36
	Yet the academy is not the church.	38:39
	And unlike the church,	38:42
	the academy has not required that its members be regenerate.	38:44
	But apostles of righteousness who are not regenerate	38:49
	may easily become fanatics.	38:53
	New Left does I think, however,	38:59
	follow in some part, the admonition of St. John,	39:05
	in his first epistle.	39:09
	It comprehends, what in fact,	39:12
	the academy has characteristically been slow to acknowledge,	39:16
	perhaps almost by function.	39:21
	This namely,	39:25
	that the truth is not something to be known only	39:27
	or always to be being sought after,	39:33
	but rather that the truth is something to be done,	39:37
	and now.	39:41
	The New Left in part then seems to hear	39:46
	what church men ought always to hear.	39:49
	"If we say that we have fellowship with Him," says St. John,	39:54
	"And walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth."	40:00
	It is the New Testament and the church	40:09
	which always say that the truth is for doing.	40:12
	The New Left is urging	40:18
	that there is no more needed pedagogy among us.	40:20
	And no Christian can quite deny it.	40:25
	The fact is that the truth for doing as St. Paul declared	40:30
	is just exactly the trinity of faith, hope and love.	40:34
	And the exasperating thing, is that the New Left	40:41
	concurs with St. James, that faith without works is dead.	40:45
	Nevertheless,	40:52
	the academic apostles of social righteousness	40:55
	are mainly blind or perhaps just uninformed,	41:00
	respecting Isaiah's authentic apostolic calling.	41:06
	They are unaware that just because he was a man	41:11
	of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips,	41:15
	Isaiah could not be trusted with mission	41:21
	until he had acknowledged his complicity	41:23
	in the sin and guilt of his own people.	41:25
	He could not be trusted with mission	41:29
	until he had been cleansed for mission.	41:31
	He was not sent until he had received	41:35
	the grace of a divinal forgiveness,	41:37
	which preserves righteous indignation	41:40
	from supercilious fanaticism.	41:42
	From the Princeton Weekly,	41:46
	nothing is playing or respecting the academic apostles	41:49
	or some of them, the academic apostles of righteousness	41:52
	and is declared in Proverbs.	41:56
	"This is a generation that curse their father	41:58
	and bless not their mother,	42:01
	this is a generation that are pure in their own eyes	42:04
	and yet are not washed from their filthiness."	42:07
	Now the biblical view of man does not indulge	42:13
	such an interpretation of the generation gap	42:19
	as were distinguished between one generation	42:23
	and its successor by the sinfulness of the former	42:25
	and the righteousness of the latter.	42:28
	Nevertheless, only invincible ignorance would deny	42:32
	that the young adult generation are warranted	42:36
	in some very grave indictments	42:39
	they bring against contemporary American society.	42:42
	What happened at Kent State and perhaps at Jackson,	42:49
	is a frightening disclosure I fear	42:55
	of the moral sickness of our culture.	42:57
	Surely it is a time of peril for any nation	43:02
	when agents of government charged with maintaining the peace	43:07
	resort to overwhelming force	43:12
	against an indiscriminate body of unarmed citizenry,	43:14
	especially youthful ones.	43:20
	Such official excess,	43:23
	is probable evidence, as was stated by John W. Gardener	43:27
	this week in the New York Times,	43:31
	that "We are," says he,	43:34
	"Dealing with this integrative forces	43:35
	that threaten our survival as a society."	43:38
	As for the universities,	43:43
	and I speak after nearly 30 years experience	43:46
	in three such institutions,	43:49
	the universities, as microcosms,	43:52
	cannot sustain much longer the inner turmoil engendered	43:57
	by the unresolved ills of the larger society.	44:01
	After nearly three years of internal divisiveness,	44:06
	the universities are becoming disfunctional.	44:11
	It is true as Mr. John Gardner,	44:16
	also is reported to have said,	44:18
	that today's divisiveness is not confined to one issue.	44:22
	"There are multiple points of conflict," he said,	44:28
	"The war, race, the economy, political ideology.	44:31
	There are multiple risks," he said,	44:38
	"Between the old and the young, between the regions	44:41
	between social classes."	44:45
	This is all true.	44:49
	Yet I suspect,	44:51
	so far as the universities are concerned,	44:53
	it is much as I wrote to the Divinity School alumni	44:56
	a year ago, namely this,	44:59
	that until the futility of Vietnam is retired	45:02
	with its violation of conscience,	45:06
	the skepticism of youth toward the wisdom of their elders	45:09
	and the propriety of established orders will not receive.	45:12
	Vietnam is the scandalous symbol	45:17
	of the bankruptcy of capitalistic democracies	45:20
	way of meeting the future or dealing with human destiny	45:23
	by stereotyped and outworn patterns of response.	45:26
