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Reactions to a Manifesto
By H. T. K.

BECAUSE of its importance, including its limitations as well as its strong points, we have asked the following four critics to respond to Stephen C. Rose's controversial book, The Grass Roots Church: A Manifesto for Protestant Renewal (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1966, pp. 174, $4.95).

The major emphases of Rose's manifesto have already appeared as articles in Renewal magazine of which he is the editor. In the main, he argues against denominationalism because it is top-heavy, it tries to work from the top down, and it operates inefficiently. Local churches should band together for community ministries.

For the local church there are three kinds of basic ministry: chaplaincy (priestly and liturgical), teaching (interpreting biblical and Christian truth for contemporary issues), and abandonment (the church's action in the community). These goals can only be met by radical restructuring, and Rose tries in this book to suggest what the new grass roots forms would look like.

Because this book speaks with prophetic vigor about constructive possibilities and is not content with mere denunciation of the institutional church, it deserves, we think, some special attention. Stephen C. Rose is an ordained Presbyterian minister, a graduate of Williams College and Union Theological Seminary.

By Colin W. Williams

(Associate Secretary, Division of Christian Life and Mission of the National Council of Churches, and author of Where in the World?, 1963, and What in the World?, 1964.)

In February, 1963, Stephen C. Rose published an article on "The Grass Roots Church: Manifesto for a Renewal Movement" in the

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magazine Renewal. It hit the headlines. The New York Times went so far as to suggest that it may have something of the significance of a latter-day 95 theses nailed, this time, to a Protestant church door!

With such a billing I read the first article at the time with skepticism, and the reading failed to convince me. There were some highly sensible suggestions, and it made a commendable plea for the churches at the grass roots not to wait for ecumenical advance to be planned and organized from the bureaucratic heights. Denominationalism, it pointed out, is already obsolete. To leave those obsolete structures behind, members at the grass roots do not need to wait on the cumbersome (and probably dangerous) processes of official church-union negotiations at the top. Churches in local communities can begin now; and to show how, Rose set forth a plan by which local churches could pool their resources for more effective worship, teaching, and service. Included were suggestions as to how denominational structures (particularly national boards and agencies) could be opened up in order to make this decentralized ecumenical programming effective. But it was here that the original manifesto seemed to me to be rather simplistic. It failed to recognize, it seemed, how much of the church's mission must now be carried on in public worlds, and on regional and national levels.

In the book under review, the author has expanded the short manifesto into a full-length proposal. And having read this with my initial skepticism in mind, I must confess that now I believe he has something. His proposal has severe limits and real weaknesses; but nevertheless it does provide, I believe, a good down-to-earth proposal which could serve as a vital starting-point for the urgent planning that now must be undertaken so that the church can be restructured for its contemporary mission.

Harvey Cox makes this point in his timely introduction to the book. "No longer will the strident defenders of our present denominational leviathans be able to say as they often have in the past, that the advocates of renewal operate miles up in the stratosphere with no relationship to the structural realities of the American church. This book puts the challenge where it cannot be avoided."

At the heart of his proposal is his insistence that ecumenicity (renewal in unity and in mission) might be first and foremost local ecumenicity. For that he proposes a way by which all cooperating

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Christians in a given locality could develop a cooperative ministry and become together the local congregation. He spells out the way this could be done by reconceptualizing the ministries of the church under chaplaincy (public worship, preaching, counseling), teaching (formation of the laity through the exploration of the relation of the biblical story to the world of today), abandonment (his term for the church's servant life amongst needs of the world). On that basis he then goes so far as to suggest how the people could be related to these aspects of the church's life; how the present buildings could be redesigned for this plan; and even how it could all be budgeted. He gives in embryo the theological rationale for his proposal, and goes on to suggest how this local ecumenism could bring about changes in the regional and national structures which could free the church for its present mission.

Criticisms of the adequacy of his thesis are easy. I mention a few: (1) his Faith and Order treatment of the relation between the three historic types of ecclesiology-congregational, presbyterian, episcopal-and of the way each should contribute to his ecumenical plan, hardly faces the major problems that must be met; (2) his emphasis on the "local" church leaves too great a focus on communities of residence, and far too little on the minorities needed in the public worlds beyond residence, and in the regional and national structures of contemporary life; (3) his attention is urban-suburban, and the few references to rural life that do occur are only in the context of the passing of the rural world with the process of urbanization.