	More than anything, and I still believe it,	45:31
	it epitomizes the frustration of the young	45:36
	with the shear inertia of the established.	45:39
	And I would affirm again what I then declared	45:44
	that unless creativity replaces inertia,	45:46
	Vietnam may turn out to be the fatal nemesis	45:50
	of the American way of life,	45:53
	it's dissolution of confidence.	45:55
	This past week, Mr. Gardener declared that	46:00
	"A crisis of confidence is indeed upon him."	46:06
	He said, "We must move vigorously	46:11
	to solve our most crucial problems	46:15
	and we must seek a healing of the spirit of the nation."	46:17
	He is right.	46:24
	And it was in commentary upon these words	46:26
	that the Times noted this, that almost two years ago,	46:29
	the National Commission on Causes and Prevention of Violence	46:37
	warned that the greatest threat to American survival	46:40
	was not from without, but from within.	46:45
	Therefore, we might begin to see,	46:51
	however be late it be,	46:57
	that the real enemies are as the scripture says,	46:59
	those of our own household, including us.	47:03
	And it is this unblankable fact I believe,	47:09
	that simply renders obsolete	47:13
	the premises and consequent policies	47:16
	that seem to justify Vietnam in the first place.	47:19
	Certainly they are now discredited	47:24
	for any further extension of the wall.	47:26
	And that is the scandal of Cambodia.	47:30
	It not only offends	47:33
	against the decent opinion of mankind,	47:34
	to use the words of Jefferson,	47:37
	but flies in the face of reason itself, too many.	47:38
	There's one student from Pfeiffer this week rightly wrote,	47:44
	"It seems an invitation to societal suicide."	47:48
	What if there is to be,	47:55
	as Gardener has urged,	47:58
	a healing of the spirit of the nation.	48:01
	Then surely there must be in addition	48:04
	to acknowledgement of our moral blame as a people,	48:08
	may recovery of moral integrity	48:13
	and above all a recovery of vision.	48:16
	If as Proverbs puts it, "Without a vision,	48:21
	the people throw off constraint and perish."	48:25
	The question before us is whether as a people	48:30
	we will give ye now at length to our foundations.	48:33
	Brethren, therefore, whatsoever things are true,	48:40
	whatsoever things are honorable,	48:47
	whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,	48:50
	whatsoever things are of good report,	48:57
	think on these things.	49:01
	So, counsel St. Paul,	49:04
	but more emphatically he enjoins us.	49:09
	Thus, these things do	49:14
	and the peace of God shall be with you.	49:19
	Brethren, our jeopardy as a nation,	49:25
	the threat of our dissolution as a people and as a society,	49:29
	is that we cannot continue longer	49:34
	to exist in defiance of the moral universe.	49:37
	At last, and in escape of that, the truth is for doing.	49:45
	But it is the nation and individuals who compose it	49:55
	that must do the truth, including us.	50:01
	The universities cannot in this substitute for society.	50:06
	Neither can they safely assume the apostolate of the church.	50:12
	Only this week, student activism	50:18
	has resorted to the legitimate avenues	50:22
	of democratic legislative process.	50:25
	Brethren, this may be a turn of the tie.	50:30
	I pray God, the legislators may hear.	50:36
	Amen, and amen.	50:44
	(soft instrumental music)	50:50
	(choir singing a hymnal song)	51:31
	(soft instrumental music)	54:07
	(choir singing a hymnal song)	56:07
	(instrumental music)	59:45
	(choir sings another hymnal song)	1:00:06
-	Oh God in whom we live and move and have our being,	1:01:05
	here we offer and present unto Thee,	1:01:10
	our silver and our gold,	1:01:13
	the symbol of ourselves to be a reasonable,	1:01:16
	holy and living sacrifice unto Thee	1:01:21
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	1:01:26
	May the blessing of God, come upon you abundantly.	1:01:34
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	1:01:40
	in the truth of His promises.	1:01:44
	Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	1:01:48
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:53
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:57
	♪ Amen ♪	1:02:00
	♪ Amen ♪	1:02:05
	♪ Amen ♪	1:02:14
	♪ Amen ♪	1:02:23
	♪ Amen ♪	1:02:34
	(instrumental music)	1:03:03
	(music ends)	1:03:37

Item Info

Title:

Robert E. Cushman - "Thoughts on the University" (May 17, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4zs2qf1f

Date:

May 17, 1970

Speaker:

Cushman, Robert E.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0521
ref6247_p3w
uachapelsermaud
duke:628184
dcrau002511
ark:/87924/r4zs2qf1f
f2feeda5-4811-42f2-81a4-40a677ecb1bc

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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

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Robert E. Cushman - "Thoughts on the University" (May 17, 1970)

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Duke University Archives