His proposal, that is to say, is far from complete. But to say that is not to overlook its potential usefulness. It is only to suggest that its proposals need to be developed and augmented. Its great value is that it starts where people are, whereas most discussions of unity are conducted in a theological vacuum outside the actualities of necessary implementation.

The bishops of the Episcopal Church have proposed for their church a Renewal Council after the analogy of the Vatican Council. I have a suggestion. For them to seek renewal in their church out of relation to their sister churches would be very sad. Renewal must include acceptance of mutual responsibility for mission in some such way as Rose here suggests for the local community. Since the Episcopal Church is involved in union discussions with a major part of the Protestant community (in the Consultation on Church Union-

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COCU), should it not put together its quest for renewal and unity? After all, they are inseparable. So why not ask the fellow churches in COCU to join in a Council for Renewal and Unity? This book could be the agenda paper for the committee that would need to plan for local ecumenicity.

By John T. Galloway

(Senior minister of the Wayne Presbyterian Church, Wayne, Pa., Visiting Instructor in Homiletics and Trustee of Princeton Theological Seminary.)

As a "busy pastor" angered by the recent flood of criticism of the parish church, criticism which so frequently exhibits a total lack of understanding of what goes on there, I find it refreshing to read a book by one whose creative mind is well informed, as well as concerned, and whose spirit is good. Here is an author whom I would like to have come to my study to take a good look at our church's program and procedure, to tell us how he thinks our work could be done more effectively. But I would like equal time to show him how many of the goals of which he writes are already in effect in a suburban church with a multiple ministry-a church which is part of a denomination in whose heritage we take pride, whose program we support, and whose structure for the most part we consider to be quite adequate.

I would like to talk to him about the book I am not writing because I am a "busy pastor," a book which would acknowledge that the Presbyterian Church, which is the one I happen to know best, could benefit from a few modest structural changes. I would tell him of the important chapter on better ways to move ministers from one parish to another. We Presbyterians pride ourselves on the Scripture background of our form of government, and yet we perpetuate a strange inconsistency in recognizing the need for administration and at the same time entertain a holy fear of administrators (bishops). We should join Mr. Rose's ministry of abandonment at this point and enter more fully into the ways of Scripture. I do not think, however, that our author has adequately come to grips with the whole problem of ministerial relations and transitions in his proposals for the new church order.

In my book I would also point out, and illustrate, that it is possible

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to give up faulty and out-moded procedures without doing violence to larger time-tested structures which have been developed over the years by a vast company of competent men. A philosophy of abandonment which gets too big for history is apt to be more related to petulance than to sound judgment. Perhaps the author's greatest virtue creates his largest fault; his zeal for great transformations for the good of the cause fails properly to anticipate the colossal effort required to restructure even the smallest organization. If you want to immobilize a group of Christians for many months, simply get them involved in changing procedure or revising their constitution.

I agree that in many communities, churches should get together and restructure their entire program. Centralized schools and well-staffed suburban churches demonstrate what can be done. Rose's book should inspire greater effort toward such a goal.

My book would emphasize the quest for excellence within present structures. I have no confidence that the restructured church which Mr. Rose proposes would eliminate slipshod programs, guarantee that ministers would prepare better sermons, or inspire laymen to rush forward to assume larger responsibilities. If we were to devote more time and effort to the quest for excellence within the boundaries of immediately available structures, the essential mission of the church would be better served and the variety of Christians might find more satisfying experiences within the available diversity of worthy orders.

By J. Randall Nichols

(Graduate of Dartmouth College, senior at Princeton Theological Seminary, director of student publications, preparing for the parish ministry.)

It saddens me that The Grass Roots Church, despite its optimism for the institutional church, does not provide the new young minister with a sharper instrument for church renewal. Rose has missed me, on two accounts. First, his concern for the minister himself is supportive but overindulgent; I fear that in a positive attempt to credit the institution with renewability, instead of merely salvage value, he has over-estimated the role of institutional structures in problem areas of church renewal. The problem may lie elsewhere. Secondly, his premises for renewal are grand, but utterly circular; they

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are goals as well. To break into that circle against the disinterest or entrenched resistance of the churches is my problem. These insufficiencies appear in three particulars.

(1) The strategic question which needs to precede Rose's proposals is whether present structures are now incapable of supporting functional changes, or whether, on the other hand, the needs as Rose sees them lie in areas where structural acquiescence to functional renewal is possible. It may well be that Rose's tripartite division of ministerial functions for both clergy and laity--chaplaincy, teaching, and abandonment-is a needed re-classification of the activities of ministry. That, however, is a descriptive, not a corrective, analysis. Such a re-modeling may not be exciting enough for a re-newal manifesto; and so it may be that Rose has succumbed to a reformer's nemesis, the confusion of structure and function. Structural change is, for a fact, more daring and more emphatic than functional remodeling. But it may be like trying to improve bad teaching through sweeping curricular or administrative changes; not only is the cure too drastic for the disease, but it may leave the malfunction untouched. If, to use his pointed example, the church's music is banal and its preaching trivial, will it help matters greatly to house these activities in separate quarters from, say, superficial Christian education? What seems to premise his proposed structural changes and makes them work is an upgrading of the quality of ministerial functioning which may hardly require structural change and certainly is not guaranteed by it!

(2) The chapter Rose did not write is about poor ministers-laity and clergy-who are at work in the church. He makes a good case, for instance, for a differentiation of the tasks of ministry. But the question here seems to turn on the minister's courage in pursuing his special vocation. I appreciate Rose's concern for making structural changes to meet my functional needs as a minister and a specialist; but there is a real sense in which if I have not the wherewithal-diplomacy, role security, sense of identity, appreciation of ability, theological temerity, or what have you-to do it myself, neither will I be able to exercise a functionally courageous ministry in the best possible ecclesiastical structure. The way to end "dishpan evangelism" is to lead the washer away to better tasks, not to yank the pan away leaving the hands dripping on the floor! Outraging a congregation with a structural program is perhaps safer than

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doing it with the gospel; but if I am not man enough to try the latter, I will likely never get the former off the printed page.

What confuses the issue, I suspect, is a kind of institutional "naive realism" which forgets that "institution" is purely a class-defining label without real existence apart from the activities which comprise its class. We are fighting that kind of confusion in the "we have always lived in the castle" mentality of die-hard traditionalism. Rose, however, compounds the same confusion; if it is erroneous to think of an "institution's" structures as a sacred and immutable reality, it seems equally naive to argue that "institutional" change will insure functional revitalization, or that functional renewal cannot occur without it.

As a new minister what I keep coming back to in Rose's discussion (as in other church renewal literature) is the damning judgment that if the men who are ministers get no better, no amount of structural revision will save the church. I cannot but fear that the "maceration of the minister" is a phenomenon initially and pathetically derived from ministerial macerability.

(3) I do not, however, face the church entirely apologetic for my profession or my training. To the extent, of course, that present structures do in and of themselves inhibit the minister's adequate functioning, Rose makes a needed case. The problem, then, after we arrive at such a severe judgment on the institution, is selling the remedy to the people. There comes a day of revolution for oboe makers, and the church may be hard upon it with its younger clergy. Not only the structural but, equally, the quality problem comes to rest in the churches, in two respects: (a) the specialized training of seminary students has no correlate in available ecclesiastical specialties; and (b) the local church "market" demands that the minister use his time and talent in such a general and fragmented way that he cannot develop those special abilities which might be ecclesiastically realistic and which may comprise the basic pattern both of his abilities and (consequently, likely as not) his vocational motivation.

Ironically for the church which complains of unrealistic and non-pragmatic theological training in the seminaries, and which values ,$experience" above intellect or sensitivity to the making of a minister-the very kind of church which might be expected to resist structural renewal-that same institution makes demands on the minister which widen the chasm between seminary and church, as the minister

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finds less and less opportunity to transform his special academic gifts and training into "marketable" ecclesiastical skills. A man trained in New Testament studies, for instance, may in time translate that "academic" specialty into "pragmatic" excellence through teaching or biblical preaching. But the transformation will likely not occur in a parish which pushes its minister into disintegrative generalization through the impossible expectation of vicarious discipleship!

Would not that require, therefore, a radical kind of structural repair and rebuilding such as Rose advocates? In this sense his offer is tempting. It would be a shame for the churches if we had to take him up on it-God knows how!-as the only possible way to achieve functional renewal of ministry. And the shame is only deepened by the paradoxical certainty that a church which will not allow reform short of this drastic revision will hardly be of a mind to tolerate a structural reconstitution of its familiar castle.

By Victor Obenhaus

(Professor of Christian Ethics, Chicago Theological Seminary, and author of the sociological study, The Church and Faith in Mid-America, 1963.)

In the rapidly burgeoning literature on church renewal, this volume will be one of the most discussed-and rightfully so. The literature relative to renewal falls into two main divisions: (1) material dealing with actual experience, and (2) suggestions projecting plans to facilitate renewal. Rose's work falls into the latter category. Both its merits and its weaknesses are the result of an intent to project a new life and a structure for the church without having drawn sufficiently on the present experience of church participation. Of course it can be insisted that the entire volume derives from experience and, knowing of Rose's deep concern for the existential church, this must be true.

Nevertheless, despite the clean-cut proposals, and they are highly convincing, there seems to be lacking the realism of working with those who occupy the pews. Contemporary church forms and experience do not derive wholly from ecclesiastical ideologies or biblical convictions. Rose is rightly contending that a church based on anything else falls short of the ultimate intentions of the church.

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The inescapable fact is that the existential church meets needs which are not stipulated in the biblical ideal.

It is presupposed that the occupants, comfortable or uncomfortable in their pews, will be more responsive if they can articulate what many suspect, namely, that the local church is irrelevant. Fundamentally, Rose is entirely correct and admirable in his projection of the church's life. In addition, he has sensed acutely the reasons why many highly intelligent and conscientious people are not church participants. This conflict or contrast between the ideal rationale for the church and the experiences of many who, for right or wrong reasons, are quite happy with the church as it is, receives little consideration in this book. However, if he had attempted to treat these matters as well, it would have been a much longer book and would not have nearly so sharp a cutting edge. Rose presumes that the majesty of biblical truths and theological convictions will outweigh social conditioning. Ultimately they will, but meanwhile the latter looms large in the experiences of many church participants.

One of the book's chief merits is the juxtaposition in which the author places the vapidness of much church life over against the ultimate values dramatized and epitomized in biblical portrayal. The indictment carries a sting. The chaplains, teachers, and leaders in "abandonment" have the task of highlighting this contrast. Rose feels that his major contribution lies with the proposed new forms and that other treatises must perform the primary educational task. Implied, but not explicated, is the constructive contribution resulting from the very involvement in pioneering forms. There is here an element of discovering, or re-discovering, the realities of the gospel through participation in these new ventures.

Paragraph after paragraph one finds himself saying "Amen" to Rose's statements. With many pithy insights of his own, he brings to the fore some observations which others, too, have been making for generations. His unique contribution lies both in the clarity of his insight and the vividness of his proposals. His triad of chaplaincy, teaching, and abandonment have become common terms in seminaries and alert adult classes. The old patterns of church life are no longer viable options for an urban industrial society. Seminarians (even denominational ones) and astute laymen know this. They are, however, reluctant to launch into new structures until the reasons for those structures are more clearly defined. At present

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some units of ecclesiastical agencies and institutions which have been established, consonant with the seeming demands of our time, have been little more effective than some of the smaller units.

Whether the proposed structural program for meeting the religious needs of an area proves viable or not, is less important than that experimentation be undertaken. Whatever forms are adopted, Rose's thesis will be substantiated, that both our times and the biblical understanding of life require a new synthesis. The specific blueprint is immaterial.

To be even slightly negatively critical of these brilliant analyses and proposals must not be interpreted as a rejection of the volume. It is overwhelmingly on the plus side. Nowhere is this more apparent than when one comes to the Epilogue and finds that the author in his question and answer self-examination has met most of the criticisms which might be leveled at the main body of the book.